Understanding Christian Faith and Freedom in INDOCHINA: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were all once part of French Indochina; consequently, their histories are bound together. The scars caused by French occupation, Japanese occupation, two Indochina Wars, and Communist terror, run deep.
Christianity first came to the region via Catholic missionaries (from 1624) and then Protestants (from the early 1800s). Conversions to Christianity escalated markedly from the 1960s, as the peoples of the region gained access to Gospel radio and scriptures translated into local languages.
In 1979, Soviet-backed Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and overthrew the China-backed Khmer Rouge which had been leading cross-border raids into Vietnam. Many members of the Khmer Rouge fled, either into exile or into hiding in Cambodia’s rural periphery. Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia for a decade (1979-1989), during which time Cambodia was essentially administered as a colony of Vietnam.
In the 1990s, Cambodia began a transition to democracy. While elections were held in 1993 and a democratic constitution adopted, Cambodia’s democracy remains a work in progress beset with challenges.
To this day, Laos and Vietnam continue as one-party states under Communist rule.
In Cambodia, improvements in religious freedom have been warmly welcomed, especially considering the Church was almost annihilated in the Khmer Rouge’s “killing fields”. However, real religious freedom is still a long way off. That said, despite repressive legislation, active persecution of Christians – who comprise around 3.1 percent of the population, with an annual growth rate of 8.4 percent – is minimal.
See: 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Cambodia
U.S. Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, 12 May 2021
The same cannot be said for Laos or Vietnam, where systematic discrimination and violent persecution is racial, religious, political and pervasive.
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LAOS
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Laos is home to at least 134 distinct ethnic groups. Ruled by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party since 1975, it is one of the most repressive countries in the world. The regime controls the media and severely represses freedom of expression. Assembly, association and religion are also subject to heavy restrictions.
Officially, around 66.8 percent of Laotians practice Buddhism, while some 34 percent are ethnoreligionists who practice traditional animism and/or ancestor worship. While most official sources put the Christian population at 1.5 percent (mostly Protestant), Christian anthropologists put the figure at 3.4 percent, with an annual growth rate of 5.7 percent, with growth occurring in Protestant and Independent denominations.
Since the 1960s there have been several mass turnings to Christ amongst the Hmong and the Khmu, sometimes with whole villages coming to Christ, mostly in response to Gospel radio. Today, indigenous evangelists spread the Good News, of salvation and liberty through Jesus Christ, albeit at great personal risk and amidst great persecution; many have been arrested and tortured.
Through the 1960s the Hmong fought with the Americans against the Communists in the 2nd Indochina War (Vietnam War). And when the war was over, the Americans went home. Persecution has escalated markedly after the Communists took power in 1975.
For decades the Hmong waged a low-level guerrilla insurgency against the Communist government. Consequently, the Hmong are considered enemies of the state and a channel/backdoor for Western influence and subversion.
Further to this, the regime deems Christianity an “imperialist foreign religion” backed by political interests in the West, particularly the United States. Many thousands of Hmong have fled as refugees to the US.
Through the late 1990s, the Communist regime forced Christians to sign a “voluntary renunciation of foreign religion” document. Those who refused, were jailed and tortured.
In 2002-2003, reports leaked out that the regime was using chemical weapons against the Hmong. The “yellow rain” made people ill and poisoned everything resulting in severe food shortages.
Laos is a very poor country, and US sanctions have been effective in forcing the regime to modify its behaviour. But while the situation has improved in recent years, Laos is still one of the most difficult places to be a Christian.
Persecution
The degree to which Christians are violent persecuted, and repressive measures enforced, varies from place to place depending on the personal attitudes and inclinations of local authorities.
The most severe persecution tends to occur in rural and remote areas, in small towns and villages where the intimacy of village life makes it virtually impossible to be a secret believer.
While Buddhist clerics persecute Christians over the issue of conversions (which robs them of their influence), ethnoreligionists/animists persecute Christians out of fear.
The life of an ethnoreligionist/animist revolves around their relationship with the spirit world. To avoid hardship caused by (for example) disease, flood, or crop failure, ethnoreligionists perpetually offer sacrifices and perform rituals to appease belligerent spirits.
Understandably, ethnoreligionists view Christians who do not participate in animist rituals or ancestor worship as a threat to their lives and livelihoods.
To appease the spirits and avoid disasters, villagers pressure Christians to recant their faith and return to traditional religion. When that fails, ethnoreligionists feel they have no other option but to drive the Christians from the village. By this means, Christians are deprived of their traditional lands, and rendered homeless and destitute.
