US embassy cable - 05HOCHIMINHCITY74

UNCLAS  HO CHI MINH CITY 000074 
 
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 a decision to 
open a six-mon4QQj=9QQQc information outreach phase on 
March 1, 2005, followed by a two-year processing phase 
starting September 1, 2005.  The two sides decided 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 decided 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 decided 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 decided 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 confirmed that 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 decided on 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 a consensus successfully negotiated 
reached on all three papers, the two delegations 
discussed and decided on implementation dates.  The 
two sides decided 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, despite the 
best efforts by the United States, 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 decision by the 
two governments 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. 
 
WINNICK 
 
 
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