The European Union Delegation to Vietnam co-chaired an international conference on ethnic minorities in Hanoi on July 12-13 to help raise voice of the groups which are said to suffer the government’s indifferent policies. Led by Juan-Jose Almagro Herrador, the delegation and representatives from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Irish Ambassador to Vietnam discussed measures to ensure implementation of policies and laws for ethnic people. The conference is part of efforts which the delegation and international organizations want to create more favorable conditions for ethnic people in the communist country whose policies showing a range of disparities among the groups in which the Kinh or Vietnam people are treated above all. Vietnam is home to 54 ethnic minorities with the majority of Viet or Kinh people with 85%. Ethnic people in Vietnam who live mostly in mountainous, boundary and remote areas remain suffer numerous difficulties ranging from economic and spiritual lives, seriously unfair judgment from the largest community, Viet people. Regarded having superficial knowledge resulted from lack of socio-economic and cultural conditions for development, those minorities hardly acquire important leadership in the political system despite Vietnam boasts that it ensures equality among ethnic minorities. Earlier in Feb, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) urged in its report prior to the meeting of the United Nations (UN)’s Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination that Vietnam needs commit an end to unfair practices towards ethnic minorities. The indigenous Montagnards and the Hmongs are among the ethnic groups who suffered most by the Vietnamese government’s discriminatory policies, it said. (Nhan Dan - The People July 13 p8, www.cema.gov.vn [1] July 12)
