US embassy cable - 05HOCHIMINHCITY307

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000307 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
NSC FOR SR. DIRECTOR GREEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, PREL, PGOV, KIRF, VM, RELFREE, HUMANR, ETMIN 
SUBJECT: CONSUL GENERAL FOCUSES ON ETHNIC MINORITY AND DEVELOPMENT 
ISSUES IN CENTRAL HIGHLANDS PROVINCES OF GIA LAI AND KONTUM 
 
REF:  A) HCMC 248; B) HCMC 210; C) 04 HCMC 1590; D) 04 HCMC 1173; 
E) 04 HCMC 1140 
 
1. (SBU) Summary:  A visit to the Central Highlands provinces of 
Gia Lai and Kontum from March 15 to 17 reinforced our view that 
Gia Lai is taking serious steps to address socio-economic and 
religious issues affecting the provinces Montagnard minority.  The 
Deputy Director of the province's Ministry of Public Security 
committed to work directly with the Consulate to resolve 
outstanding Montagnard family reunification cases (Visas 93) and 
pledged to uphold the Tripartite agreement on Montagnard returnees 
with UNHCR.  Leaders of the Protestant and Catholic communities 
confirmed that conditions for religious practice have improved in 
the two provinces over the past few months.  However, until local 
leaders and the Montagnard community close the education gap 
between ethnic Minorities and ethnic Vietnamese in the region, 
Vietnam will be hard pressed to resolve the socio-economic 
problems at the root of the Montagnards' second-class status in 
the province.  This is the last in a series of cables reporting on 
recent visits of the Ambassador and Consul General to the 
Vietnam's Central Highlands provinces (other visits reported refs 
A and B).  End Summary. 
 
Meetings with provincial leaders 
-------------------------------- 
 
2. (SBU) Consul General and PolOff traveled to the Central 
Highlands provinces of Gia Lai and Kontum from March 15 to 17 to 
review religious freedom, economic development and ethnic minority 
issues.  Gia Lai was a center of ethnic minority unrest in 2001 
and 2004.  During the visit, we discussed ethnic minority and 
development issues with the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Gia 
Lai People's Committee, the Chief of Staff of the Kontum People's 
Committee and the Deputy Director of Gia Lai Ministry of Public 
Security (MPS).  The ConGen team also met with Protestant and 
Catholic leaders, local industry, visited a boarding school for 
ethnic minorities and an ethnic minority village.  The visit, 
which took place on the eve of the region's 30th anniversary 
celebrations of the area's "liberation," was covered positively by 
local media. 
 
3. (SBU) People's Committee Chairman of Gia Lai province, Deputies 
of the Committees for Religious and Minority affairs in Gia Lai 
and Chief of Staff of the Kontum People's Committee, emphasized 
their commitment to resolve socio-economic and religious freedom 
issues affecting the provinces' ethnic minorities.  However, the 
provinces would not tolerate "hostile forces" undermining GVN 
control.  In his meetings, and in a very frank dinner exchange 
with one of the Vice Chairmen of the Gia Lai People's Committee, 
the CG stressed that it was apparent that "outside elements" were 
helping to fan unrest in the Central Highlands.  However, merely 
blaming outsiders was not credible; the province needed to move 
aggressively to address underlying socio-economic inequities, 
prejudices and discrimination that foster Montagnard discontent. 
The CG also pushed provincial leaders to be more open in dealing 
with diplomats and the international media: the greater their 
transparency, the easier it will be for Vietnam to debunk 
unfounded allegations. 
 
4.  (SBU) The officials stressed that they are implementing 
faithfully Hanoi's new legal framework on religion.  They pointed 
to the province's facilitation of widespread Christmas 
celebrations despite the threat of unrest (ref C) and said that 
relations with religious leaders are improving.    Provincial 
officials in Gia Lai and Kontum also emphasized that they have 
expanded assistance programs for the province's ethnic minorities. 
Gia Lai Provincial leaders said they had ended state-supported in- 
migration of ethnic Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese) and now forbid the 
sale of land between Montagnards and ethnic Kinh.  However, Gia 
Lai provincial officials said they are unwilling to turn away 
"spontaneous" migrants.  In Kontum, the Chief of Staff of the 
People's Committee told the CG that the province's is not nearly 
as fertile as Gia Lai.  As a result the province has not 
experienced the migration flows and land disputes of neighboring 
Central Highlands provinces.  (Note:  in 1975, the population of a 
combined Gia Lai-Kontum province was 500,000.  Today, the 
population of Gia Lai is 1.1 million and Kontum only 360,000.  End 
Note.) 
 
UNHCR Tripartite Agreement and Visas 93 
--------------------------------------- 
 
5. (SBU) Gia Lai provincial leaders, including the MPS Deputy, 
said they would implement fully the UNHCR tripartite agreement. 
They confirmed that 13 Montagnards were repatriated successfully 
from Cambodia a few days earlier and said that they province would 
work to ensure their reintegration.  In this regard, the province 
has provided each returnee 500,000 dong (USD 30) and a parcel of 
land.  (Provincial officials claimed that many Montagnards had 
sold their land before crossing the border into Cambodia.)  The 
Police Deputy also said that the returnees would not be prosecuted 
for illegally crossing into Cambodia.  He added that the province 
would "consider favorably" a future ConGen request to visit 
Montagnard returnees. 
 
6. (SBU) The MPS official said that his agency would work closely 
with the Consulate to resolve quickly outstanding family 
reunification cases involving ethnic minority applicants (Visas 93 
cases).  He said that no Montagnard that wished to travel would be 
prevented from doing so, but cautioned that an applicant must 
settle outstanding debts before a passport could be issued.  He 
denied that the province had ever obstructed a Montagnard's 
departure and explained that sometimes petition-holders in fact 
did not wish to emigrate or, if they did, had not yet begun to 
process their passport application.  However, the petitioner in 
the U.S. somehow interpreted this to mean that the province was 
obstructing the application.  The CG emphasized that increased 
transparency in the process would help eliminate such 
misconceptions and that increased cooperation between the ConGen 
and the MPS on Visas 93 is a win-win scenario for the families and 
the province. 
 
