Plight
of the Montagnard Culture
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Dated to 200
BC, Montagnards are the original
inhabitants of the southeast Indochina Peninsula. The
ancestral homelands for the bulk of their culture are the Central
Highlands of Vietnam.
The
term "Montagnard" is French meaning mountain dwellers, mountain people,
etc. hence the term "hill tribes". There are 26 tribes each
with its own language and
customs.
Montagnards
are not oriental rather of Malayo Polynesian and Mon Khmer language
stocks. They've
existed since the beginning of time
through subsistence
farming and foraging the jungles. By living in harmony with
nature, protecting the environment, and communal land
management, they ensured resources for subsequent generations.
During the
Vietnam War their strategically
significant Central Highlands became the battlefields of opposing
ideologies. As Christians and a freedom loving people, they were
America's
staunchest
ethnic ally. Since the 1975 communist
victory in Vietnam their rain forest habitat in that country has been
destroyed, old growth timber logged for western markets and the
highlands
cleared for state-run coffee plantations for export revenues.
In
1975
there were one million Montagnards in the Central Highlands but
according to the 1998
Vietnamese
Government Census (browser back) it remained one
million. This regime will not allow international aid or human
rights
groups into
the Central Highlands hence there's no way to verify that even one
million Montagnards remain alive. But assuming the one million
figure is correct, in contrast during
these same 23 years the national Vietnamese population exploded by
233%. Therefore the
Vietnamese policy of Cultural Leveling announced in 1976 is achieving
its goal of
eradicating all ethnic minority cultures. Montagnards
as a distinct ethnicity will not exist much longer in Vietnam.
Vietnam's Central Highlands extend west into the
Cambodian
frontier
provinces of Mondolkiri and Ratanakiri. Approximately 100,000
Montagnards lead a relatively free yet subdued existence here and
comprise 85% of
these
provincial
populations. Anthropologists classify them as Modern
Primitives. They too live by subsistence
farming and gathering in the forests, and are a marginalized people in
a very impoverished
country.
Moreover their surface
waters have become grossly
polluted by upstream populations and callously conceived hydroelectric
plants in Vietnam (browser back); obtaining potable water has
become another economic
burden. There is
no infrastructure in these two provinces, government and international
aid is nil, public
health statistics
(browser back) are
among
the world's worst, and 75%
of the people are illiterate. Jobs are limited to
small shops, restaurants, guest houses, etc. owned by Khmer in
the province capitals and pay only slave wages. Aside from a few
palatial
homes of the local Khmer elite, the province capitals are shanty
towns of 200-300 homes and shops.
The median years of school attendance of Cambodia's Montagnards
is zero
and 71% of
those age six and above never entered primary school. Only
2% completed primary school and 0.3% have lower secondary school
education. Except for some used western clothing and an
occasional motor bike, they're no more advanced
today than they were several hundred years ago.
Roads to these frontier provinces have been improved
considerably and Ratanakiri has commercial air service.
Lowlanders are moving in rapidly and speculators and foreign
agricultural businesses are grabbing huge tracts of hill tribe land in
very
lopsided deals. Many of the real estate transactions are done in
the country's capital with no regard to hill tribe occupancy, claims,
and communal
land management practices; indeed Cambodian land law makes no provision
for same.
These hill tribes desperately need education to help them deal with
their traditional challenges but more so the onslaught of inimical
interests threatening their ancient culture and destroying their rain
forest habitat. Without it, like their cousins in Vietnam,
Cambodia's
Montagnards are doomed to extinction as well.
Three photos of Montagnard villagers in northeast Cambodia:
