US embassy cable - 05HANOI841

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 000841 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, PRM, EAP/BCLTV, EAP/RSP US AID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCRM, PHUM, KWMN, ELAB, SMIG, VM, OMIG, APEC, TIP 
SUBJECT:  VIETNAM HOSTS SIX-COUNTRY TIP MEETING 
 
1. (SBU) Summary and Comment: The ambitious three-day Senior 
Officials Meeting 3 (SOM 3) of the Coordinated Mekong 
Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) was held 
in Hanoi March 29-31.  The purpose of the meeting was to 
translate the MOU signed at the previous COMMIT meeting in 
Rangoon in October 2004 into an action plan: the COMMIT 
Strategic Plan of Action (SPA).  The delegates succeeded in 
agreeing on a plan, which represents a collection of ongoing 
or previously approved projects and programs to combat 
trafficking in persons in the COMMIT region.  They did not 
identify sources of funding for the SPA but donors and NGOs 
present at the meeting agreed that the SPA represented a 
useful coordination framework on which to base regional and 
country-specific funding and program decisions.  There was 
near-unanimous agreement that the ultimate measure of the 
success or failure of the COMMIT process would be found in 
the implementation record for the projects identified in the 
SPA.  Delegates and donors alike were concerned about the 
relative preponderance of seminars and conferences among the 
projected activities.  End Summary and Comment. 
 
GOOD ATTENDANCE.  MAYBE TOO GOOD. 
--------------------------------- 
 
2. (SBU) The SOM was well-attended.  Cambodia was 
represented by Madame You Ay, the Secretary of State of the 
Ministry of Women's Affairs, and China by Huang Taiyun, the 
Deputy Director General of the Department of Criminal 
Legislation of the Standing Committee of the National 
People's Congress.  Laos's delegation chief was Khammoun 
Souphanthong, Director General of the Social Welfare 
Department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. 
Burma's team was led by Gen. Winn Myaing, Chief of the 
Police General Staff.  Thailand was represented by Wanlop 
Pholytabtim, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Social 
Development and Human Security.  General Tran Van Thao, the 
Director of the General Department of Police led the Vietnam 
delegation.  All of the delegations had five or six members, 
with the exception of Vietnam, with eight.  Thailand also 
sent 13 "government observers" from different ministries. 
Vietnam had six observers.  Twenty-eight UN personnel from 
around the region traveled to Hanoi for the meeting, of whom 
seventeen were UN Interagency Project staff.  They were 
joined by three more UNIAP staff from Vietnam, making the 
UNIAP presence at the conference an even 20.  Third country 
diplomats and international organizations in Hanoi filled 
the few remaining chairs. 
 
THE "SPA" 
--------- 
 
3. (SBU) The main purpose of the three-day meeting was to 
endorse the SPA, which is a set of 18 anti-trafficking 
activities/projects grouped within 7 broad categories.  The 
draft SPA was worked up under the guidance of UNIAP, which 
also functions as the COMMIT Secretariat.  "Following the 7 
areas identified in the SPA Framework, the Secretariat 
organized seven roundtable discussions plus a final 
debriefing meeting with various technical working groups 
comprising UN agencies, NGOs and other interested partners 
to provide necessary technical input to the SPA framework as 
requested by the governments.  Some sixteen agencies 
participated in the process.  National consultations were 
also held with COMMIT Task Forces and international agencies 
in all six Mekong countries," UNIAP reported proudly. 
 
