US embassy cable - 04HANOI1321

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 001321 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INL/AAE, EAP/BCLTV, and EAP/RSP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SNAR, PREL, PGOV, EAID, PTER, VM, CNARC 
SUBJECT:  POROUS BORDERS, LOW ANTI-DRUG CAPACITY IN 
VIETNAM'S CENTER 
 
Ref: 03 Hanoi 1504 
 
1. (U) Summary: Authorities in central Vietnam appear 
enthusiastic about supporting the national anti-drug policy, 
but have limited capacity and training.  The land border 
with Laos is porous and difficult to control, making this a 
likely route for narcotics traffickers and a possible route 
for terrorists.  One of these remote border checkpoints 
might be an excellent place to apply the INL-funded 
Contraband Enforcement Team Program under the new 
Counternarcotics agreement.  End Summary. 
 
2. (U) On an April 19-21 visit to Quang Binh and Quang Tri 
provinces, Poloff met with representatives of the provincial 
People's Councils, the counternarcotics police, the Women's 
Unions, and the Departments of Labor, Invalids, and Social 
Affairs.  Officials in both provinces were quick to state 
that their provinces had only a "small problem" with drug 
use, and noted that all drugs entering the province were 
from other provinces or from across the border and usually 
carried by addicts.  They acknowledged that the land borders 
with Laos were in forested mountain areas riddled with 
footpaths beyond official control.  Only the single 
international border gate in each province was staffed for 
inspections and immigration controls. 
 
Quang Binh 
---------- 
 
 
3. (U) This long, narrow province north of the former 
demilitarized zone (DMZ) has a population of 800,000 people, 
most of whom are engaged in farming and fishing activities 
along the coast.  The capital, Dong Hoi, is a fishing town 
with tourist potential.  According to Nguyen Vinh of the 
Quang Binh Department of Foreign Affairs, the road network 
near the long border with Laos is "very basic," and trade 
and communication are "limited by weak infrastructure." 
 
4.  (U)  Drug trafficking into or through Quang Binh is 
"scattered and small," claimed Colonel Tu Huong Son, deputy 
director of the Provincial Police.  There are no "big 
syndicates" operating in Quang Binh, he added.  Since 2001, 
Quang Binh police had seized only 28 tablets of ATS, 3.7 
grams of heroin, 21 "doses" of heroin, and 19 ampoules of 
"additive pharmaceuticals."  According to Son, the entire 
province has only 70 drug addicts, while police "suspected" 
another 167 people of possible drug use. 
 
5.  (U)  Because the number of addicts in Quang Binh was so 
small, there was no need for a treatment center, said Nguyen 
An Dung, Deputy Director of the Social Security and Welfare 
Office of the Department of Labor, Invalids, and Social 
Affairs.  DOLISA officials from Quang Binh had visited other 
provinces, such Yen Bai and Tuyen Quang in the north, and 
"inspected" their drug treatment models, Dung noted.  Quang 
Binh was following the Yen Bai model of "community 
treatment" because it had only a 15 percent relapse rate, 
Dung claimed.  [Note: this figure is absurd.  "Community 
treatment" in Vietnam means sending addicts home - often the 
same environment where they began using drugs - with an 
admonition to stop using drugs and instructions to the 
family and local civic organizations to "help" the addict. 
It does not work.  Some officials have admitted privately 
that actual relapse rates for community treatment in Vietnam 
exceed 95 percent, a figure that UNODC also feels is 
accurate.  End note.] 
 
6. (U) Col. Son admitted that because all traffic going 
between north and south in Vietnam had to pass through Quang 
Binh, it was "likely" that drugs were transiting his 
province.  However, "we've never found any," he said, "but 
we aren't looking at traffic coming through Quang Binh."  He 
similarly noted that police had never found drugs on any of 
the boats that used the harbor in Dong Hoi, but had not 
looked for them there, either. 
 
Quang Tri 
--------- 
 
7. (U) Officials in Quang Tri province, immediately to the 
south of Quang Binh, made similar claims regarding the low 
number of drug users in the province, but acknowledged that 
the border gate of Lao Bao had a high volume of truck cargo 
from elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Laos, 
and Burma, which could easily contain undetected contraband. 
Director Hoang Dang Mai of the Quang Tri Department of 
Foreign Affairs estimated that "hundreds" of trucks passed 
this border gate each day, and that the total traffic in the 
first three months of 2004 was 11,500 vehicles.  According 
to Hoang Van Cu, the Deputy Director of the Provincial 
Customs Bureau of Quang Tri, Vietnamese customs officials 
performed "random" checks on vehicles, and "sometimes" 
received information that led them to check certain vehicles 
"more carefully."  For example, "sometimes we receive 
instructions to check all vehicles from Malaysia," Cu added. 
 
8. (U) Cu and Mai separately acknowledged that because of 
the numerous "forest paths and rivers" it was "extremely 
hard" to control smuggling across the border into Quang Tri. 
To combat this problem, the province had begun to employ two 
mobile customs checkpoints that could be deployed farther 
from the border, Cu said.  One of those teams had caught a 
shipment of 5,000 methamphetamine pills in November 2003, 
for example.  In June 2003, the border guards at Lao Bao had 
made a "huge" heroin seizure, Mai noted, using information 
developed from "informants" (reftel). 
 
9.  (U)  Cu added that Quang Tri customs received "frequent" 
information on travelers who could be terrorist risks, but 
noted that this information was often "general" and did not 
have enough specifics to provide an action recommendation 
for border control workers.  He noted that as long as a 
vehicle had a "Vietnamese transit permit," it could continue 
right into Vietnam.  "Many times," Cu noted, trucks 
transiting the Lao Bao border gate were headed for southern 
China via the Vietnamese border gate at Mong Cai. 
 
10. (U) Comment:  Quang Binh and Quang Tri, located at a 
narrow choke point between north and south Vietnam, would be 
an excellent place for Vietnamese customs and police to 
scrutinize vehicle traffic for contraband, drugs, or 
terrorists.  Police and customs capacity in these provinces, 
however, is so low that there is effectively no action other 
than responding to specific, detailed requests from higher 
authorities.  The Lao Bao border gate, with a high volume of 
international truck traffic, would be a good location for 
international assistance in improving the capacity of 
Vietnamese border forces.  In particular, the Contraband 
Enforcement Team Program being implemented under the 
Counternarcotics Agreement could be applied effectively in 
Lao Bao, a place Vietnamese anti-smuggling official Le Thanh 
Hien calls a "drug hotspot." 
BURGHARDT