US embassy cable - 05HANOI2040

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 002040 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, PHUM, CB, VM, ASEAN, ETMIN, HUMANR 
SUBJECT:  UNHCR Bangkok rep visits Hanoi, debriefs 
Ambassador and diplomatic community on his visit to the 
Central Highlands 
 
REF: (A) Hanoi 1972 and previous, (B) HCMC 811 and previous 
 
1. (SBU) Summary:  UNHCR Regional Representative Hasim Utkan 
briefed the Ambassador August 5 on his recent trip with 
UNHCR's Hanoi Chief of Mission, Vu Anh Son, to Gia Lai 
Province in the Central Highlands.  Gia Lai is where nearly 
all of the 94 migrants recently deported from Cambodia 
arrived.  Utkan subsequently met with Deputy Foreign 
Minister Le Cong Phung and then with the diplomatic and NGO 
community at a local hotel.  Utkan reported that UNHCR staff 
were able to travel whenever they wished, wherever they 
wished, and were able to meet whomever they wished, though 
he was accompanied by GVN officials for part of the trip. 
He added that the deportees did not appear to have been 
mistreated.  The Ambassador and Utkan also discussed the 
status of UNHCR's request for an international chief of 
mission for its Hanoi office and concerns regarding Khmer 
Krom populations in Cambodia and Thailand as well as 
Cambodian refugees in Vietnam.  End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU) On August 5 UNHCR Regional Representative Hasim 
Utkan told the Ambassador that he had traveled to the 
Central Highlands with UNHCR Hanoi Chief of Mission Vu Anh 
Son August 2-4.  They had chosen their dates of travel, he 
said, after the GVN told them they could go "whenever they 
wished."  While in Gia Lai, they met the Deputy Chairman of 
the Provincial People's Committee and visited two districts: 
Ia Grai and Chu Se.  In Ia Grai, they met ten returnees in 
two groups, one group of three and one of seven.  The 
returnees were from different communes.  Utkan noted that 
they were allowed to see any individual they asked for by 
name, including those who had been identified by NGOs as 
being at risk of abuse or retaliation if they returned to 
Vietnam.  Utkan said he also was able to visit one returnee 
who had been returned in March and who NGO groups had said 
was in jail.  (He was not.)  Of the ten returnees they 
visited in Ia Grai, six were from the group of 94 recently 
returned, and four had previously been voluntarily 
repatriated.  Utkan said UNHCR was seeing some of them for 
the second or third time since May, so they were becoming 
familiar, and UNHCR had increasing confidence that they are 
not being mistreated.  He confirmed that the returnees he 
saw had received assistance in the form of rice, cooking 
oil, seeds and seedlings and food.  One of the returnees 
seemed "shy and withdrawn," but the others were forthcoming. 
"Their attitude was more bored than nervous," he reported. 
 
3. (SBU) Utkan asked the returnees, whom he characterized as 
"young," why they had left.  They responded that "others 
have left before."  The returnees said they had paid 200- 
300,000 dong (13-20 USD) to an unidentified "organizer" who 
helped them with the logistics of the journey. 
 
4. (SBU) Utkan said that he had been accompanied by one 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Consular Department official, 
one journalist and two representatives of the People's 
Committee.  He did not think any of the officials were 
plainclothes security officers.  The People's Committee had 
originally agreed to allow private meetings, but the meeting 
place in the first village was a one-room building, and 
there was a giant rainstorm, so as a result the officials 
needed to be in the same room during the interviews for 
shelter.  In the second village, he was able to meet with 
the returnees alone. 
 
5. (SBU) One of those interviews was with a returnee that 
Jesuit Relief Services had singled out as being in danger of 
retaliation if he returned to Vietnam.  Utkan spoke to him 
alone and learned that the returnee is the son of the 
village chief.  After his return, he had a job offer to work 
at a state-owned farm and had applied for 4,000 square 
meters of land for cultivation.  He also had a backup job 
offer available if the farm job turned out to be 
unattractive to him.  Two other returnees also had offers to 
work at state farms, Utkan said. 
 
6. (SBU) The UNHCR team traveled further into Gia Lai 
Province to visit a vocational center, where they met eight 
returnees, four of whom were recent returnees.  All eight 
had begun an agricultural production course.  Utkan 
described their attitude as "relaxed" and said that the 
local officials "seemed to have received the message to 
cooperate with us."  UNHCR had come with a list of its own 
cases of concern and had been able to meet with every single 
individual they sought. 
 
7. (SBU) Utkan told the Ambassador he had raised the issue 
of "refuseniks," or migrants eligible for resettlement who 
refused to accept resettlement offers, with the Cambodian 
Foreign Minister, and had recommended to the FM that the 
Cambodian Government (RCG) would be better off putting 
refuseniks in jail rather than deporting them to Vietnam. 
Due to the notoriety of some of these individuals, it would 
be very difficult to demonstrate that they would not face 
persecution in Vietnam, Utkan noted. 
 