Inherently hostile to Christianity, the Communist Party has no interest in defending the fundamental human rights of Christians, or of assisting them in any way. Indeed, the Communist Party of Laos will not interfere with any process that advances its once-stated goal of eliminating Christianity. The impunity ensures the persecution will continue, while the ruling regime maintains deniability.
The Decree on Management and Protection of Religious Activities (2016) – also known as Decree 315 – obliges religious groups to obtain permission, at multiple levels, for most religious activities, including conversions/baptisms, evangelism, and routine church activities. Approval authority mainly rests with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) and its related counterparts at the district/municipal and provincial levels.
As the USCIRF observes, the language of Decree 315 is “vague and open to multiple interpretations, often emboldening local authorities to implement the spirit of the decree as they understand it rather than according to the law.”
Decree 315 also warns religious organisations against disturbing the social order or disrupting national harmony. And so it is that a law that is supposed to protect (or regulate) religion and belief, doubles as a weapon which can be used against any dissenting or “problematic” religious person or group.
While some improvements have been made, the USCIRF maintains, “Decree 315 does not fully comply with international human rights standards…
“The decree authorizes MOHA to regulate virtually all aspects of religious life. MOHA approval is technically required to assemble for religious purposes, construct new houses of worship, modify existing facilities, or establish new congregations in districts or villages that previously had none. In addition, MOHA offices have authority to restrict religious activities that they perceive to be at odds with local customs, national policies, national stability, the environment, or unity between religious and ethnic groups. Decree 315 delegates to MOHA the authority to oversee the process to approve religious organizations. This process theoretically provides opportunities for faith communities to not only enjoy legal protections once registered, but also to own property and operate legally – which they cannot do unless officially registered. However, Decree 315 places restrictions even on officially recognized religious groups through vaguely worded statements. Under Article 28, MOHA can arbitrarily approve and revoke approval of any faith group that operates in multiple provinces. Under the decree, the government has a proactive role in determining the internal operation and theological positions of faith communities…”
See: Country Update, Laos, USCIRF (May 2020).
Christians are urged to register with the either the Communist Party approved Lao Evangelical Church, the Catholic Church or the Seventh Day Adventist Church. But because registration results in loss of independence, many groups prefer to meet for prayer, worship, and Bible study in unregistered house fellowships despite the risk.
Lao Christians are routinely harassed and persecuted, including by means of arbitrary arrest. In recent years, pastors – both male and female – have been imprisoned for as little as praying for the sick.
Today the regime boasts freedom of religion, but claims it needs to reign in “problematic religions” and those who “abuse” religious freedom to cause problems in society.
While it is true that Christians no longer face long term imprisonment with torture for merely “believing in the Jesus religion” (as was the case in previous decades), incidents of harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and persecution remain pervasive and will continue so long there is impunity.
Laos’ Christians demonstrably just want to live peaceably as followers of Jesus Christ. They want to be able to gather for prayer, worship, and Bible study free of persecution. They do not want to be forced to renounce their faith, or to participate in Buddhist or ethnoreligious/animist rituals that violate their conscience.
Moreover, Laos’ Christians want to be able to exercise their faith through service to the community as good neighbours and good citizens. Inherent in this is a desire to share their faith – that is, to tell others how Jesus Christ has brought joy, freedom, and peace into their lives. They want to be free to share the wisdom of God as found in the scriptures; wisdom that has transformed their lives for the better. This is both a Biblical mandate from a God who cares for all people and nations, and a desire that burns in the heart of all true Christians.
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VIETNAM
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According to the Vietnam’s Communist Party-ruled government, Christians comprise 6.8 percent of the population. However, according to the ethnographers at Operation World (2010), Vietnamese Christians comprise 9.43 percent of the population (Catholics 7.69 percent; Protestants 1.28 percent; plus independents).
Vietnam’s oppressed and downtrodden have long looked to and depended on the Church for aid and assistance, for despite their minority status, Vietnamese Christians are massively over-represented in the charity sector, and amongst the county’s social justice, pro-democracy and human rights advocates and activists. Catholics – including many priests – are especially active in the fields of charity and social justice. Protestants – including many pastors – are especially active in the fields of pro-democracy and human rights education and advocacy.
Underpinning the Church’s risky and courageous response is the Biblical / Judeo-Christian worldview which dignifies human beings as individuals created by God in the image of God; individuals who must be free to seek, find, know and worship God, including through service.
This worldview, with its emphasis on human dignity and individual liberty, underpins the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It also sets all who live by it on a collision course with every cruel and repressive, corrupt and self-serving, totalitarian dictator and regime – and that includes the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Religious Freedom
US officials have long held the view that poor human rights are intrinsically linked to poverty and poor living standards, despite this being manifestly false and an insult to the poor. The consequences of this errant assumption and the tragic policy it elicits is clearly on display in Vietnam.
In 2006, the US government removed Vietnam from its list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) confident that Vietnam’s economic growth would inevitably lead to improvements in human rights. This flawed thinking paved the way for the US to accept the Communist Party’s token measures and verbal assurances that they would reform human rights as Vietnam received ever more privileges. The Vietnamese Communist Party knew well how to play the game; it did what it had to do in order to get from the US what it wanted to get. But behind the facade, Vietnamese government remained a repressive, Communist regime.
Two months after it removed Vietnam from its CPC list, the US granted Vietnam permanent normal trade status, which led to Vietnam’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 2007.
As soon as Vietnam joined the WTO, repression and persecution returned.
On 6 March 2007, evangelical Protestant Human Rights lawyer and religious freedom advocate Nguyen Van Dai was arrested as the regime cracked down on pro-democracy and human rights activists across the board.
“Through a wave of harassments, arrests and criminal charges against human rights and democracy advocates engaged in peaceful and perfectly legal activities, Vietnam is openly showing its hand and waiting to see if anyone will challenge, or if everyone will fold.”
See: Vietnam’s crackdown creates watershed
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 20 March 2007
By September 2008, Vietnam was right back to its old ways: breaking promises and using state violence to crack down hard on Hanoi’s Catholics as they followed the courageous Archbishop Kiet into the streets, week after week, to pray for religious freedom and the return of their confiscated properties in the largest public demonstrations since the Communists came to power.
See: Vietnam: Govt belligerence escalates against Hanoi Catholics.
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 26 September 2008
Also: Vietnam: Sharp backsliding in religious freedom
Human Rights Watch (HRW), 10 Oct 2009
Persecution in Vietnam’s Central Highlands also skyrocketed. The HRW report – Montagnard Christians in Vietnam: a case study in religious repression (March 2011) – revealed a campaign of widespread systematic harassment, violence, and public shaming through which many hundreds, if not thousands, of Protestant families were forced to recant their faith.
23 May 2016: US President Obama lifted the decades-long embargo on selling lethal weapons to Vietnam, without requiring any concessions in return. [Previously, Vietnam had purchased the bulk of its weapons from Russia.] Persecution with impunity was now all but guaranteed.
1 January 2018: Vietnam’s new Law on Belief and Religion comes into effect. As the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2019 report explains: “The law nominally obliges the government to protect religious freedom and, for the first time, gives Vietnamese religious organisations a right to legal personhood. However, it also requires religious groups to register with the Government Committee for Religious Affairs (GCRA) and to report on routine activities like festivals and conferences. Article 5 grants the government discretion to reject religious activities that ‘infringe upon national security’ and ‘violate social morality’. The implementing regulations, which came into force in June 2018, impose fines on organizations deemed to abuse ‘religion to infringe upon the interests of the state or engage in fabrication or slander’.”
See: Assessment of Vietnam’s Law on Belief and Religion, USCIRF.
Ethnic Minorities
Vietnam’s ethnic minority Montagnard/Degar tribes of the Central Highlands face “especially egregious persecution for the peaceful practice of their religious beliefs, including physical assault, detention, or banishment” (USCIRF).
An estimated 10,000 Protestant Hmong and Montagnard Christians in the Central Highlands continue to be stateless because local authorities refused to issue ID cards, household registration, and birth certificates, in many instances in retaliation for refusing to renounce their faith.
Christians are at risk not only from communist officials and police, but from violent gangs and “Red Flag” militant groups that will violently assault and persecute Christians at the behest of local authorities.
The Vietnamese government continues to hold more than 130 prisoners of conscience, many of whom are Catholic and Protestant bloggers, teachers and pro-democracy and religious liberty activists. There is evidence that these prisoners are being tortured and otherwise ill-treated, held incommunicado and in solitary confinement, kept in squalid conditions, beaten, choked and forcibly medicated, while being denied proper medical care, clean water and fresh air.
See: US Commission on International Religious Freedom
Annual Report - Vietnam Chapter (in English and Vietnamese)
As in China and many other unfree states, repression and persecution do not arise from poverty, but from worldview, and an obscene determination to retain power at any cost.