US embassy cable - 03HANOI2077

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 002077 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR DRL/IRF AND EAP/BCLTV 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, VM, HUMANR, RELFREE 
SUBJECT:  CURRENT RELIGIOUS SITUATION - THE OFFICIAL VIEW 
 
REF:  HANOI 1698 
 
1. (U)  Summary: Officials from the Government Committee on 
Religious Affairs and the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy's 
Centers on Human Rights and Religious Studies have 
reiterated that Vietnamese are free to practice religion, 
that the GVN not only permits the practice of religion but 
actively supports and facilitates it, and that abuses 
reported in the Central and Northwest Highlands are the 
fault of misguided local officials and do not represent 
official policy.  Septel provides some contrary views of 
some religious officials.  End summary. 
 
Committee on Religious Affairs 
------------------------------ 
 
2. (U) In a meeting with EAP/BCLTV's Charles Jess, Charge 
Porter, and poloff Moeling on August 13, Chairman Ngo Yen 
Thi of the Government Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA) 
explained that he had just returned from the Central 
Highlands, where he had found that more and more local 
administrations were permitting Protestant groups to operate 
in their areas.  The local officials he met promised to try 
further to facilitate the normalization of religious 
activities in the region.  He added that he believed the 
situation would soon be returning to "normal." 
 
3. (U)  In principle, Chairman Thi claimed, the State did 
not interfere with religion, but merely issued regulations 
to ensure "normal activities and equal treatment to avoid 
inequality."  The CRA facilitated religious activities, and 
tried to "create conditions" for the operation of religious 
training activities.  The CRA also needed to organize 
"protection" for places of worship, as well as repair and 
restore damaged churches and temples, he noted.  The CRA 
worked with the state to promote and protect religious and 
human rights, although he admitted that there was the 
problem of local officials not "respecting" all of the 
regulations.  Another problem was that of "untrained clergy" 
acting on behalf of unrecognized organizations and provoking 
locals to rise up against the government, such as the Dega 
Protestants, he claimed. 
 
4. (U)  Chairman Thi said that the Vietnamese people demand 
a high level of ethics and dignity from their religious and 
spiritual leaders, and want their leaders to look after 
their spiritual and material well-being.  The Vietnamese 
would never accept a priest suspected of sexual harassment, 
he claimed. The state has an "obligation" to protect the 
people and to ensure that those who act against the state 
and have compromised ethical standards are punished, he 
stressed. 
 
5. (U) Jess noted repeated reports of forced renunciations 
and occasional destruction of churches, which have prompted 
concern in the U.S. and may be factors in a decision to 
designate Vietnam as a "Country of Particular Concern" under 
the International Religious Freedom Act.  Chairman Thi 
admitted that the understanding of local GVN officials is 
not always "consistent" regarding rules and regulation of 
religion.  Thi said that Vietnam must rely on education to 
change the local officials to compel them to act in 
accordance with the law, and was gradually making progress, 
something not reflected in U.S. reports.  He added that the 
reports of forced renunciations had gone to the National 
Assembly, which has demanded an investigation and which will 
send its own delegation to examine the situation. 
 
6. (U) Thi emphasized that religious rights and human rights 
should be considered in Vietnam in the broader framework of 
poverty reduction, health care, education, and other 
humanitarian concerns.  As a poor country, Vietnam could not 
provide everything.  In the SRV, the spiritual needs of the 
community were not merely the responsibility of the church, 
but also the state, he claimed. 
 
7. (U)  Charge reiterated that the perception in the U.S. is 
that the religious freedom situation in Vietnam is getting 
worse, particularly in the area of forced renunciations. 
These perceptions could affect the relationship negatively, 
in the same way as the decision on catfish and the various 
flag ordinances have affected Vietnam's perception of the 
U.S.  The Charge said we appreciated the Chairman's 
frankness, and highlighted that the cases where local 
officials did not follow the law were important ones. 
Where such cases occurred, the U.S. would like to see 
punishment; this would have a positive effect on Vietnam's 
image. 
 
