TIP IN VIETNAM: DISTRACTION FROM THE REAL ISSUE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 002499 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE FOR G/TIP, EAP/BCLTV, EAP/RSP, INL/AAE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM KWMN KCRM ELAB VM OMIG TIP LABOR SUBJECT: TIP IN VIETNAM: DISTRACTION FROM THE REAL ISSUE ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) used a recent meeting with Emboffs and a visiting G/TIP officer to complain about the decision to resurrect a five year-old labor trafficking case in the 2004 TIP report. MOLISA challenged some of the facts in the case and advised us to be aware that the victims in the case had "complicated motivations" that should be weighed carefully in the assessment of their allegations. Embassy notes that this was a one-time case that occurred five years ago and has not recurred, despite the fact that the number of workers leaving Vietnam each year has gone up over four hundred percent. In the years since the victims were trafficked, there have been significant changes and reforms in Vietnam's labor export laws, and the officials responsible for the original abuses have been arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, imprisoned, and after serving their time, released. The USG's continued concentration on this historic case hurts our efforts to engage Vietnam on more pressing aspects of the TIP problem, and damages our credibility in other areas of the relationship. End summary. -------------- -------------- MOLISA: WE THOUGHT THIS CASE WAS HISTORY, BUT SINCE YOU BRING IT UP. . . . -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) Nguyen Manh Cuong, the Deputy Director of MOLISA's International Cooperation Department, said to visiting G/TIP staffer Leaksmy Norin in a meeting September 8 that MOLISA was "not satisfied" with the contents of the 2004 TIP report on Vietnam. He was referring in particular to the mention of the Daewoosa case, which he noted was "long ago" and a source of "complicated misunderstandings" between the United States and Vietnam. ¶3. (U) At the meeting, Cuong's colleague, Vu Minh Xuan, deputy chief of the Marketing Section of the Department of Overseas Labor (DOLAB),launched into an impassioned defense of the two labor export companies implicated in the Daewoosa case. He stated that there had been no exploitation of workers and that, on the contrary, work conditions for Vietnamese Daewoosa workers were better than they were for other laborers in American Samoa. He said he himself had visited the factory and could attest to this, as well as the fact that the labor export companies had obeyed their contracts and all necessary procedures. Norin and Poloff both responded to Xuan, noting that the fact of exploitation and abusive labor conditions at the Daewoosa factory had been established beyond a doubt, and suggested that the factory owners had misled Xuan during his visit. Cuong, visibly displeased with Xuan, shut down his colleague's efforts to protest further the facts of the case. ¶4. (U) Cuong stipulated that the workers in the Daewoosa case had been abused, but added that some of the workers had "complicated motivations" in making accusations against Vietnam. Some of them, he noted, were associated with "hostile forces" in the U.S. [Note: "hostile forces" is a term the GVN often uses to describe certain vocal groups of former Vietnamese refugees who continue to try to undermine the Vietnamese government and U.S.-SRV relations. End note.] Also, he noted to Poloff after the meeting, some of the victims wanted to stay in the United States and some had filed civil suits. "We have discussed all of this for many hours already," Cuong noted during the meeting, "several years ago when this case occurred. I thought we understood each other then, but now it seems we have to do it again." Cuong offered to open a new dialogue on the Daewoosa case with U.S. Embassy officers to help improve the USG's understanding of the GVN position. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Comment: The atmospherics of the MOLISA meeting were chilly. Even leaving aside the somewhat extreme revisionist history espoused by DOLAB's marketing officer, the GVN does not see why the USG would bring up an isolated five year-old case except as a political exercise in Vietnam- bashing. As Cuong pointed out, many of the facts in the Daewoosa case were established through depositions and affidavits taken from victims, and allegations of abuse of returned victims came from those with links to anti-SRV groups and from those who were simultaneously applying for asylum. The allegations of abuse of returned victims have never, to our knowledge, been independently verified. The GVN maintains that the victims in the Daewoosa case have "complicated" motivations that should be weighed when evaluating claims of abuse. ¶6. (U) Comment continued: The two Vietnamese companies involved in the Daewoosa case, IMS and TC-12, were and are for-profit entities owned by GVN ministries. However, they did not and do not function as "utilities" or take day-to- day direction and management from the GVN. The GVN's sanction of these companies and the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of the companies' senior executives for crimes related to the Daewoosa case appear to demonstrate that they were not acting in accordance with GVN policy or instructions. The GVN maintains that the case represented the actions of rogue executives who were subsequently punished. The fact that, in the five years since the case, no similar cases have occurred supports that assertion. ¶7. (U) Comment continued: Since the Daewoosa case, the GVN has made significant changes to its labor code, including the way labor export is administered. New protections include: - the codification of the rights and responsibilities of both labor export companies and workers, which gives workers a legal foundation on which to base efforts to seek compensation from labor export companies in disputes; - the establishment of nine labor attache positions in the top consumer countries for Vietnamese labor to allow the GVN to collect information directly on working conditions and labor disputes without filtering it through interested parties, either workers or labor export companies; - the funding of a new account for the protection and welfare of overseas workers, allowing the GVN to assist overseas workers in distress without requiring them to rely on the labor export companies or their overseas employers; - the creation of standards of operation for labor export companies and mechanisms for evaluation, monitoring, and de-licensing if necessary. Finally, in particularly difficult or high-profile cases, such as the series of labor disputes involving Vietnamese workers on construction sites in Malaysia in early 2004, MOLISA will send inspectors and officials to supplement the labor attache office's efforts to establish facts and assist workers. ¶8. (U) Comment continued: The absence of repeat Daewoosa- style labor exploitation cases involving Vietnamese workers or Vietnamese labor export companies in the five years since the Daewoosa workers were trafficked in 1999 (despite a more than 400 percent increase in the number of workers sent overseas) is a result of two complementary factors: the deterrent created by the severe sanctions applied to IMS and TC12 and their managers; and the substantial profits available to labor export companies from the high and growing legitimate demand for workers. ¶9. (U) Comment continued: The GVN has made significant efforts to reconcile the competing goals of protecting worker interests and promoting labor export despite operating in the administrative and regulatory context of a developing country with limited human and material resources. The fact that no labor trafficking cases have been reported by any source in the five years since the trafficking of the Daewoosa victims is proof that, whatever systemic weaknesses may remain in the Vietnamese labor export sector, they are not severe. ¶10. (U) Comment continued: In contrast, trafficking of women and children to China, Cambodia, and further afield is a significant and possibly increasing problem. The GVN is seriously concerned about this and is applying increasing financial and political resources to it. U.S. engagement on trafficking in Vietnam would be much more effective - and more welcome - if it focused on the daily reality of sex- related trafficking instead of the hypothetical possibility of a recurrence of a problem that occurred once five years ago. ¶11. (U) Comment continued: In addition to complicating our efforts to engage the Vietnamese on trafficking, the continued emphasis on this old case undercuts our "look to the future rather than the past" message and hurts our credibility when pressing on other issues of importance, such as IPR, religious freedom, and human rights. We should use the upcoming TIP Watch List review to refocus our attention away from the Daewoosa case and back on the issue of women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation. MARINE