US embassy cable - 04HANOI2886

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 002886 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV AND DRL/IRF 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, KIRF, VM, HUMANR, RELFREE 
SUBJECT: Bulldozed Mennonite Church 
 
Reftel: A) HCMC 232; B) HCMC 789 
 
This is a joint Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh City reporting cable. 
 
1. (SBU) Summary and Comment:  Multiple contacts in the 
official and non-recognized Protestant communities confirmed 
that local authorities tore down an "unofficial" Mennonite 
church in Kontum Province September 24, as reported October 
22 by Human Rights Watch.  However, it appears that the 
action may have been the result of a land dispute or 
the deliberately confrontational tactics of the Kontum 
Mennonite pastor at the center of the dispute and not 
because of a GVN policy of religious oppression.  Our 
sources say there was no police violence directed at church 
members during the September 24 incident.  End Summary and 
Comment. 
 
2. (U) Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported October 22 that, 
"on the morning of September 24, more than 200 officials, 
including paramilitary police from Unit 113, descended on 
the chapel and home of Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh in Kontum 
province.  Pastor Chinh is superintendent of the Mennonite 
churches in the Central Highlands.  The attack marked the 
second time the chapel was destroyed this year.  On January 
16, authorities bulldozed the same chapel, which doubles as 
Pastor Chinh's residence.... In the September 24 attack, 
government officials confiscated Chinh's property and farm 
animals, set fire to the house and chapel and then used two 
bulldozers to flatten the remains.  Chinh was out on a 
pastoral visit at the time, but his wife and children were 
arrested by officials and detained at Vinh Quang district 
headquarters from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm that day.  Mrs. Chinh, 
who is seven months pregnant, reported being hit in the 
stomach and stepped on while in custody.  Chinh reportedly 
went into hiding after returning to the scene briefly after 
the destruction was complete." 
 
3. (U) The GVN responded swiftly to the HRW report.  In a 
statement to journalists on October 22, Foreign Ministry 
Spokesman Le Dung called the report "slanderous, fabricated 
and distorted," and said the claims that the pastor's wife 
had been beaten were "absolute fabrications with bad 
intent."  While confirming the destruction of the building, 
Dung attributed it to failure to follow land laws, saying 
that that the pastor had "built a house without permission" 
on "land that has been sold illegally."  The commune's 
actions came only after repeated requests for the pastor to 
demolish the house, Dung added. 
 
4. (SBU) Two reliable religious contacts in HCMC and in Gia 
Lai Province -- which borders Kon Tum Province -- echoed GVN 
claims, saying that the structure was an "illegal church 
built on illegal land."  The issue is complex.  As related 
to us, Pastor Chinh registered the church under the name 
Nguyen Thanh Long.  Although born in Kontum Province, he was 
apparently stripped of his residency during the 1980s after 
an incident in which, while serving in the military, he 
attempted to defend some ethnic minorities involved in 
religious practice.  As a result, he is unregistered 
anywhere in Vietnam.  Chinh/Long nonetheless bought the land 
and applied for a construction permit, but then proceeded to 
build the structure without a permit. 
 
5. (SBU) Our contacts told us that the local government had 
previously pulled down the church in January 2004.  They did 
not know the reason that led local authorities to act in 
January 2004, but said the pastor's decision to rebuild the 
church a few months later had angered local authorities. 
Our contacts said there was no violence directed against the 
Mennonite pastor or his family during the incident, as the 
HRW report alleged.  They told us the pastor's wife was in 
police custody for four hours while the structure -- a tin 
and grass hut -- was demolished.  A leading pastor in the 
Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (VEF), an umbrella group for 
the house church movement, told us that a VEF-member 
denomination has a house church about seven kilometers away 
from the Mennonite one, but it has not encountered 
harassment from local authorities.  The Mennonite church 
reportedly had between 50 and 70 members.  Catholic Church 
clergy in Kontum were not aware of the incident when 
ConGenOff contacted them.  (Note:  We spoke with the 
representative of the American Mennonite organization in 
Hanoi, who said they have no links to the Vietnamese 
Mennonite church.  They share only the name and have not 
even met, our source added.  End Note.) 
6. (SBU) Comment:  Confrontations between house church 
leaders and local authorities more often than not occur in 
remote, rural areas and are difficult to corroborate.  In 
the past, however, assertions by some members of Vietnam's 
Mennonite community have proven to be exaggerations or 
outright fabrications.  The VEF leader told us that Pastor 
Chinh was "a disciple" of Mennonite activist Pastor Nguyen 
Hong Quang.  Pastor Quang was detained in HCMC in June after 
repeatedly provoking confrontations with city authorities, 
including striking a police officer who was investigating a 
house church gathering and sending his followers to attempt 
to physically detain plainclothes policemen observing his 
residence (reftels).  Furthermore, Pastor Quang had shown a 
willingness to distort the truth, for example, depicting an 
incident involving the police and his motorcycle as 
"attempted assassination" and claiming -- entirely falsely - 
- to have been "viciously beaten" and shocked by cattle 
prods during a brief detention in March. 
7. (SBU) Comment, cont'd:  Quang freely admitted these 
distortions to former HCMC Poloff, saying that they were 
acceptable as they drew foreign attention to the plight of 
Protestants in Vietnam.  It may very well be that Pastor 
Chinh has adopted this strategy.  The fact that another 
unrecognized house church in close proximity to the 
Mennonite one appears to have been largely left alone and 
that our active and assertive house church contacts observed 
that the Mennonite church was "illegally built on illegal 
land" lead us to believe that Pastor Chinh has fallen afoul 
of Vietnam's complex and arbitrary land ownership laws.  His 
"double identity" and apparently confrontational dealings 
with commune officials seem the more likely explanations for 
the authorities' heavy-handed actions rather than any claim 
of religious oppression.  End Comment. 
 
MARINE