8. (SBU) Utkan told the Ambassador he had suggested to UNHCR 
Geneva that the High Commissioner write to the Cambodian 
Minister of Foreign Affairs to encourage the RCG to review 
the accomplishments of the trilateral MOU and determine 
where the MOU is not working, as well as discuss refuseniks 
and deportations.  The High Commissioner had sent that 
letter to both the Cambodian and Vietnamese Ministries of 
Foreign Affairs.  The letter also encouraged Vietnam to 
accept the international chief of mission candidate that 
UNHCR has proposed for UNHCR's Hanoi office. 
9. (SBU) The Ambassador praised Vu Anh Son's work as COM of 
UNHCR's Vietnam office and advised Utkan that he had heard 
that the GVN is resistant to the idea of a foreign UNHCR 
head in Vietnam.  The GVN sees adding a foreigner to UNHCR's 
Vietnam office as raising the profile of that office and 
thus indicating that there is a larger problem than actually 
exists.  The arguments the United States has made in favor 
of an international COM have not carried the day, he said, 
and UNHCR should be prepared for a negative response from 
the GVN.  The Ambassador encouraged Utkan to consider when 
continued pressure for international staff will become 
counterproductive for UNHCR.  A more effective strategy 
might be to press for unrestricted access to the Central 
Highlands and other areas from Bangkok, including by the 
individual UNHCR has in mind for a permanent posting in 
Hanoi.  Utkan was receptive to that suggestion, noting that 
this would allow the individual (reportedly an Italian) to 
contribute productively to UNHCR's efforts rather than 
waiting fruitlessly for agrement from the GVN. 
 
10. (SBU) Utkan admitted that "all decisions on status 
determinations for Vietnamese migrants" are now made based 
on Human Rights Watch reports.  "This is not good," he said. 
One key reason for appointing an international chief of 
mission for the Vietnam office is to provide a credible 
alternative to the reports produced by HRW and others. 
UNHCR suspects the situation is more positive than UNHCR 
hears from NGOs.  He acknowledged that 90 percent of UNHCR's 
concerns in Vietnam originate in Gia Lai Province, and that 
it is possible to get Son to that province within three days 
of an allegation.  Utkan also noted that in recent months he 
has not heard the usual allegations of beatings and torture, 
and that on his own trip to the region he did not see any 
evidence of that sort of abuse. 
 
11. (SBU) Utkan advised the Ambassador that UNHCR's 
Executive Committee will meet at the end of September and 
will address the issue of Southeast Asia and Vietnam.  The 
week before that meeting will be devoted to discussions and 
consultations with NGOs.  Utkan said it is very important 
that UNHCR be well-informed for that meeting, and so UNHCR 
plans another trip to the Central Highlands soon, possibly 
before the end of August. 
 
NON-CENTRAL HIGHLANDS CONCERNS 
------------------------------ 
 
12. (SBU) Central Highlands migrants are not UNHCR's only 
concern in Vietnam, Utkan told the Ambassador.  UNHCR has 
recently received an increased number of applications for 
refugee status from Khmer Krom in Phnom Penh and Bangkok. 
In Bangkok, all the claims were rejected, while the Phnom 
Penh claims are still in the processing stage, with one 
claim accepted.  The Khmer Krom issue has been dormant for 
years, Utkan explained, with perhaps four or five 
applications in the space of two years, but former King 
Sihanouk began agitating three or four months ago and 
brought the issue to the forefront.  The largest group of 
Khmer Krom is living in a pagoda in Phnom Penh, he said, and 
this population said in the past it wants living assistance 
rather than resettlement.  In recent days, however, they 
have asked for resettlement, encouraged by a group called 
the Khmer Krom Federation which UNHCR believes has a close 
connection to the Montagnard Foundation. 
 
13. (SBU) In Phnom Penh, Utkan continued, UNHCR passed the 
question of Khmer Krom status to the RCG, which has issued a 
formal statement saying that all Khmer Krom are Cambodian 
citizens.  In Bangkok, the Khmer Krom who were rejected for 
refugee status are the Royal Thai Government's problem; all 
have disappeared into Bangkok where they are believed to be 
living illegally.  Utkan said he is personally uncomfortable 
with the decision to grant refugee status in the one case in 
Cambodia, because the case is weak.  However, he said, 
withdrawing status "is a nightmare" so it will probably 
stand. 
 
14. (SBU) Another issue on the horizon, Utkan said, is the 
more than 10,000 Cambodian refugees of Chinese origin who 
currently reside in refugee camps, in Ho Chi Minh City and 
in Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam.  They came over 
from Cambodia in 1979, and the RCG denies that they are 
Cambodian citizens, so they remain in a kind of stateless 
limbo.  Utkan told Econoff later that he had suggested to 
Vice Foreign Minister Phung that Vietnam should grant 
Vietnamese nationality to the Cambodian refugees in order to 
solve the problem of their status.  Phung's response was 
that the Cambodian issue is "very delicate" for the GVN. 
 
15. (SBU) Utkan also told Econoff that Phung confirmed with 
him that Vietnam is willing to permit its citizens to 
immigrate to the United States under the "family 
reunification program."  Phung told Utkan that Prime 
Minister Phan Van Khai "expressed concern" over the delays 
in departures under that program.  (Note: It is not clear 
whether the PM or Phung are talking about the Humanitarian 
Resettlement program or the Visas 93 follow-to-join cases. 
If it is the latter, they certainly should know that the 
delays in departures are caused entirely by obstructionist 
bureaucrats mainly in Dak Lak Province.  The Ambassador and 
the rest of the Mission have raised this issue repeatedly at 
every level of the GVN.  End Note.) 
 
MARINE