8. (U)  Thi reiterated that forced renunciations of faith 
were not the policy of the central government, even noting 
that the GVN did not want to fall into the same mistakes of 
the feudal period when a Vietnamese emperor forced Catholics 
to renounce their religion.  The SRV would not make that 
mistake, he pledged. 
 
Party research centers 
---------------------- 
 
9. (U)  On August 12, Jess and poloff met with the Directors 
General of the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy's 
Human Rights Research Center and Religious Studies Research 
Center (reftel), accompanied by the DG for the Department of 
International Cooperation. According to Cao Duc Thai, 
director of the Human Rights Research Center, there were 
areas of agreement and areas of difference between the U.S. 
and Vietnam on human rights; he preferred to focus on the 
areas of agreement.  The center itself had been started in 
1994, and had conducted some valuable training courses for 
prosecutors and inspectors, some with the participation of 
outside observers and consultants, notably from Sweden and 
Holland.  Topics had included when to use force; the 
definition of self-defense; legal procedures; and the 
definition of excessive force.  There had been lively 
discussions on the use of the death penalty, he added. 
 
10. (U)  Dr. Thai admitted that even his understanding of 
the human rights situation in Vietnam was inadequate, and 
with that in mind, he had recently sent senior staff 
specifically to check out the Central Highlands situation. 
Asked about his Center's perception of international 
criticism of Vietnam (i.e., the IRF report or the HRR), Thai 
responded that many U.S. politicians receive inaccurate 
information about Vietnam.  As an example, he raised the 
issue of confiscation of church property.  Thai claimed that 
the GVN had never taken any church property, although some 
of it was "perhaps contributed" to the State during the 
socialism-building period.  Thai expressed a hope that more 
U.S. politicians would come to Vietnam to see for themselves 
that Vietnam was a country trying to guarantee human rights. 
 
11. (U)  Dr. Luu Dat Thuyet of the Center for Religious 
Studies said there were two main points on religious 
freedom: first, Vietnam respects religious rights; second, 
the purpose of religion was to "unify" the population.  He 
quoted Ho Chi Minh's statement that "religion should be free 
and religious believers should unite."  This doctrine, 
Thuyet said, was institutionalized in 1946 and added to the 
constitution in 1992.  In his opinion, when considering a 
country's religious freedom record, the U.S. should evaluate 
the atmosphere and see how people were conducting religious 
activities.  In Vietnam, religion is practiced openly and 
actively, he claimed, adding that "tens of thousands" of 
believers attend religious festivals.  He reiterated that 
the CPV and GVN genuinely try to facilitate the exercise of 
religious rights. 
 
12. (U)  Dr. Thuyet urged that the U.S. make note of the 
training and appointment of religious leaders in Vietnam, 
about which there has been substantial progress, with six 
Catholic seminaries and three Buddhist universities as well 
as other training schools for other religions.  (Note: 
Beginning in 2003, there is also a Protestant seminary in 
HCMC.  end note)  In addition, the GVN published many 
religious books and documents such as the Bible, he noted. 
In addition, places of worship had also been tremendously 
improved, with state support.  Some clergy and their 
followers had admitted that the current environment was the 
best ever for practicing religion in the history of Vietnam, 
he claimed. 
 
13. (U)  Thuyet acknowledged that "here and there" were 
mistakes and wrongdoing, but these did not reflect either 
official policy or overall trends.  These cases were 
anomalies and individual cases due to mistakes at low 
levels.  Overall, he asserted that the religious situation 
in Vietnam has a distinctive character; while there are many 
religions and different belief systems, Vietnam has never 
had a religious conflict.  Unity between believers and 
nonbelievers has always been a tradition. 
 
14. (U)  Comment:  Septel will report some less positive 
views by religious practitioners.  As usual, GVN and CPV 
officials say mostly the right things about respect for 
religion, but there continue to appear to be problems at 
least in the field.  It appears that officials of the state, 
party, and National Assembly are beginning to take such 
reports more seriously, to the extent of promising 
investigations.  We will continue to press for more such 
efforts -- and more feedback on what official investigations 
uncover -- but are not optimistic. 
PORTER