Buddhist monks and nuns attend a ceremony marking the Buddha’s 2,566th birthday in Thừa Thiên - Huế Province. VNA/VNS Photo

One of the sabotage ruses of hostile and reactionary forces is to take advantage of religious affairs to incite followers and people to disturb political stability and social order and safety, thus creating pretexts for external interventions to sabotage Việt Nam.

Particularly, in ethnic minority and remote areas, those forces often make use of religious and ethnic affairs to provoke hatred and drive a wedge into the great national solidarity. Regretfully, their ruses have been supported even by some international organisations lacking goodwill towards Việt Nam, including the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and some websites.

In its latest report released in June 2023, USCIRF continued to repeat erroneous, one-sided, and groundless assessments of religious freedom in Việt Nam, saying the country has violated freedom of religious worship. It has also recommended the US Government put pressure on Việt Nam based on these claims.

It is surprising that the USCIRF report was issued right after a USCIRF delegation’s fact-finding trip in Việt Nam in late May. Leaders of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security received the visiting delegation, had a straightforward and open discussion with them, created conditions for the delegation to learn more about the religious situation in the country, facilitated their working sessions with local administrations and religious dignitaries, and provided them with detailed and precise materials.

Given this, it could be said that USCIRF has intentionally turned a blind eye to the fact that guaranteeing the freedom of belief and religion, promoting solidarity among religious organisations, dignitaries and followers, and encouraging them to contribute to national construction and defence are consistent policies of the Vietnamese Party and State.

As of 2022, the State recognised 43 organisations of 16 religions, with about 27 million followers, more than 53,000 religious dignitaries, some 135,000 assistants, and over 29,000 places of worship. More than 8,000 festivals linked with beliefs and religions take place each year, drawing tens of thousands of followers. During 10 years of enforcing policies and laws on belief and religion, competent state agencies have granted hundreds of hectares of land for the building of places of worship.

Hostile forces have also tried to attribute the armed attacks on the two communal People’s Committees and civilians in the Central Highlands province of Đắk Lắk on June 11 to religious and ethnic reasons. 

The RFA has continually broadcast interviews with some persons proclaiming themselves Mông ethnic people or Thượng (Highlanders, Montagnard) who were victims of religious persecution and forced to flee, or cited several unnamed persons with such titles as “a construction contractor in the Central Highlands”, who alleged that the Đắk Lắk incidents were “acts of resistance by the Central Highlands Protestants whose belief was persecuted” or due to “prolonged ethnic tensions”. They distorted the nature of the issue by saying “Kinh people oppress Thượng people” or “Kinh people occupy the land of Thượng people”, or they seized on economic difficulties in the region or some shortcomings in local administrations’ governance to fabricate stories about “discrimination among religions and ethnic groups in Việt Nam”.

The Voice of America (VOA) cited Nguyễn Đình Thắng, head of the so-called Boat People SOS (BPSOS) – a reactionary organisation based in Virginia, US, that is behind the Đắk Lắk attacks, as parroting that the administration forced Thượng people in the Central Highlands to abandon their religions, and that “ethnic minority people do not yield to Kinh people”.

This is not the first time Vietnamese authorities have uncovered and thwarted plots of reactionary organisations that hide under the cloak of religion such as Degar Protestantism or the Evangelical Church of Christ in the Central Highlands established by the exiled Fulro members in the US. Those organisations colluded with reactionary elements in Việt Nam to incite credulous people to cause protests and political disturbances.        

In particular, a series of sabotage incidents taking advantage of Central Highlanders’ beliefs and religions were directed by exiled reactionary organisations like BPSOS. Over the past years, BPSOS has connived with other reactionary groups like Montagnard Stands for Justice and the Evangelical Church of Christ in the Central Highlands to train people with dissent thinking so as to form illegal religious associations and groups as the tool to build up forces for their sabotage plots against Việt Nam.

At a high-level conference of heads of counter-terrorism agencies held by the United Nations in New York from June 19 to 22, Maj. Gen. Phạm Ngọc Việt, Director of the Ministry of Public Security’s Homeland Security Department, said one of the external terrorism risks that may harm Việt Nam’s national security is that exiled reactionary Vietnamese organisations and extremists based in some countries have taken advantage of ethnic and religious affairs, set up bases and affiliates, provided training for some persons in Việt Nam, and sent their members to enter Việt Nam to direct the implementation of terrorist acts in the country.

Incidents such as the recent one in Đắk Lắk have shown this risk. Reactionary and hostile organisations’ distortions and abuse of religious and ethnic affairs to instigate disturbances were acts lending a hand to terrorism.

Đắk Lắk and the Central Highlands residents’ response to the incidents is a trenchant reply refuting those organisations’ cunning arguments. Local people have actively assisted police in chasing and arresting culprits or encouraged the relatives of those involved in the attacks to turn themselves in. Many have also donated food and water to the police officers on duty. The concrete and practical acts by Đắk Lắk residents have affirmed their solidarity and determination to fight sabotage plots of hostile forces.

In recent years, provinces in the Central Highlands have recorded comprehensive results in socio-economic development. The size of their economy in 2020 rose by some 14-fold from 2002, the economic growth rate averaged 7.98 per cent during 2002 to 2020 (the highest among all regions), while per capita income surged 10.6 times.

Besides this, the material and spiritual life of ethnic minorities has been improved substantially. About 2.3 million followers of different religions in the Central Highlands have had their right to freedom of belief and religion guaranteed, as well as legitimate demands and aspirations met. Religious followers have also been facilitated to engage in the socio-economic development process.

Over the past decades, many religions have been introduced to and developed strongly among ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands. Religious followers have actively taken part in social activities, the revitalisation of traditional cultural spaces, along with the preservation of languages and scripts of local ethnic groups. Cultural values of religions have also been accepted and upheld by part of the people in the Central Highland, helping eliminate backward customs.

The effective implementation of policies on religious and ethnic affairs in the Central Highlands has helped inspire and promote locals’ sense of solidarity, thereby defeating hostile forces’ plots to sow division.

The State of Việt Nam has always respected and protected the right to freedom of belief and religion in line with the law, and also prohibited any acts taking advantage of religious affairs to commit violations of the law and infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of the State and citizens.

USCIRF and some Western media outlets’ erroneous and distorted assessments of the religious freedom situation in Việt Nam are equivalent to lending a hand to reactionary organisations which carry out sabotage and terrorism in the name of religious freedom. VNS