US embassy cable - 05HOCHIMINHCITY210

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000210 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, SOCI, SCUL, SENV, PINR, PREF, KIRF, PHUM, VM, ETMIN 
SUBJECT: VISIT TO A REMOTE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS VILLAGE HIGHLIGHTS 
REGION'S PROBLEMS 
 
REF:  A) 04 HCMC 1491 and previous; B) 04 HCMC 1173 and previous 
 
1. (SBU) Summary and Comment:  On March 1, CG and PolOff made a 
stop at a small village in a remote area of the Central Highlands 
province of Lam Dong.  The hour-long discussion with local 
residents highlighted the economic disparities between the 
indigenous Montagnards and ethnic Vietnamese migrants to the 
region.  It supported observations made during past visits to the 
region (reftels) that a pronounced education deficit deepens 
Montagnard economic marginalization.  More positively, the visit 
confirmed that GVN directives seeking to regulate land tenure 
issues are filtering down to even this remote area of the Central 
Highlands.  Our interlocutors said there were no ethnic or 
religious tensions in the immediate area.  End Summary and 
Comment. 
 
2. (SBU) During a visit to the Central Highlands on March 1, the 
Consul General and PolOff stopped at the Dinh Trang Thuong 
Commune, a small village on the border between Lam Dong and Dak 
Nong provinces, some 200 kilometers from HCMC.  There we met Mr. 
Dong, the owner of the modest general store that served the 
community.  Dong's story explains -- at least in part -- how and 
why ethnic Vietnamese migrants succeed economically while local 
Montagnards languish. 
 
3. (SBU) Dong came to the Central Highlands in 1994 from the 
northern province of Hai Hung near Hanoi (the province has since 
split into Hai Duong and Hung Yen provinces).  Within a year, Dong 
opened a general store, which serves the local community of 300 
ethnic Mnong and Ma tribesmen and workers in a bamboo products 
factory.  Dong says that his store has a daily turnover of 500,000 
dong (USD 32).  He makes a 10 percent profit.  This modest sum is 
sufficient to support his family's daily needs.  In 1996, he 
purchased four hectares (roughly 10 acres) of scrub forest from a 
local Montagnard villager.  He has cleared the property and 
planted coffee, which yields roughly one ton per hectare.  (Other, 
more fertile lands yield nearly four times that amount, but were 
correspondinly more expensive.)  Dong told us that his land has 
doubled in value in the intervening years. 
 
4. (SBU) Dong said that the Montagnard landowner did not have a 
written deed to the property.  To execute the sale, he traveled 
with the Montagnard to the seat of the district government some 30 
kilometers away.  There, the Montagnard attested to his ownership 
and a written deed for the property was issued to Dong.  The shop 
owner told us that after the sale, the Montagnard petitioned the 
local government for another parcel of land.  Dong said that in 
2001 he used his coffee profits to purchase another property in a 
second, more fertile area of Lam Dong province from another 
Montagnard.  While such land purchases were common in the past, 
Dong said that recently the local government had banned new land 
sales from Montagnards to ethnic Vietnamese and would not issue 
deeds for new purchases.  However, ethnic Vietnamese land 
speculators continue to "buy" land from Montagnards unofficially 
and are putting the land into service to grow coffee. 
 
5. (SBU) Dong commented that land sales had been an important way 
for ethnic minorities to raise cash.  With the land transfer ban 
now in effect, Montagnards in his area subsist by hunting in the 
region's rapidly dwindling forests, and by the home manufacture of 
bamboo rope, which he purchases and then sells on to a Vietnamese 
wholesaler.  Dong also hires Montagnards as day workers to tend 
his coffee plants and harvest his crop.  He said he pays them 
35,000 Dong (USD 2.15) a day. 
 
6. (SBU) Dong said that the completion of a major hydropower 
project a few miles downstream -- the Dong Nai 3 dam -- will put 
the entire village under water in three to four years.  Dong is 
unconcerned because his second property is in an area unaffected 
by the dam.  He also expects to receive State compensation at a 
reasonably high rate for his coffee farm because his land is 
considered "improved."  He said that, to his knowledge, the 
Montagnards in his village have not sought land in alternate 
locations, nor have they adequately developed the property they 
currently own to maximize the State's compensation payoff. 
 
7. (SBU) During our stay we also spoke with two ethnic Vietnamese 
employees from a local factory that manufactures bamboo toothpicks 
and chopsticks.  The two men had come to the Central Highlands in 
the past few years from Thanh Hoa Province in northern Vietnam. 
They said that all the factory workers were ethnic Vietnamese from 
Vietnam's northern and central coastal provinces.  The two men had 
finished only ninth grade, but they commented that even this 
modest education put them ahead of the local Montagnards.  The 
shopkeeper added that in his experience, the bulk of ethnic 
minority children in the village drop out after fourth grade to 
work at home.  He was not aware of any local ethnic minority 
children from the region that had gone on to attend the high 
school, which is located at the district seat, some 16 kilometers 
away. 
 
8. (SBU) According to Dong, the Montagnards in the area are either 
animist or Catholic.  He is Catholic.  Both he and Montagnard 
Catholics have to travel 30 kilometers to the nearest church; 
priests and religious workers have not come to the village.  He 
observed that relations between ethnic Vietnamese and ethnic 
minorities are correct; the two sides largely keep to themselves. 
(Dong's general store and his home were 500 meters away from the 
Montagnard village.) Dong said there has been no ethnic unrest or 
violence in the area.   There were no ethnic minority villagers 
present during our visit.  There did not appear to be a police 
presence in the immediate area. 
 
WINNICK