US embassy cable - 05HOCHIMINHCITY54

UNCLAS  HO CHI MINH CITY 000054 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR PRM AND EAP/BCLTV 
 
BANGKOK FOR REFCOORD 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, PHUM, VM 
SUBJECT:   PRM DAS KELLY RYAN VISIT TO VIETNAM DEC. 1-3: 
AGREEMENT REACHED TO RESUME HUMANITARIAN RESETTLEMENT 
PROCESS 
 
REF:  A) 04 HCMC 0505      B) 03 Hanoi 2098 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please handle accordingly. 
 
1.  (SBU)  Summary.  PRM Deputy Assistant Secretary Kelly 
Ryan held a second round of technical talks in Hanoi on 
December 2 and 3 with a delegation of GVN officials to 
discuss opening of the Humanitarian Resettlement (HR) 
process, a USG proposal to accept applications for persons 
meeting eligibility criteria for certain categories of the 
former Orderly Departure Program (ODP).  The talks resulted 
in agreement to open a six-month public information outreach 
phase on March 1, 2005, followed by a two-year processing 
phase starting September 1, 2005.  The two sides agreed to 
initial the texts of two documents laying out the parameters 
of the HR process:  an "Understanding - Humanitarian 
Resettlement - Mechanisms for Cooperation Between the GVN 
and USG" and a "Joint USG-GVN Public Announcement Regarding 
Humanitarian Resettlement (HR)," which will be issued at the 
start of the public information outreach.  A third document 
describing specific activities of the HR public information 
outreach was extensively discussed and the GVN requested 
that the USG modify its proposal in some regards.  The talks 
were cordial, with the GVN delegation seeming predisposed to 
reaching agreement.  But certain issues proved  difficult 
in the course of the talks and several specific concerns in 
actual implementation are still likely to come up.  End 
summary. 
 
2.  (SBU)  A delegation led by PRM DAS Kelly Ryan, along 
with DHS/USCIS Associate Chief Counsel Ronald Whitney and 
USCIS Officer Ralph Foelster met December 2-3 with a GVN 
delegation headed by MFA Director General of the Consular 
Division Mr. Bui Dinh Dinh.  This meeting was a follow-up to 
a first round of technical talks held March 29-30, 2004 (ref 
A) and to the visit of PRM A/S Gene Dewey in August 2003 
(Ref B), during which agreement in principle had been 
reached to re-open certain categories of the former ODP 
program for further in-country processing.  This most recent 
round of talks was aimed at achieving definitive agreement 
and setting dates for the start up of what is now called the 
"Humanitarian Resettlement" process, a term agreed upon 
during the first round of talks in March.  The specific 
objectives included agreement on the text of the initial 
public announcement, the text of a paper describing the 
modalities of the overall public information outreach and 
the text of a document describing the mechanisms for 
cooperation between the two governments in carrying out the 
HR process. 
 
3.  (SBU)  At the conclusion of the first round of talks 
both sides agreed that the USG would provide drafts of these 
three documents as the next step prior to the second round 
of talks, and texts of the draft documents were provided to 
the GVN in early November.  During the first morning of 
talks on Dec. 2, discussion centered on the "Mechanisms for 
Cooperation" paper and it was agreed that, rather than doing 
a separate "Minutes of Meeting" document as was done in the 
first round of talks, this paper would be used as the basis 
for an agreement to implement HR that both sides would 
initial. 
 
4.  (SBU) The GVN delegation's comments on the draft 
presented by the USG centered on their desire to ensure that 
the HR process is nondisruptive to Vietnamese society. 
Several of the items in the "Mechanisms for Cooperation" 
paper were first discussed and fairly quickly agreed upon. 
The summary of the previous discussions was acceptable to 
the GVN with minor wording changes.  They agreed to jointly 
announce the opening of HR and to the formation of a GVN-USG 
Joint Working Group to manage the implementation of the HR 
process.  On the subject of access, the GVN delegation 
agreed they would not require a GVN-issued Letter of 
Introduction (LOI) as a prerequisite for applicants' access 
to the HR process. 
 
