UNHCR Bangkok rep visits Hanoi, debriefs

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