Religious Practitioners acknowledge some improvement 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
7. (SBU) Representatives of the Southern Evangelical Church of 
Vietnam (SECV) and the Bishop of Kontum (the diocese covers Gia 
Lai and Kontum provinces) said that conditions for religious 
worship had improved in the past six months.  The SECV's house 
churches are allowed to operate freely.  The SECV is planning to 
petition for recognition of all its house churches in Gia Lai 
under Vietnam's new legal framework on religion.  SECV pastors 
said that they now are able to travel around the entire province 
without prior notification, although they continue to remain under 
police surveillance.  They added that the SECV in the province has 
worked to build a more positive relationship with local officials 
down to the village level and has taken great pains to ensure that 
"Dega separatism" is not a characteristic of their churches.  The 
Bishop of Kontum told us that the situation has improved modestly 
for the diocese's 200,000 Catholics.  The Bishop has begun to 
apply the Ordinance on Religion to appoint new priests and to 
assign new candidates to the Hue seminary in order to address a 
shortage of 160 priests. 
 
Economy lagging: good jobs scarce 
--------------------------------- 
 
8. (SBU) While local officials claim that the region's agrarian- 
based economy grew by 10 percent in 2004, 2005 looks to be a very 
difficult year for agriculture in the Central Highlands.  Local 
coffee traders told us that Gia Lai province's coffee harvest -- a 
key cash crop -- will be halved because of ongoing drought.  More 
broadly, visits with local entrepreneurs demonstrated how hard it 
is for the geographically isolated Central Highlands to develop d 
industry.  Gia Lai has been unable to attract FDI.  Its only 
industrial park, opened in 2002, and is less than 50 percent full. 
Of the park's 25 projects, only one, a USD one million project to 
cut and polish granite, is from a domestic investor outside the 
province.  The industrial park's 600 workers are all ethnic Kinh; 
ethnic minorities thus far are only hired as day laborers.  The 
Park's management told us that despite provincial financial 
incentives, the companies are reluctant to hire Montagnards that 
they consider less qualified educationally. 
 
9. (SBU) A visit to an export-oriented furniture manufacturer in 
Kontum demonstrated that even this sector, which was supposed to 
be a jobs generator for the region, has stagnated since local 
logging was halted to prevent further deforestation.  Companies 
must truck in timber from coastal ports, sharply eating into 
profits.  The factory owner indicated that jobs growth in his 
company would be in his new factory in the coastal port of Quy 
Nhon, not in Kontum. 
 
Montagnard Education Deficit Compounds Problems 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
10. (SBU) The Bishop of Kontum, the SECV leaders, local provincial 
officials all expressed concern over the yawning education gap 
between the provinces' Montagnard and ethnic Kinh communities.  A 
Montagnard leader agreed, telling us privately during a village 
visit that education is not a top priority for many in his 
community and that Montagnard children routinely drop out of 
school by 9th grade.  Statistics from Gia Lai province bear out 
our discussion with the Montagnard elder.  Of the 31,265 high 
school students in Gia Lai province, only 4,984 or 16 percent are 
ethnic minority.  (Montagnards comprise about 50 percent of the 
province's population.)  The Bishop of Kontum and the MPS Deputy 
told us that the average Montagnard does not have the educational 
skills needed to take advantage of the agricultural extension and 
vocational training programs that the provinces fund.  As a result 
Montagnards cannot compete for higher-skill, higher-paying jobs 
and their crop yields are significantly lower than their ethnic 
Kinh counterparts. 
 
11. (SBU) Comment:  Our visits to the Central Highlands make it 
clear that land, education and jobs are the principal factors 
driving ethnic minority unrest in the Central Highlands.  Dak Lak, 
perhaps the richest and most fertile of the Central Highlands 
provinces has attracted the most in-migration, has the hardest 
line government and has seen the strongest ethnic minority 
backlash.  On the other end of the scale, impoverished Kontum, 
with poor soil and poor weather, has attracted little in-migration 
and has had seen little inter-ethnic tension. 
 
12. (SBU) It is notable is that provincial officials in Gia Lai, 
which falls closer to Dak Lak than to Kontum on the economic 
scale, appeared far more serious and committed to resolving ethnic 
minority issues than their counterparts in Dak Lak.  Since our 
last visit to Gia Lai in September 2004 (refs D and E), Gia Lai 
province has made some progress in easing restrictions on 
religious practitioners, particularly the Protestant Community. 
It also has moved away from polices that encouraged the migration 
of ethnic Kinh to the province in an effort to reduce minority- 
majority tensions over land.  Also of interest are the commitments 
from Gia Lai People's Committee and Police officials to work with 
us to resolve outstanding Visa 93 cases and to respect the UNHCR 
Tripartite agreement.  In coming months these verbal commitments 
will be put to the test; for example, Gia Lai will have to respond 
to SECV and Catholic Church initiatives stemming from Vietnam's 
new legal framework on religion.  We will seek to build on this 
successful visit to broaden our dialogue with the provinces on 
economic development and education reform, issues that go to the 
heart of the Montagnards' second-class status in the region.  We 
will continue to urge Gia Lai and Kontum provinces to provide 
ethnic minorities with a greater political voice in decisions that 
affect the province, as well as to encourage the provinces to 
partner with NGOs and other international organizations to bring 
in vital development expertise and funding.  End Comment. 
 
WINNICK