5.  (SBU)  One very important early comment came on the 
subject of document verification.  The U.S. side asked 
whether the GVN had any kind of central office to verify 
information such as claims of time served in re-education 
centers.  Mr. Dinh admitted that since many of the older re- 
education centers had been dissolved years ago, many records 
had been destroyed or were missing.  In many cases, the 
 
files were not deemed important and were not kept in any 
organized fashion.  This admission highlighted a key concern 
as to the difficulty of verifying claims for events that 
happened nearly thirty years ago.  In cases where people 
have lost their own certification of re-education center 
time served, it may give rise to an opportunity for graft 
and corruption in both the creation and police certification 
of fraudulent certifications.  The two sides agreed to a 
process whereby the USG could provide documents to the GVN 
for review as necessary for verification purposes.  But the 
fact that the GVN readily admitted many old records are now 
lost or destroyed highlights the difficulty of this task. 
 
6.  (SBU) A recurring issue throughout the two days of 
discussions was the need for a Vietnamese passport as a 
prerequisite for accessing the program.  Although they had 
agreed that a separately issued LOI would no longer be 
necessary, at several points during the discussions, the GVN 
delegation wanted to insert the passport requirement 
directly into the section on "eligibility criteria" for the 
program.  The U.S. side was adamant that this type of GVN- 
generated restriction could not be made a part of the core 
eligibility criteria.  Insertion of such a clause would 
cause too much protest in the U.S. that the GVN was still 
limiting access to the program and preventing legitimate 
candidates from presenting their cases. 
 
7.  (SBU)  Lengthy discussions took place concerning the 
GVN's current passport procedures.  The GVN delegation 
repeatedly stated that the vast majority of Vietnamese 
citizens currently have no problem receiving a passport, 
unless there is some reason in Vietnamese law to deny 
issuance.  While it is acknowledged that anybody being 
approved for resettlement under HR will still need GVN 
permission to emigrate from the country, the passport 
requirement should not be used as a means to deny access to 
the program.  A compromise on this critical issue was 
crafted on the second day by adding a separate 
"Authorization to Travel Abroad" section to the document, 
stating that Vietnamese citizens will not receive final 
authorization to go to the U.S. under HR without permission 
to travel abroad under Vietnamese law. 
 
8.  (SBU) Separately, the two delegations also reviewed the 
draft "Joint USG-GVN Announcement Regarding Humanitarian 
Resettlement (HR)."  The GVN delegation did not have any 
substantive changes in the text of the proposed 
announcement, but suggested re-ordering it somewhat.  They 
suggested moving up the entire section on "Access Criteria 
for HR," which detailed the specific criteria for the HO (re- 
education center detainee), U-11 (former USG employee) and V- 
11 (former U.S. private company or organization employee) 
categories.  Both sides carefully reviewed these access 
criteria together and agreed on the exact wording of the 
category criteria.  The remainder of the public announcement 
consists of several "Important Notes," which are mainly 
designed to warn against fraudulent or frivolous 
applications and to warn applicants against using the 
services of a visa facilitator or "fixer" to assist them. 
The GVN emphasized again and again that they wanted the 
initial public announcement and the public information 
outreach on HR to be minimally disruptive and focus on the 
likely target populations without creating nationwide 
expectation or confusion. 
 
9.  (SBU)  With the "Mechanisms for Cooperation" paper and 
the Joint USG-GVN Announcement" essentially agreed to, on 
the afternoon of the second day the two delegations then 
discussed the various specific proposals for the broader 
Public Information Outreach (PIO) to publicize HR following 
the initial announcement.  The GVN delegation accepted the 
"Introduction" and "Goals and Objectives" of the USG 
proposal, except for the goal which stated, "Reach the 
Broadest Segment of the Population Possible."  Again 
expressing their concern to keep the HR process minimally 
disruptive, the GVN suggested rewording this along the lines 
of "Targeted Dissemination to Intended Audiences." 
 
