US embassy cable - 04HOCHIMINHCITY303

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000303 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL/IRF, PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, PREF, PREL, PGOV, KIRF, VM, RELFREE, HUMANR, ETMIN 
SUBJECT: CLAIMS OF CHURCH CLOSURES AND BEATINGS IN CENTRAL 
HIGHLANDS BLUNT GOOD NEWS ON NEW PASTORS 
 
REF:  A) HCMC 0084  B) HANOI 0712  C) HCMC 0279 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Protestant sources reported that while the 
overall religious situation in the Central Highlands was still 
showing signs of improvement, as evidenced by six new ordinations, 
additional cases of house church closures, destruction of church 
properties, and arrests and beatings of those involved in the 
ethnic unrest of 2001 had surfaced since ConGenoffs' last trip to 
the region in January 2004 (ref A).  These sources also described 
several incidents of alleged discrimination against the 
predominantly Protestant Ja Rai (Gia Rai) ethnic minority people. 
End summary. 
 
2. (SBU) Consul General and Poloff met with Pastor Siu Y Kim 
(protect), a member of the Representative Board of the Vietnamese 
Government-recognized Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam 
(SECV) in Gia Lai province, and his brother Siu Ya Kop (protect), 
a HCMC-based medical doctor, for two hours at the ConGen on March 
16, 2004.  The two are long-time contacts of the ConGen and are 
generally reliable on subjects (good or bad) where they have 
personal knowledge. 
 
3. (SBU) Pastor Kim confirmed that the ordination of six new SECV 
pastors and four new lay pastors had taken place as planned in Gia 
Lai Province on March 9, 2004 (ref B).  He brought photos of the 
ceremony, which took place at his house.  He also reported that 
the chairman of Gia Lai's Chu Se District People's Committee had 
agreed to meet with him later in the week to discuss land for a 
new church.  Pastor Kim indicated that past land discussions with 
provincial officials had not proven productive, but he still was 
hopeful.  While new church registrations and ordinations were 
welcome news, he believed the GVN was still reluctant to allow the 
construction of real churches in Gia Lai.  He said provincial 
authorities had already rejected his request for the return of 
confiscated properties. 
 
4. (SBU) Without giving an exact time frame, Pastor Kim noted that 
two pre-1975 Christian and Missionary Alliance properties in Gia 
Lai had recently been damaged or destroyed. One had already been 
replaced with a kindergarten.  He believes provincial authorities 
have done this to avoid having to return the properties to the 
SECV.  He referred to Official Letter #783, regarding religious 
properties -- he does not expect to recover church buildings, but 
at least hopes for compensation. (Note: The CMA is the only 
Protestant denomination recognized by the GVN at this time.  Many 
CMA churches have chosen not to register with the SECV, however, 
and operate as underground house churches, often with the tacit 
approval of local authorities.  End note.)  According to Pastor 
Kim, the Gia Lai SECV Representative Board and the HCMC-based SECV 
Executive Board had both sent protest letters to the provincial 
authorities, but had yet to receive a response.  Pastor Kim had 
also learned of three house churches in Sa Tay District, Kon Tum 
Province, which were reportedly shut down between January and 
March 2004. He noted that these three congregations were not among 
the 13 CMA house churches that Kon Tum officials tacitly allow to 
operate. 
 
5. (SBU) Pastor Kim also discussed ongoing refugee problems in Gia 
Lai.  He noted that three ethnic minority men (Ama Suon and Y Lut 
were the two names he remembered), who had reportedly been hiding 
in the jungle since the ethnic unrest of 2001, had been captured 
by police in February and beaten.  Police had detained the three 
after learning they had returned returned from the jungle.  They 
were discovered hiding under the floorboards of their homes. 
According to Pastor Kim's sources, one person had died while in 
police custody.  His family members said the body had exhibited 
signs of head trauma when it was returned by the police.  The 
other two individuals reportedly died a few days after police 
released them from custody and returned them to their villages. 
Villagers noted that these two persons were in "bad shape" when 
they returned.  Authorities claimed they had been ill.  Pastor Kim 
dismissed the idea that they might have been suffering the effects 
of living in the jungle, noting local villagers took good care of 
those in hiding.  (He believes approximately 50 persons remain in 
the jungle.)  As an aside, he mentioned that the police had also 
confiscated "lots of" cellular telephones when they arrested these 
three persons. 
 
