US embassy cable - 03HOCHIMINHCITY251

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000251 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL 
 
E. O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PREF, MOPS, SOCI, PGOV, PREL, KIRF, VM, HUMANR, ETMIN, RELFREE 
SUBJECT: MENNONITES TURN UP THE VOLUME ON COMPLAINTS OF 
PERSECUTION 
 
REF:  HCMC 0111 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (SBU)  In a flurry of conversations with ConGenoffs over the 
past week, a Mennonite church leader and several of his colleagues 
have lodged serious complaints of stepped-up religious repression 
by government officials.  The allegations include arrests, 
beatings, destruction of property, and six cases of poisoning. 
The pastors also asked for assistance in following up on three 
possible POW/MIA cases.  Post is endeavoring to verify the more 
specific allegations, but finds some of them initially more 
credible than others.  However, this pastor has accurately 
reported on specific incidents of GVN harassment in the past.  The 
Mennonites currently claim ten pastors serving 10,000 believers 
nationwide. 
 
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Increased Surveillance in HCMC 
------------------------------ 
 
2.  (SBU)  Last week, Post's primary contact on Mennonite issues 
initiated a rather hurried conversation with an FSN he had met in 
the past.  When they met in a coffee shop the next day, he 
explained that his activities were being closely monitored and he 
didn't feel comfortable mentioning any foreign names.  In addition 
to the claims of around-the-clock surveillance, he believed that 
local gangs were cooperating with the police to intimidate him. 
As proof, he pointed to four vehicular accidents in the past two 
weeks, including one incident where the other driver had yelled: 
"Go to hell.  You're dead."  Two local police had recently visited 
him at home to tell him that he was being closely watched.  The 
officers left with sinister threats to return in force, once their 
superiors had given them the green light. 
 
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Border Guard Turned Pastor 
-------------------------- 
 
3.  (SBU)  A day after this secretive meeting with FSN, the same 
pastor and a colleague apparently felt comfortable enough to meet 
with Poloff at the Consulate General.  He had visited the ConGen 
just a few weeks earlier with several other pastors as well 
(reftel).  This time, he brought along a Mennonite leader from the 
Central Highlands.  This other pastor had been a member of the 
border police until losing his job for sympathizing with 
Christians in 1989.  (His former boss, a Colonel, lost his job in 
1990 for the same reason.)  Since 2000, he had been working 
closely within the Mennonite movement in Dak Lak, Kon Tum, and Gia 
Lai.  He claimed that the provincial authorities had encouraged 
him to register his churches, only to reject the applications 
without explanation. 
 
4.  (SBU)  The Central Highlands pastor had been detained and 
beaten several times over the last 13 years for his religious 
activities.  (He casually remarked that police had beaten him 
about the face two days earlier, although ConGenoffs did not 
observe any marks or bruises, or difficulty in speaking.) 
Moreover, the government had repeatedly refused his applications 
for a residency permit and ID.  (Both pastors asked the ConGen to 
confront provincial authorities on this issue.)  Pressure on his 
Mennonite congregations had forced them to disperse, something he 
was trying to reverse.  In February of this year, police had 
disrupted a service at his home and confiscated religious articles 
and several motorcycles.  (He intimated that the motorcycles may 
have been improperly registered.)  The worshippers were able to 
convince the police not to arrest him, but he was forced to move. 
The house where he now lived with his relatives was under 
extremely close surveillance.  Local officials had threatened to 
prevent the children of those relatives from sitting for the 
national university entrance examination as long as he remained in 
their home. 
 
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Repression in the Central Highlands 
----------------------------------- 
 
5.  (SBU)  The two pastors elaborated on a host of charges over 
the past week, including claims that government officials 
continued to beat and threaten Protestant Banar, Ede, and Gia Rai 
ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands in an effort to 
suppress their religious beliefs.  They accused the GVN of sending 
in military forces to reinforce local police units in enforcing 
restrictions, and pointed to an organized campaign to promote the 
restoration of traditional, ritualistic (i.e., not Christian) 
practices.  While they were short on specifics, and many of the 
abuses cited occurred as long as two years ago, they did offer to 
provide proof.  Unfortunately, their offers to provide evidence in 
the past have sometimes failed to materialize. 
 
6.  (SBU)  In one particular case, the pastors asked ConGen to 
intercede on behalf of over 450 Hmong ethnic minority families who 
had moved from Son La in the North to Dak Lak over the past year 
to escape arrest and persecution for their religious beliefs.  The 
new migrants had reportedly asked the pastors if they should 
resort to using violent means, behavior that the pastors claimed 
to have discouraged as unchristian.  The pastors were proud to say 
that, while the GVN was convinced of their involvement in some of 
the ethnic violence that has plagued the Central Highlands over 
the past two years, they had never pursued such methods.  When 
asked if the congregations were apolitical or non-FULRO, however, 
they were quick to add that while they had never sought out former 
FULRO members for their church, they had never discriminated 
against them either.  In fact, they proudly claimed to have 
trained "both former FULRO members and CPV cadres to become 
leaders of Mennonite congregations." 
 
