US embassy cable - 05HOCHIMINHCITY581

UNCLAS  HO CHI MINH CITY 000581 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, PREL, PGOV, VM, HUMANR, RELFREE 
SUBJECT: MOUNTING CONCERNS ABOUT PASTOR TRAN VAN TRUONG 
 
REF:  HCMC 493 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: On May 27, we traveled to the province of Dong 
Nai to meet with provincial and medical officials regarding Pastor 
Than Van Truong.  Per reftel, Truong was diagnosed as "delusional" 
and involuntarily committed to a mental institution after a series 
of run-ins with police, largely involving critical letters he 
wrote to Party leaders.  Our sense is that Truong, extremely 
devout and politically aware, is being punished for his attempts 
to express peacefully his political and religious views.  We have 
urged HCMC and Dong Nai authorities to find a swift and proper 
resolution to this case.  We cautioned that in allowing the case 
to fester, Dong Nai risks having its reputation as a progressive 
center of business and trade sullied, just as it is preparing to 
send a provincial trade mission to the United States.  We stressed 
that the Dong Nai Prosecutor's office should request an immediate 
review and reevaluation of Truong's case.  End Summary. 
 
Following Up on the case of Than Van Truong 
------------------------------------------- 
 
2. (SBU) On May 27 we met with the Deputy Director of Dong Nai 
Province's Ministry of Public Security, the Chief of Staff of the 
provincial People's Committee, and the head of the provincial 
Committee for Religious Affairs (CRA) to discuss the case of Than 
Van Truong.  (Per reftel, Truong has been involuntarily committed 
to a mental institution in Dong Nai Province since October 2004, 
reportedly for the peaceful expression of his religious and 
political beliefs.)  The MPS official dominated the discussion for 
the Vietnamese side.  He told us that the police had dropped all 
criminal charges against Truong following the decision of the 
provincial medical examination board that Truong was not fit 
mentally to defend himself in court.  Therefore, the police have 
no further involvement in the case.  Truong's treatment and 
release, he noted, is a matter between the mental hospital and the 
prosecutor's office, which had referred him to the hospital for 
evaluation. 
 
3. (SBU) The MPS official said that Truong had come under police 
scrutiny and had been detained for eight months in 2003 and 2004 
for "using materials from overseas to lure others to oppose the 
GVN."  He refused to describe or discuss further what these 
materials were or the specific criminal acts that Truong had 
committed.  He claimed that "as a matter of principle" the 
Consulate General would have to send the province another 
diplomatic note requesting the information.  We would receive that 
information "within 24 hours" after submitting our request. 
(Note:  we sent such a request on the evening of May 27, although 
our three previous diplomatic notes clearly had indicated that we 
wished to discuss Truong's case in detail.  As of COB on May 31, 
we have not yet received the requested information.) 
 
4. (SBU) The MPS official said that prior to Truong's arrest, 
neighbors reportedly complained that he was trying to evangelize 
them and to convince them to oppose the GVN.  While in pre-trial 
detention Truong was not behaving "like a normal person" and thus 
was released -- after eight months -- into the recognizance of his 
family.  However, the MPS official would not detail Truong's 
abnormal behavior.  He confirmed that Truong was not threatening 
or violent, nor had he undertaken any overt anti-GVN acts. 
 
5. (SBU) The MPS and CRA officials indicated that Truong's 
evangelizing activities were problematic as he was "not really a 
pastor."  The CRA official argued that in order to evangelize, a 
person must be ordained by a recognized church; in the case of 
Protestants, by the Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam.  After 
some sharp exchanges, the CRA official admitted that his office 
had not investigated Truong's background to ascertain his status 
within Vietnam's unofficial house church movement.  He grudgingly 
acknowledged that Truong could have some status within an 
unrecognized house church organization.  When we expressed concern 
that this case might set a worrying precedent for action against 
other house church leaders in the province, the officials tried to 
reassure us that Truong had not been prosecuted for his religious 
beliefs.  The province allows 24 "unrecognized" house churches to 
operate in the province, they noted; seven or eight have 
registered under Vietnam's new legal framework on religion. 
 
6. (SBU) The closest we came to receiving any specifics about the 
case in our government meeting is when we asked what the province 
would expect of Truong were he to be released.  The MPS Deputy 
said that Truong should live like a "normal citizen" and not write 
any documents opposing the government. 
 
Meeting with Medical Staff 
-------------------------- 
 
7. (SBU) Following our meeting with provincial officials, we met 
with the Director of Central Mental Hospital #2 as well as with 
the head of the criminal ward of the hospital.  (Truong's 
 
attending physician also was present, although nervous and silent 
throughout.)  The Director told us that Truong had been diagnosed 
with a "persistent delusional disorder."  The Director said that 
part of the delusional behavior involved his Protestant faith in 
that his belief was "too strong" and passed the borderline between 
normal and abnormal.  Other than specific delusional acts, his 
emotions, speech and behavior were "normal."  He was not violent 
or threatening. 
 
8. (SBU) As evidence for his delusional behavior, the Director 
said that Truong had asserted that he did not need to be ordained 
by anyone other than God, that God had ordained him through the 
bible and that he considered himself the closest person to God. 
Truong reportedly believed that "God commands the sun and the 
earth."  The Director also cited an incident on April 30 when 
Truong dressed in a military uniform -- he is an ex-Army officer - 
- and with other inmates sang revolutionary songs in celebration 
of Vietnam's unification.  If he were a sane political or 
religious dissident, the Director observed, he would not criticize 
the Party and Chairman Ho at one moment and pose in uniform the 
next.  We replied that there was nothing inconsistent with a 
former military man celebrating Vietnam's unification while still 
holding views critical of the GVN or Party.  "You could be right," 
the Director mumbled. 
 
