Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Ha Noi, Dec. 19 (VNA) -- Viet Nam strongly rejects as a crude slander the Amnesty International's report which has accused Viet Nam of repressing ethnic minority people living in Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands).

"This report has cynically distorted the reality in Tay Nguyen. We strongly reject it," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Phan Thuy Thanh said at a press briefing in Ha Noi today.

She was responding to domestic and foreign correspondents' queries about Viet Nam's reaction to the Amnesty International's report alleging that Viet Nam continued repressing the ethnic minority in Tay Nguyen, especially Protestants.

"There is absolutely no repression of Protestants in Tay Nguyen," Thanh said, adding that the number of religious believers including Protestants has increased constantly in recent years. Protestant ministers and followers in 30 southern provinces including those in Tay Nguyen, account for 80 percent of the country's total.

"Protestantism could not develop at such a rate if it was repressed," she said.

Tay Nguyen plays a strategic role of great importance in Viet Nam's socio-economic development and national security and defence. It is home to 4.5 million people with one-third of them being members of ethnic minority groups.

The Vietnamese Government has issued many policies and worked out measures to boost socio-economic development in Tay Nguyen.
As a result, Tay Nguyen has obtained important achievements in socio-economic and cultural development over recent years. Its economic growth has reached 10 percent annually, higher than the national average.

She added that the living conditions of the majority of people in the region have been constantly improved while the poverty rate has markedly decreased. Illiteracy has been eradicated and more than 90 percent of the school-age children in the region have access to education. This figure was significant, Thanh said, given that 90 percent of Tay Nguyen's population was illiterate before 1975. Tay Nguyen provinces reached the national standard of primary education universalisation in 2000. More than two-thirds of regional communes have access to the national electricity grid and all have been linked to highways and provincial roads.

She said that many delegations from foreign embassies and consulates
in Ha Noi and foreign correspondents have visited Tay Nguyen. They have seen with their own eyes the stability and development as well as the implementation of foreign-invested projects in Tay Nguyen (including projects on agriculture and rural development, credits granted by Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank). All visitors gave positive remarks on the situation in the central highlands provinces of Dac Lac, Gia Lai, Lam Dong and Kon Tum, Thanh stressed.

She noted that in face of this truth, elements hostile to Viet Nam cannot but slander the country. Maybe, they are preparing for another scheme against Viet Nam by inciting people to disorder in Tay Nguyen.

"We believe that this truth is the truth and that the above-mentioned slanders can convince no one," Thanh said.