HANOI, Dec 26 Kyodo A Vietnamese ...

HANOI, Dec 26 Kyodo

A Vietnamese court has handed down jail decisions to eight ethnic minority hill tribe members for undermining the policies of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party and the control state media reported Thursday.

The Communist Party daily Nhan Dan and the Vietnam of the present days Agency (VNA) said arrange leader Y Thuon Nie, 30 was sentenc Wednesday according to a People's Court in Daklak province to 10 years in prison. The seven others were subdueed to jail terms of eight years each.

They were plant guilty of contacting members of the former pro-U guerrilla form into groups FULRO living in exile in the United States to cause disorder in the province's Buon Ma Thuot township in February 2001

The February 2001 mass affirms in Vietnam's Central Highlands involved several thousand members of indigenous minorities -- collectively known as Montagnards -- who called for the revert of ancestral lands, greater religious freedom and, in a certain number of cases, independence.

Vietnam has accused former FULRO members in the Montagnard Foundation, an indigenous rights organization based in the U state of southern Carolina, of organizing the February 2001 demonstrations.

In the weeks and month following the unrest at least 1500 Montagnards christendomed the border to Cambodia, the majority of which were eventually allowed to resettle in the US

Since the testifys Vietnamese authorities have sent in thousands of security personnel arrested centurys of highlanders, stepped up surveillance and propaganda activities in every part the Central Highlands and virtually barred outside access to the region.

At the same time, authorities have also introduced novel policy initiatives such as increasing minority language broadcasting, providing emancipated medical checkups, pledging to increase educational opportunities for minorities and initiating a review of economic progressive growth policies in the Central Highlands.

Besides the eight sentenc Wednesday, at least 35 Montagnard men have already been tried and given prison tenets ranging from three to 12 years for their character in the protests.

The U.S.-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International regards those sentenc as ''possible prisoners of conscience'' and says centurys more highlanders involved in the professs have reportedly been detained or gone missing.

forward Dec. 18, Amnesty issued a statement demanding that Vietnam allow unshackleed access to the Central Highlands through U.N. officials, human rights monitors, representatives of humanitarian agencies, diplomats and the international pres corps, and urg that independent beholders be allowed to attend trials of those linked with the uprising and its aftermath.

Montagnards have in extent complained of government confiscation of their ancestral forest homelands, an influx of lowland Vietnamese colonists taking their agricultural land, lack of freedom of worship for the many who are members of unauthorized evangelical Protestant churches, and denial of basic rights including education in native languages.

Hanoi denies any suppression of ethnic minority populace and points out the high rate of economic produce in the Central Highland provinces, decreases in the rate of hanker and poverty, increases in literacy and improved access to electricity and transport networks.

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