6. (SBU) Related to ongoing refugee problems, Pastor Kim described 
the problems faced by several families petitioned as Visas 93 
following-to-join cases by relatives who had resettled in the U.S. 
via Cambodia in 2001 and 2002.  Two families had been charged 2.5 
million Vietnamese dong (about USD$160 dollars) by local 
authorities for official copies of birth certificates.  Three 
other families have been unable to obtain passports, including a 
member of one of his Protestant congregations, Ms. R'Mah H'Ri.  He 
stated quite emphatically that he believed she would never receive 
a passport (Ref C provides update on R'Mah H'Ri's departure for 
the U.S.)  Pastor Kim noted that government officials were 
becoming more sophisticated.  He said he had heard stories of 
other families facing similar problems, but could not offer 
specifics.  In a response to a question, he said he could only say 
for certain that this practice had occurred in Gia Lai Province. 
Pastor Kim noted that government officials were becoming more 
sophisticated.  Nothing is put in writing; promises, threats, or 
insinuations are all just spoken. 
 
7. (SBU) Pastor Kim recounted several recent land-use disputes 
involving ethnic minority Ja Rai and majority Vietnamese Kinh in 
Gia Lai Province in recent months.  He said the government had 
taken ethnic minority lands for public use under a provincial 
"master plan," without paying fair compensation.  He acknowledged, 
however, that the "landowners" did not have official deeds or 
leases for their properties, holding them instead as "traditional" 
homesteads.  One farmer, R'Hlan Yen, in Plei Tu village, Ea Kar 
District, reportedly had his land seized to build a stadium, while 
another farmer, Siu Den, fled his village to escape a nine-month 
prison sentence on charges of illegal deforestation.  Pastor Kim 
spoke at length about an incident in late January 2004, where the 
ethnic minority residents of Plei Su and other villages verbally 
squared off at least three times with the management of rubber 
plantations in Duc Co, Chu Prong and Chu Se Districts.  The 
villagers had reportedly given their traditional lands to the 
plantations in exchange for employment, but were later fired and 
replaced by ethnic Vietnamese Kinh  brought down from the north. 
The villagers engaged in several heated verbal confrontations with 
management, before the provincial People's Committee also became 
involved.  Pastor Kim noted that each confrontation had ended with 
some sort of oral agreement, but the management had yet to follow 
through on its promises to restore jobs or pay adequate 
compensation.  Nonetheless, he regarded these three meetings as 
"victories" for the common people. 
 
8. (SBU) Comment:  Pastor Kim and his brother acknowledged that 
much of their information was based on second or thirdhand 
reports.  Pastor Kim blamed government surveillance and 
restrictions on travel for his inability to get out and verify 
some of these claims.  As a result, he often made vague statements 
or lacked details when he made a specific allegation.  At one 
point, he painted a dark picture of ethnic minority Christians 
being fired from jobs and expelled from school.  These are 
accusations we have heard from other sources periodically over the 
past two years, and each time the GVN official or schoolmaster -- 
or sometimes even another pastor -- denies them.   Asked to 
elaborate, Pastor Kim said the government's plan was to 
discriminate against Protestants until they got tired of the 
pressure and just gave up and resigned their jobs or left school. 
 
9. (SBU) Comment (cont):  That said, Pastor Kim is one of our best 
contacts.  He is sincere in his approach to working with the 
government as a legal SECV pastor on the one hand, while 
maintaining his leadership of the mostly ethnic Ja Rai (Gia Rai) 
house churches.  Pastor Kim noted that he did not want to be like 
some of the Mennonite leaders currently operating in the country, 
who intentionally try to provoke the GVN in the Central Highlands. 
Still, the bigger issue is whether the discrimination alleged to 
be religious in nature is in fact really traditional ethnic 
discrimination entangled with ownership disputes over tribal 
lands.  Many Ja Rai are Christian, but a sizable minority are not. 
Pastor Kim's assertion that the oppression is worse for the 
Christian Ja Rai in Gia Lai Province should be evaluated in the 
context of the general poverty and politico-economic backwardness 
of the Central Highlands. 
YAMAUCHI