US embassy cable - 04HOCHIMINHCITY758

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000758 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL/IRF 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SCUL, PGOV, PREL, SOCI, KIRF, VM, HUMANR, RELFREE 
SUBJECT: LEGAL PROTESTANTS SEE MOVEMENT ON SEMINARY, NEW CHURCHES 
 
Ref: A) 03 HCMC 235  B) HCMC 573  C) HANOI 1268   D) 03 HCMC 1087 
 
1. (SBU) Several members of the Executive Board of the government- 
recognized Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam (SECV) told the 
Ambassador they were moving ahead with plans for construction of a 
new seminary campus during a meeting last month at their offices 
in HCMC.  The Protestant leaders complained that the current space 
for Vietnam's only legal Protestant seminary (which opened in 
February 2003 on the top two floors of the same building housing 
the Saigon Church and the SECV offices - ref A) was insufficient 
to meet students' needs.  According to board members, the students 
receive a free education for the full four years.  To qualify for 
acceptance, they must have a high school education plus one year 
of lay work experience in an SECV church.  The seminary is 
currently limited by its GVN-approved charter to accepting one 
student for every five congregations within each southern 
province, for a total of 50 students every two years.  Students 
must be recommended by at least one local pastor and one 
supervisory pastor.  While the government screened the first group 
of candidates fairly rigorously, the SECV leaders expected next 
year's class to be even more carefully scrutinized, now that the 
GVN "knows more about the seminary" and has a better sense of 
which candidates to reject. 
 
2. (SBU) The SECV hoped to build the new campus on property they 
own in HCMC's District 2.  This larger facility would allow them 
to accept women as well.  The current situation, with cramped 
facilities above the church, students housed several kilometers 
away from their classrooms, and the library in still another 
remote location, was not conducive to higher learning.  The 
pastors told the Ambassador they would fund the construction at 
least partially through donations from Christian and Missionary 
Alliance (CMA) churches in the U.S. and Korea, with additional 
funds from local congregations.  (Note: CMA sent the first 
Protestant missionaries to Vietnam early in the 20th Century, and 
the CMA denomination still dominates Protestantism in the country 
today.  All of the churches affiliated with the SECV are CMA 
churches.  Many other CMA churches have chosen not to affiliate 
with the SECV in order to avoid any semblance of what they see as 
GVN control.  In a visit to HCMC in February, the President of the 
CMA Church in the U.S. made clear that the CMA prefers its 
overseas churches to be self-reliant and does not generally 
provide financial support.  End note.)  With approximately 1.2 
million Protestants in the South, one board member said, the SECV 
needed to raise just one dollar from each believer.  The board 
members asked the Ambassador for favorable consideration of visa 
applications by seminary students in the future, as some go 
overseas for advanced study.  In a meeting between the Ambassador 
and the seminarians in an upstairs classroom, most of the 
questions from the excited students focused on visas as well. 
 
3. (SBU) The board members briefed the Ambassador more generally 
on the current state of the SECV, noting that there are over 1000 
churches and meeting points throughout the South, 372 of which are 
legally registered with the government and officially recognized - 
- including 44 in HCMC, 25 in Quang Nam on the central coast, nine 
in Danang, 11 in Gia Lai, five in Dak Lak, one in Dak Nong, and 
three in Binh Phuoc.  They described the current registration 
process as very slow, pointing out that it would take a long time 
at the present rate to register the 412 house churches in Dak Lak 
and Dak Nong, 178 in Gia Lai, 139 in Binh Phuoc, and two in Kon 
Tum.  The SECV leaders said they had witnessed some progress over 
the past three years in their dealings with high-level GVN 
officials, but understanding of Protestantism was still minimal 
among provincial and lower-level officials.  The board members 
agreed that Dak Lak was the most difficult province to deal with, 
largely because the local officials were "very strong."  Asked for 
their impressions of the Easter weekend ethnic demonstrations 
(refs B and C), they said they had heard many stories (mostly over 
the Internet), with casualty figures running from 40 to 400, but 
were not at all clear on what had actually happened. 
 
4. (SBU) The SECV leaders told the Ambassador they would be 
holding their second general conference next February -- four 
years after the first congress in 2001 -- as specified in their 
government-approved charter.  The most important task of the 
general conference participants would be the election of new 
leaders.  The board members seemed content with the number of 
bibles they were allowed to print under the current arrangement 
and noted the GVN's willingness to publish ethnic minority 
language bibles in the future.  They said they had also submitted 
a request to publish a Protestant newsletter earlier in the year, 
but had yet to hear back from the GVN about permission.  Asked for 
their opinions on the possible consequences of designating Vietnam 
a country of particular concern for religious freedom, the pastors 
told the Ambassador that they had been approached to sign a public 
letter to the U.S. Congress critical of the GVN, but felt they had 
already made their views known to Ambassador-at-Large for 
International Religious Freedom John Hanford during his visit here 
in October 2003 (ref D). 
 
YAMAUCHI