10.  (SBU) More specifically, as the two delegations 
reviewed the list of suggested publicity methods, it became 
clear they had different ideas regarding how to handle the 
publicity campaign.  The GVN expressed some surprise that we 
had suggested using International Organization for Migration 
 
(IOM) mass media resources to assist in this project.  They 
felt that the GVN itself could do a satisfactory job of 
placing media spots without involving the IOM.  The USG side 
asked what exactly the GVN had in mind, and Mr. Dinh listed 
several possible items that included most of what the USG 
would want plus a few items we did not think the GVN would 
permit.  For example, they suggested using the loudspeaker 
systems at the grass-roots level to make public 
announcements, as well as professional communicators at the 
commune and village level; TV and radio programs in all the 
provinces where we think there may be many cases; ethnic 
language broadcasts on certain TV and radio channels 
targeting ethnic minority groups; and print ads in several 
wide-dissemination popular newspapers. 
 
11.  (SBU) Where the GVN drew the line in the discussion of 
the publicity effort was in not running ads on nationwide TV 
broadcasts, not allowing ads in political newspapers and 
magazines and not using flyers or brochures that could be 
easily reproduced by would-be "brokers" and sold to 
unsuspecting persons.  Again, this emphasized the GVN 
concern about disseminating the information in a more 
limited and targeted way to minimize the disruptive effect 
on society.  The two delegations agreed that there was 
generally broad agreement on the methods of publicity, but 
that the USG would modify its proposal to work more directly 
with the GVN in this area and eliminate the role of the IOM 
as the USG's partner. 
 
12.  (SBU)  With agreement generally reached on all three 
papers, the two delegations discussed and reached agreement 
on implementation dates.  The two sides agreed that the 
initial public announcement would best be made after the Tet 
Lunar New Year Holiday, and agreed on March 1 as the 
tentative announcement date, to be followed by the six-month 
Public information Outreach.  The actual application- 
processing phase would then begin September 1, 2005, and run 
for two years until September 1, 2007. 
 
13.  (SBU)  One further concern was highlighted in the 
discussion of implementation dates.  The GVN emphasized it 
wanted the "processing" phase to be completed by September 
1, 2007, while the USG sees this as the "application" 
deadline.  We emphasized to the GVN that there would 
undoubtedly be some residual cases still not completed by 
September 1, 2007, especially if they had just recently 
applied.  The GVN side replied that it needed to set a 
definite end date to the processing phase in order to have 
the agreement accepted by more senior GVN officials.  To 
compromise, a statement was added to the "Mechanisms of 
Cooperation" paper stating that "The USG will make best 
efforts to complete processing of all cases during this 
period."  The agreed upon language suggests a recognition by 
both sides that residual cases may remain pending at the end 
of the processing phase.  This issue was discussed with the 
Ambassador prior to DAS Ryan's giving final agreement to the 
documents.  It is recognized that we may need to negotiate 
with the GVN in mid-2007 to permit continued processing of a 
small number of residual cases after the September 1, 2007 
end date, but we do not believe the GVN will object. 
 
14.  (SBU)  Next steps:  Overall, the agreement to open the 
Humanitarian Resettlement process is a satisfying conclusion 
to several years of addressing this issue with the GVN.  The 
next step will be to work with the GVN on final plans for 
the Public Information Outreach, with the intended initial 
announcement date set for March 1.  ConGen Ho Chi Minh 
City's Refugee Resettlement Section (RRS) is working out 
anticipated resource needs for the expanded workload, 
anticipating initially a need for several additional local 
caseworker assistants in the Infocomm Unit to handle the 
increased volume of inquiries expected after the public 
announcement and to start reviewing claims of eligibility. 
In anticipation of the September 1 start of active 
application processing, the hiring of several Vietnamese- 
speaking expatriate caseworkers will also be necessary.  The 
goal will be to run the Humanitarian Resettlement Process 
efficiently and effectively over the next two to three 
years, giving all interested and eligible applicants one 
final chance to enter these programs before bringing these 
programs based on pre-1975 ties to the U.S. to a 
satisfactory conclusion. 
E 
 
Winnick 
 
 
NNNN