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A New Province is Heard From 
---------------------------- 
 
7.  (SBU)  The pastors made quite specific claims of GVN 
mistreatment of 700 Xtieng ethnic minority households in Binh 
Phuoc Province, located along the Cambodian border.  According to 
the pastors, nearly 3000 Xtieng in Loc Ninh District had been 
encouraged by the GVN to register their seven Mennonite "sub- 
associations" (house churches).  Instead of legal recognition, 
however, they had incurred greater repression in the form of 
arrests and beatings.  Recently, police and military units had 
bulldozed over 100 hectares of rice fields, leaving the villagers 
to live on just four meals per week.  The pastors promised to 
provide photographs. 
 
8.  (SBU)  In between the two meetings at the ConGen, the pastors 
somehow managed to attend a conference in Loc Ninh that had been 
in the planning stages for some time.  While 150 village leaders 
were able to gather, police prevented another 150 from reaching 
the site.  (In an interesting footnote, the pastors noted that 
police who had ringed the area throughout the meeting were invited 
to join the villagers for lunch while the pastors slipped away.) 
They acknowledged that some of the villagers were "former FULRO 
members," and that the Mennonites had used the village in the past 
as a training site. 
 
----------------------------------- 
Troubling Allegations of Poisonings 
----------------------------------- 
 
9.  (SBU)  The pastors cited six cases of poisonings by government 
agents.  Three of the six were pastors who had been imprisoned in 
Buon Me Thuot in late 2002 and were now dead.  Three other ethnic 
minority religious workers from Kon Tum had lost their memories 
and ability to function after government agents posing as visitors 
from their home villages had poisoned them in Cambodia.  They were 
now living with their families in Pleiku, where the pastors 
claimed to visit them regularly.  (Their local interpreter, also 
an ethnic minority pastor, is a former FULRO member.)  The pastors 
asked for ConGen assistance in arranging blood tests, because they 
were certain they could arrange for ConGenoffs to meet with the 
victims in either HCMC or Pleiku.  Both pastors pointed out that 
such acts of poisoning were common in the Quang Ngai area, the 
home province of several government officials in the Central 
Highlands. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Testing the Waters on POW/MIA Issues 
------------------------------------ 
 
10.  (SBU)  The pastors shared information and photographs they 
had received from various sources purporting to show the remains 
of two American servicemen in the Dalat area.  They had also been 
in contact with someone who claimed to know of an American 
serviceman living with his Vietnamese wife and children in the 
area between Lam Dong and Binh Thuan provinces.  (ConGen is 
already aware of a similar-sounding case that the Joint Task Force- 
Full Accounting investigated last year.)  The pastors expressed 
deep concern that possession of this information might cause 
serious problems for them and their sources.  Poloff promised to 
put the sources in direct contact with someone from JTF-FA at 
Embassy Hanoi. 
 
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Comment 
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11.  (SBU)  Much of the information provided by these two contacts 
contains sufficient detail to be verifiable, but gaining access to 
some of the sites and individuals described will be easier said 
than done.  While some of the information on poisonings appears to 
be new and troubling, most responsible observers have already 
debunked a similar story about three fatal poisonings in Dak Lak. 
The fact that they didn't know the names of the three surviving 
victims was inconsistent with their claims to have visited the men 
regularly now, and been their spiritual guides in the past.  Also 
startling was the emphasis on efforts to legalize the status of 
Mennonite sub-associations, a 180-degree reversal of their policy 
to oppose any accommodation with the GVN.  More troubling was the 
open flaunting of FULRO connections (as "former" as they may be), 
i.e., the frequent references to FULRO members and violence. 
 
12.  (SBU)  While we have enjoyed a generally good relationship 
with Mennonite leaders in the past, the sudden spike in the level 
of histrionics over the past few weeks, coupled with the apparent 
policy reversal on seeking legal recognition and sudden interest 
in POW/MIA cases, leaves Post to wrestle with interesting 
questions of veracity and motive.  Certainly, for the level of 
surveillance they claim to be under, these individuals seem very 
comfortable with coming to the ConGen and traveling widely 
throughout some of the more sensitive regions in the South.  The 
Mennonites have asked the USG to go to bat for them on all of 
these issues and promised to provide evidence.  For now, Post will 
attempt to verify as much of the information as possible and raise 
appropriate points with the relevant local authorities. 
 
YAMAUCHI