FIFTY MORE MEETINGS? 
-------------------- 
 
4. (SBU) The SPA as finalized (forwarded to G/TIP and EAP by 
email) has a variety of different projects and activities, 
but is heavily weighted towards further meetings.  Analysis 
of the SPA documents shows that fifty of the proposed 
activities are meetings, roundtables, workshops, working 
groups or seminars.  Over a three-year period, that comes to 
one regional or bilateral trafficking meeting every three 
weeks.  Other popular project categories are assessments and 
summaries of existing law or practice and research, which 
together represent 29 of the proposed activities.  The only 
other activities that come up more than once are training 
courses (13 times) and information, education and 
communication (IEC) campaigns (four times).  The relative 
lack of concrete activities to directly attack TIP was noted 
with some concern by conference attendees.  You Ay, the 
Cambodian State Secretary for Women's Affairs, expressed her 
concern publicly, saying "regional workshop this, regional 
workshop that - we had better establish concrete outcomes 
from all of this."  One observer from a New Zealand donor 
organization said in an address to the conference "COMMIT is 
important for aligning and integrating national policies 
against TIP.  The priority should be to achieve tangible 
results for TIP victims and against traffickers.  The SPA 
has lots of seminars and workshops, but the measure will be 
concrete achievements." 
 
5. (SBU) Some attendees were more caustic.  Responding to an 
NGO observer's question (on the margins of one of the main 
discussions) about what practical outcomes the UNIAP/COMMIT 
process was buying, a UN official present said bitterly 
"nothing, they are doing nothing.  This is a talk shop with 
no value added and no accomplishments of its own."  Another 
UN official nearby added that although the pledges of 
cooperation and obvious high-level commitment to the issue 
were impressive, the COMMIT process must be supported with 
robust and concrete country-specific programming.  The 
programming in the SPA, the official said, seemed regional 
and not concrete, focused on "expensive and overstaffed 
meetings."  UNIAP Program Manager Phil Robertson, speaking 
to the conference, noted, "UNIAP does not have an 
implementation focus.  We are not an agency, we are a 
process." 
 
WE LIKE IT ANYWAY 
----------------- 
 
6. (SBU) Despite the expressions of concern from the back-of- 
the-room observers and the public statements of some 
participants, in the formal "approval" session at the end of 
the conference all six participating governments declared 
their strong support for the SPA.  Polled separately, all 
the delegations expressed some variation of the Japanese 
diplomatic observer's comment that "it is good to have the 
security and implementing agencies from six countries in one 
venue together.  Regional coordination is positive, in 
general, and should supplement in-depth bilateral agreements 
and solutions between countries." 
 
7. (SBU) There was a great deal of praise for the networking 
benefits of the COMMIT process.  The Asian Development Bank 
(ADB) observer told the conference, "relationships built are 
as important as any documents signed.  The documents we have 
here are a framework to build on and enhance existing 
programs."  Janet Ashby, from the Asia Regional Cooperation 
to Prevent People Trafficking (ARCPPT) in Cambodia, noted 
that if COMMIT achieves its goals, it will make the region a 
global leader in regional and cross-border cooperation.  The 
International Organization for Migration (IOM), United 
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations 
Children's Fund (UNICEF) also expressed their support and 
commitment.  IOM's representative said in her statement to 
the group "the COMMIT process should strengthen our 
commitment and focus our efforts."  United Nations 
Development Program representative Jordan Ryan praised the 
COMMIT process for facilitating "interministerial and 
interagency structures working together and subregional 
structures working together."  Robertson's speech 
highlighted UNIAP's vision of COMMIT as a "unified system of 
work against trafficking at the subregional level." 
 
8. (SBU) Comment:  There was a bit of a disconnect between 
the concrete, country-specific programming everyone agreed 
privately is necessary and the regional, meeting-based 
programming the group agreed on in the SPA, but in all there 
seemed to be consensus that the COMMIT process represents 
progress, and that the symbolic act of senior officials from 
the six countries sitting down with each other and 
discussing coordination and communication was itself a 
tremendous outcome.  The projects in the SPA are those that 
have the political support of the COMMIT countries, and it 
is anticipated that not all the activities will be funded or 
carried out.  It is therefore unlikely that there will be 
funding to hold another meeting every three weeks for the 
next three years.  Still, the USG would be wise to consider 
carefully any TIP project submitted for funding in 
connection with COMMIT or UNIAP and ensure that the 
expenditure, in the words of the New Zealand representative, 
"achieves tangible results for TIP victims and against the 
traffickers." 
 
MARINE