9. (SBU) We asked the Director what were the specific problems 
that had led the police and prosecution to refer Truong to the 
hospital for evaluation.  The only information the police provided 
was a set of letters -- some directed to the Party's General 
Secretary -- that sharply critiqued the ethics of Party leaders, 
 
SIPDIS 
Ho Chi Minh and traditional Vietnamese cultural myths.  These 
letters advised the Party to abandon Marxism-Leninism and to 
follow the Bible.  They contained a "complicated logic" and 
"illogically constructed ideas" that were symptomatic of delusion. 
The letters, however, did not contain any threats to the Party or 
to GVN leaders.  The Director  said that these letters reflected 
mental illness as "religious people do not curse or criticize the 
society in which they live." 
 
10. (SBU) Continuing his explanation, the Director said that, in a 
Marxist-Leninist society, one might oppose the government, but one 
would voice opposition in secret.  The fact that an individual 
would attack the government openly clearly makes that person mad. 
In Vietnam, "most people, even the religious minority, follow the 
Party and do not call Marxism-Leninism a lie, a cheat and cruel." 
The fact that Truong did -- and criticized Ho Chi Minh in the 
process -- is a sign of his mental instability.  He added that as 
laypersons, we did not have the technical ability to comprehend 
the subtleties of a difficult condition such as a delusional 
disorder. 
 
11. (SBU) The Director told us that, because a delusional person 
cannot be convinced of the illogic of his views, conventional 
therapy is useless.  As a result, Truong's only treatment had been 
to receive the anti-psychotic Haloperidol.  If Truong stopped 
having "extreme beliefs," he could be released.  Barring that, he 
could be in the hospital for the rest of his life.  As he had been 
involuntarily committed, it would be up to the Dong Nai 
Prosecutor's Office to request a reevaluation.  While the patient 
can request an independent psychiatric evaluation, it would be up 
to the Prosecutor whether or not to accept these findings, if they 
are at variance with the hospital's views.  The doctor noted that 
since May 20, Truong's Haloperidol treatment had been discontinued 
on the orders of Truong's attending physician. 
 
An Alternate View 
----------------- 
 
12. (SBU) The day prior to our visit to Dong Nai we had a text- 
message exchange with Truong's attending physician (strictly 
protect).  As part of the hospital's preparations for our visit, 
he had been summoned by the hospital director and asked for his 
views on Truong's condition. He reportedly had told the Director 
that Truong did not appear "so mentally ill that he needed to stay 
in the hospital."  In a subsequent conversation with us, the 
doctor advised that a non-Vietnamese doctor should conduct any 
independent medical review, as a local physician would not dare 
issue an opinion different from that of the hospital. 
 
Meeting with Truong 
------------------- 
 
13. (SBU) After some negotiation and a two-hour delay we were 
allowed to see Truong for 20 minutes.  The director of the 
hospital's criminal ward, provincial officials and a police 
videographer remained throughout the meeting, despite our requests 
to meet in private.  We asked Truong why he thought he was in a 
mental institution.  He replied calmly and matter-of-factly that 
he had written letters to the Party Secretary and others 
criticizing Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh and advising the 
 
leadership to follow God and the Bible.  He said that he had 
expected to be imprisoned or even killed for expressing his views, 
but not sent to a mental institution.  He asserted that God had 
saved him and that he must try to bring the Bible to Vietnam's 
leaders.  He would never be violent or threatening, as such acts 
were against God's word.  He had not been physically abused in the 
hospital. 
 
14. (SBU) Truong was firm that he could be considered a pastor 
under the criteria laid out by the Baptist General Conference.  He 
had been called by God to evangelize, had trained in theology and 
had successfully led believers and established congregations on a 
number of occasions.  (A leading pastor within that Baptist 
organization later confirmed Truong's claim.)  Were he to be 
released, he would seek to "rejoin his family and worship God in 
accordance with the laws of Vietnam."  He wished to have an 
independent medical evaluation. 
 
15. (SBU) Comment:  We found Truong no different from other 
extremely devout or politically impassioned people we have met in 
Vietnam.  While his writing the Party on politics and religion is 
highly unusual in Vietnam even the police agree that Truong is non- 
violent and non-threatening.  His indefinite involuntary 
commitment strikes us as retributional and not therapeutic.  If 
Truong showed the same degree of passion in favor of Marxism- 
Leninism he would not be in his current predicament.  It thus 
appears that Truong was hospitalized as a direct result of his 
attempts to express peacefully political and religious beliefs at 
odds with those of the Party.  Both the Dong Nai Hospital Director 
and his assistant asserted that Truong's involuntary commitment to 
a mental institution is a humane alternative to prison. 
 
16. (SBU) Through a variety of channel we have and will continue 
to urge the  authorities to find a swift and proper resolution to 
this case.  We cautioned that if it allows this case to fester, 
Dong Nai risks damaging its reputation as a progressive center of 
commerce and trade.  We stressed that the Dong Nai prosecution 
should request a formal, transparent and independent review of 
Truong's condition as a possible precursor to his release.  End 
comment. 
 
WINNICK 
 
 
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