Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05HANOI1111
2005-05-12 09:58:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Hanoi
Cable title:  

THE DEMOGRAPHIC ROOTS OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND

Tags:  ECON EAID VM ETMIN HUMANR 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HANOI 001111 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV
USDOC FOR 4430/MAC/ASIA/OPB/VLC/HPPHO
STATE PASS USAID FOR CHAPLIN/ANE
BANGKOK FOR USAID

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON EAID VM ETMIN HUMANR
SUBJECT: THE DEMOGRAPHIC ROOTS OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL DISLOCATION IN VIETNAM'S CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

REF: Hanoi 000885

This cable contains sensitive information. Please do not post
on the Internet.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HANOI 001111

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV
USDOC FOR 4430/MAC/ASIA/OPB/VLC/HPPHO
STATE PASS USAID FOR CHAPLIN/ANE
BANGKOK FOR USAID

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON EAID VM ETMIN HUMANR
SUBJECT: THE DEMOGRAPHIC ROOTS OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL DISLOCATION IN VIETNAM'S CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

REF: Hanoi 000885

This cable contains sensitive information. Please do not post
on the Internet.


1. (SBU) Summary: Recent years have seen heightened
attention on the Central Highlands, especially following the
2001 and 2004 disturbances in the region. There is growing
concern over the social and economic challenges that are
underlying causes for political dissatisfaction. Whether or
not the political unrest in the Highlands was sparked by
outside forces, there exists deep-rooted tension between the
ethnic minority and Kinh Vietnamese that has been exacerbated
by the rapid but inequitable economic growth in the region in
the last decade.


2. (SBU) There is broad consensus that many of the problems
in the Central Highlands region come down to the politics of
access to and management of resources, particularly land.
Another key challenge often raised in conjunction to the land
issue is migration, focusing particularly on the rapid influx
of free or unplanned migrants to the region seeking land and
opportunity. The concentration of poverty in the region and
the flare-ups of unrest in 2001 and 2004 reflect the
accumulated social, economic and political tensions inherited
from planned and unplanned migration and the changes in social
structures that resulted from successive periods in Vietnam's
national development. End Summary.


3. (SBU) A separate report will detail Government policies,
strategies and programs to date that aim to alleviate poverty
and improve socioeconomic development in the Central Highlands.
Also part of that report will be Vietnamese and international
perspectives on the gaps between those policies and their
implementation in practice. A third report will examine
international assistance to the Central Highlands region.

Central Highlands Snapshot
--------------


4. (SBU) The Central Highlands generally refers to the
provinces of Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai, and Kon Tum. Dak Nong
was created in November 2003 by the division of Dak Lak
Province. The Government of Vietnam (GVN) occasionally adds

the provinces of Binh Phuoc and Lam Dong, home to the famous
Dalat hill station, in its own definition of the Central
Highlands, though these two do not share the historical and
developmental traits of the other four. Broadly speaking, the
highlands rise from low rolling hills in Dak Nong and Dak Lak,
to steeper hills in Gia Lai, and rough terrain in Kon Tum. The
total population of the four main Highlands provinces is 3.5
million, ranging from Dak Lak as the largest at about 1.7
million to Kon Tum at just under 350,000. Over 40 of Vietnam's
53 ethnic minority groups are represented in the region,
totaling just under one-third of the population. Some of the
largest groups are the G'Rai, Bahnar, Ede, M'Nong, Tay and
Sedang.

Massive Demographic Shifts
--------------


5. (SBU) Over the last 50 years, ethnic minorities have
gradually been moved from the center to the margins, while Kinh
Vietnamese took over the majority both demographically and
economically. These changes accelerated during the coffee boom
of the 1990s when accompanying changes in the land law in 1993
allowed the accumulation of land in private hands. From 1990
to 2000, while the population of the country grew by 17.7
percent, the Central Highlands population grew 58.4 percent.
This in-migration accelerated the rise of Kinh Vietnamese as
the majority in the Highlands. Kinh people were a five percent
minority in 1945, then grew to almost 50 percent of the
population by 1975 as a result of steady South Vietnamese
resettlement policy, and are nearly 70 percent of the
population of the Central Highlands today.


6. (SBU) The thirteen ethnic minority groups that were
indigenous to the region now comprise about one fourth of the
total population. Free migration of ethnic minorities from
other regions since 1954 (particularly the Northwest Highlands)
introduced many new groups to the region so that the Central
Highlands now has over 40 of Vietnam's 53 ethnic minority
groups, giving it the greatest multiethnic concentration in
Vietnam. This highly multiethnic composition has contributed
to the difficulties in implementing Government socioeconomic
policies in the Central Highlands as each group has its own
language, culture and history.

