US embassy cable - 03HANOI2622

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 002622 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INL/AAE, EAP/BCLTV, IO/UNP, and EAP/RSP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, SNAR, EAID, CH, VM, CNARC 
SUBJECT:  MEKONG SUBREGION ANTI-DRUG COOPERATION 
 
1. (U) Summary: At a recent six-party ministerial-level anti- 
drug conference in Hanoi, Thailand and China pushed hard for 
more concrete action against ATS and precursor chemicals. 
Conferees agreed that border liaison offices were effective 
and should be expanded, but one visited by poloff on the 
Vietnamese side of the Vietnam-China border appeared poorly 
equipped and relatively inactive.  The conferees signed off 
on a UNODC project supporting the extension of the MOU 
partnership process, including a fifty percent cost 
contribution from the member countries.  End Summary. 
 
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BIANNUAL MINISTERIAL MEETING ON DRUGS 
------------------------------------- 
 
2. (U) From September 23-25, Vietnam hosted the Senior 
Officials Committee and Ministerial Meetings of the 
Signatory Countries to the 1993 Memorandum of Understanding 
(MOU) on Drug Control, including Vietnam, China, Thailand, 
Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.  The purpose of the meeting was 
to review the progress of the twelve ongoing individual 
projects that make up the Subregional Action Plan on Drug 
Control (total budget: $15 million) and seven pipeline 
projects envisioned for the future (total budget: $4 
million). 
 
 
3. (U) Thailand and China were successful in persuading the 
group to include a paragraph in the Joint Hanoi Declaration 
on Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) and precursors, 
although not in obtaining new projects addressing these 
problems.  The conferees also signed an MOU approving a new 
project continuing the SOC and Ministerial Meeting process, 
with 50 percent funding from member countries.  (Previously, 
100 percent of the funding for these meetings came from the 
UN Office of Drugs and Crime.)  In addition, the 
participants agreed that border liaison offices were 
valuable for transnational cooperation against drugs and 
crime in the Mekong subregion, and that Vietnam should open 
three new border liaison offices in addition to the existing 
three offices along the borders with Laos, Cambodia, and 
China. 
 
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THAR SHE BLOs 
------------- 
 
3. (U) According to Deputy Section Chief Dr. Tran Xuan Sac 
of the Department of Social Evils Prevention of the Ministry 
of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs, Vietnam had two 
major objectives for the conference: to demonstrate its 
commitment to combating international drug trafficking, and 
to develop the border liaison office program further.  Both 
were achieved, he told poloff.  Dr. Sac said that the BLO 
with China (in the town of Mong Cai, on the coast) was 
particularly effective, having solved the problem of 
"ineffective government-to-government communication." 
Vietnamese media also directed recent attention to the BLO 
in Mong Cai, doing a television feature on the office and 
giving it credit for "a number" of heroin and marijuana 
seizures. 
 
4. (U) The BLOs in Vietnam were set up in 1999 under a Japan- 
funded regional UNODC project called "Development of Cross- 
Border Law Enforcement Cooperation in East Asia."  The BLOs 
also receive computer-based training materials and guidance 
from another UNODC project.  UNODC is now considering ways 
to expand BLO counternarcotics cooperation to encompass 
trafficking in persons, as well. 
 
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BLO IN MONG CAI NO HIVE OF ACTIVITY, BUT NOT USELESS 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
5. (U) Poloff visited the BLO in Mong Cai on October 2.  The 
two-room office is located inside the Mong Cai People's 
Committee headquarters, and is sparsely furnished. 
Equipment consists of a single computer with a printer, a 
copier, and a telephone.  The computer is not hooked up to 
the Internet, and the phone has not worked in six months, 
according to Deputy Chief of the BLO Major Colonel Hoang 
Thanh Nhuong.  Despite these setbacks, Nhuong claimed, the 
office worked well.  The computer, even when not connected 
to the Internet, is useful for producing computer-based 
training using materials provided by the UNODC, he added. 
He noted that the landline phone was not a problem since 
contact with the Chinese BLO was primarily via cell phone. 
Chief of the BLO (and vice-chairman of the Mong Cai People's 
Committee) Duong Van Co said separately that Vietnamese 
border liaison officers met their Chinese counterparts on a 
scheduled basis once a month, and more frequently if a case 
came up that warranted cross-border consultation.  Co and 
Nhuong both attributed increased marijuana and heroin 
seizures to more cooperation between the two sides. 
However, Co admitted that the two sides conducted joint 
operations "rarely, if at all." 
 
6. (U) Comment: From the Vietnamese perspective, the 
conference was a success.  Minister of Public Security Le 
Hung Anh had the opportunity to network with his regional 
counterparts, and the Prime Minister and a Deputy Prime 
Minister came to the conference to speak, have their 
pictures taken, and meet the other ministers.  The GVN is 
clearly wedded to these BLOs and will welcome their 
expansion, even if the BLOs' current track records are 
likely less impressive than the prominent Vietnamese news 
coverage of several drug seizures and arrests would suggest. 
Nonetheless, more cooperation is still better than less or 
none. 
BURGHARDT