Four Historical Periods Shape Social and Political Tensions
-------------- --------------


7. (SBU) The political, economic and social dynamics that
form the current tensions and difficulties of the Central
Highlands have been shaped through four main periods in modern
Vietnamese national development. These are the French colonial
period, the period of a divided Vietnam from 1954-1975, the
decade after reunification from 1975-1985 and finally, post-
1986 following the introduction of the Doi Moi (Renovate)
reforms.
French Colonial Period of Exploitation and Autonomy
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) The initial interest of the French in Central
Highlands was border security. However, once the richness of
the land became apparent, the French exploited it by clearing
large tracts of land for plantations. Later, the rubber boom
following World War I led to a massive land grab by the French
colonists. In addition to land policy, French recruitment and
poor treatment of rural laborers for mining and plantation work
led to ethnic minorities becoming tenants on their own land and
to increased conflicts between ethnic minorities and the
French.


9. (SBU) Under the French, the Central Highlands were kept
separate from the rest of the Vietnamese population, allowing a
certain degree of autonomy and solidarity among ethnic
minorities. After the abortive beginnings of an independent
Vietnamese state in 1945, the French installed Emperor Bao Dai
in 1948, and continued their efforts to maintain strategic
control over the Central Highlands. Under Bao Dai, the Central
Highlands were established as an autonomous region. Ethnic
minority village elders were placed in leadership positions, a
court system was established according to local practices, and
shared land ownership was implemented both for communes and
large collectives. This resulted in a period of relative
independence for the region and further strengthened ethnic
consciousness.

A Divided North and South and a Troubled Center, 1954-1975
-------------- --------------


10. (SBU) Following the defeat of the French in 1954, the
Central Highlands fell under the authority of the Southern
Vietnamese government under Ngo Dinh Diem (pronounced Dziem").
Diem's policy was to introduce Kinh people and culture into the
region as a way to consolidate control over the marginal
territory. New policies canceled former land rights, abolished
the local courts, eliminated local languages from schools, and
forced ethnic minorities to adopt Kinh names. South Vietnam
set up Kinh farmers on large plantations and continued in-
migration in order to create a Kinh majority. Reportedly, up
to one million ethnic Kinh were settled into the Highlands
during Diem's rule.


11. (SBU) At the same time, North Vietnam faced acute
population pressure on its arable land and continued food
shortages. In response, the regime there initiated policies of
small family size and a blueprint for a population
redistribution program into the Northwest and Northeast
Highlands. New Economic Zones (NEZ) were established and
settled to reclaim land for agricultural cultivation. In
contrast to the southern policy of assimilation of ethnic
minorities, the North established three autonomous ethnic
regions aimed at integrating the minorities into the nation
while protecting their rights and heritage.


12. (SBU) In the South, Diem's abolition of independent powers
in the Central Highlands incited the earliest revolutionary
movements among the ethnic minorities. The first "Fulro" (le
Front Unifie pour la Liberation des Races Opprimees)
organization was formed in 1964, principally among the Bahnar,
G'rai, Rhade and Koho ethnic minority groups. This and similar
movements were strongly repressed by Diem and their leaders
imprisoned or exiled. After Diem's assassination in 1963 the
southern administration followed a more cautious policy toward
the Highlands. Former imprisoned leaders were released and
encouraged to return to the region. A Ministry for Ethnic
Minority Development was established for the first time.
Nonetheless, the Republic of South Vietnam still faced periodic
uprisings from ethnic minorities in the Highlands, even as both
were fighting the North Vietnamese.

13. (SBU) Another factor that further added to the political
sensitivity around the region was the posting in the 1960s of
United States forces into the Central Highlands in an effort to
recruit local ethnic minorities to fight against the North a
struggle that continued long after the Americans had left.
Although the armed resistance that FULRO mounted never
threatened Vietnamese control of the Central Highlands, the
resistance further complicated reconstruction and helped cement
negative attitudes of the new provincial leaders towards the
ethnic minorities. The last ragtag elements of FULRO laid down
their weapons in an amnesty in 1992 and most members of this
group were expatriated through Cambodia to the United States.
Continued economic and social grievances in the Central
Highlands create fertile ground for scattered, isolated FULRO
supporters to attract sympathizers.

Reunification and Postwar Economic and Security Strategy (1975-
1985)
-------------- --------------


14. (SBU) Three goals drove population resettlement in the
decade following reunification: redistribution of the
population imbalance between the North and South and between
the deltas and frontier/mountainous regions; economic
motivation due to postwar urban unemployment and continued food
shortages in the North; and, the need to secure sensitive
security regions, both external and internal. While land was
in short supply and population pressure was great in the North,
in some areas of the South and in parts of the Central
Highlands, large tracts of land were considered to be unused or
underexploited. In the North, the NEZs in the Northwest and
Northeast Highlands were seen as a means of increasing food
production by expanding cultivation of land in areas other than
the deltas. Poor farmers in the heavily populated areas of the
Red River Delta were assisted by the government to move to NEZs
where they were provided with access to land.


15. (SBU) This period was also marked by continued north to
south movement of Kinh people, which some research has
interpreted as a drive to "tame" the region in terms of both
economy and security. There also were some movements from the
Mekong Delta up to the Central Highlands. Northern cadres went
south to consolidate power in strategically sensitive areas
such as the Central Highlands by securing borders and
reconfiguring areas with untrustworthy ethnic minorities into
majority Kinh populations. (Note: Many of the current
government and party leaders in the Highlands were supporters
of North Vietnam and Vietnamese Communist Party leaders from
the Central Coast, particularly from Binh Dinh province, who
went up to the Highlands during the war. End Note.) During
this time, Hanoi also initiated sedentarization programs in an
attempt to settle ethnic minority nomadic populations.

Post-1986 Doi Moi Land Rush and Industrial Agriculture Push
-------------- --------------


16. (SBU) In the late 1980s, Vietnam abandoned collectivized
farming to increase agricultural productivity. The central
government gave local authorities the power to allocate the
agricultural land that had been farmed collectively to
individual households. Decollectivization was followed in 1993
by a new land law that introduced official land titles and, for
the first time since communist rule, permitted the transfer,
exchange, mortgage, lease and inheritance of land. This
established the foundation of a land market where farmers could
buy and sell land use rights and people could move to where
land was readily available. State resettlement programs
continued through this time, and continued to favor Kinh
migrants, who were seen as playing an important role in
introducing new farming practices suitable for supporting
industrial agriculture. (Note: Industrial agriculture refers
to modern farming methods that depend on synthetic fertilizers,
seed technology, large amounts of irrigation water, and modern
processing and transportation systems. Ideally implemented on
a large scale, the principle is to achieve effective
productivity through the use of technology. End Note.)


17. (SBU) The new land policies, perceived availability of
land and rising coffee prices in the mid-1990s also led to a
rapid increase in free or spontaneous migration to the Central
Highlands of both Kinh and ethnic minorities from other
regions. Government interlocutors across the ministries were
quick to point to the massive spontaneous migration of poor
ethnic minorities from the Northeast and Northwest Highlands as
the key cause of pressure on the land and resources of the
Central Highlands and interference with its socioeconomic
development. However, an internal migration survey in Dak Lak
conducted by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 1996
to measure migration to the province since Doi Moi found that
88 percent of government-organized migrants were Kinh and more
than half of the spontaneous migrants were also Kinh.

Cultural and Historical Disadvantages Sharpen Inequality
-------------- --------------

18. (SBU) The history of migration into the Central Highlands
up until 1986 was marked by increasing social, political and
economic dislocation of the ethnic minorities and growing
government sensitivity toward the region. It is the period
after the introduction of Doi Moi, however, with its
liberalization of land tenure and markets, which led to fast
and strong economic growth in the region for some and the
increased marginalization and dissatisfaction for others. A
critical characteristic of the Highlands is not its poverty per
se, but the growing gap between it and other regions, as well
as the massive gap between the growing affluence Kinh residents
in the Highlands and the acute poverty of the ethnic
minorities.


19. (SBU) As access to land and credit opened up
opportunities, particularly in the Central Highlands where the
government was pushing the development of cash crops, multiple
barriers contributed to ethnic minorities getting left behind.
Their low level of education and limited Kinh language skills
meant a lack of access to information on government policies
and benefits, and an inability to participate in or ask to
participate in decision making. For example, many ethnic
minorities did not know how to apply for land use certificates
(LUC),or due to traditional concepts of land use and
ownership, would readily sell land to meet more immediate
needs. Others lacked the capital or knowledge to improve the
land they were allocated. Even those ethnic minorities who did
invest in coffee lacked knowledge of and access to markets,
leaving those farmers at the mercy of middlemen and vulnerable
to external shocks.


20. (SBU) Academic research also suggests that
decollectivization led to differential allocation of land, with
the North, having lived with a generation of collectivization,
implementing quicker and more equitable allocation. In the
South, which had long-resisted collectivization after
reunification, the default distribution was how land had been
allocated before unification, and thus, resulted in greater
inequalities, disputes and delays. In the Central Highlands,
ethnic minorities lacked familiarity with both Kinh language
and official procedures, making accessing land registration and
disputing land use allocation difficult. They also lacked the
social capital in terms of political representation or
connections to protect their interests and fair share of
resources. This struggle with land adjudication and
reallocation in the Central Highlands continues to dominate the
region's socioeconomic development troubles today.

MARINE