Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05HOCHIMINHCITY210
2005-03-03 10:45:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Consulate Ho Chi Minh City
Cable title:  

VISIT TO A REMOTE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS VILLAGE HIGHLIGHTS

Tags:  PGOV PREL SOCI SCUL SENV PINR PREF KIRF PHUM VM ETMIN 
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031045Z Mar 05
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000210 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI SCUL SENV PINR PREF KIRF PHUM VM ETMIN
SUBJECT: VISIT TO A REMOTE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS VILLAGE HIGHLIGHTS
REGION'S PROBLEMS

REF: A) 04 HCMC 1491 and previous; B) 04 HCMC 1173 and previous

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000210

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI SCUL SENV PINR PREF KIRF PHUM VM ETMIN
SUBJECT: VISIT TO A REMOTE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS VILLAGE HIGHLIGHTS
REGION'S PROBLEMS

REF: A) 04 HCMC 1491 and previous; B) 04 HCMC 1173 and previous


1. (SBU) Summary and Comment: On March 1, CG and PolOff made a
stop at a small village in a remote area of the Central Highlands
province of Lam Dong. The hour-long discussion with local
residents highlighted the economic disparities between the
indigenous Montagnards and ethnic Vietnamese migrants to the
region. It supported observations made during past visits to the
region (reftels) that a pronounced education deficit deepens
Montagnard economic marginalization. More positively, the visit
confirmed that GVN directives seeking to regulate land tenure
issues are filtering down to even this remote area of the Central
Highlands. Our interlocutors said there were no ethnic or
religious tensions in the immediate area. End Summary and
Comment.


2. (SBU) During a visit to the Central Highlands on March 1, the
Consul General and PolOff stopped at the Dinh Trang Thuong
Commune, a small village on the border between Lam Dong and Dak
Nong provinces, some 200 kilometers from HCMC. There we met Mr.
Dong, the owner of the modest general store that served the
community. Dong's story explains -- at least in part -- how and
why ethnic Vietnamese migrants succeed economically while local
Montagnards languish.


3. (SBU) Dong came to the Central Highlands in 1994 from the
northern province of Hai Hung near Hanoi (the province has since
split into Hai Duong and Hung Yen provinces). Within a year, Dong
opened a general store, which serves the local community of 300
ethnic Mnong and Ma tribesmen and workers in a bamboo products
factory. Dong says that his store has a daily turnover of 500,000
dong (USD 32). He makes a 10 percent profit. This modest sum is
sufficient to support his family's daily needs. In 1996, he
purchased four hectares (roughly 10 acres) of scrub forest from a
local Montagnard villager. He has cleared the property and

planted coffee, which yields roughly one ton per hectare. (Other,
more fertile lands yield nearly four times that amount, but were
correspondinly more expensive.) Dong told us that his land has
doubled in value in the intervening years.


4. (SBU) Dong said that the Montagnard landowner did not have a
written deed to the property. To execute the sale, he traveled
with the Montagnard to the seat of the district government some 30
kilometers away. There, the Montagnard attested to his ownership
and a written deed for the property was issued to Dong. The shop
owner told us that after the sale, the Montagnard petitioned the
local government for another parcel of land. Dong said that in
2001 he used his coffee profits to purchase another property in a
second, more fertile area of Lam Dong province from another
Montagnard. While such land purchases were common in the past,
Dong said that recently the local government had banned new land
sales from Montagnards to ethnic Vietnamese and would not issue
deeds for new purchases. However, ethnic Vietnamese land
speculators continue to "buy" land from Montagnards unofficially
and are putting the land into service to grow coffee.


5. (SBU) Dong commented that land sales had been an important way
for ethnic minorities to raise cash. With the land transfer ban
now in effect, Montagnards in his area subsist by hunting in the
region's rapidly dwindling forests, and by the home manufacture of
bamboo rope, which he purchases and then sells on to a Vietnamese
wholesaler. Dong also hires Montagnards as day workers to tend
his coffee plants and harvest his crop. He said he pays them
35,000 Dong (USD 2.15) a day.


6. (SBU) Dong said that the completion of a major hydropower
project a few miles downstream -- the Dong Nai 3 dam -- will put
the entire village under water in three to four years. Dong is
unconcerned because his second property is in an area unaffected
by the dam. He also expects to receive State compensation at a
reasonably high rate for his coffee farm because his land is
considered "improved." He said that, to his knowledge, the
Montagnards in his village have not sought land in alternate
locations, nor have they adequately developed the property they
currently own to maximize the State's compensation payoff.


7. (SBU) During our stay we also spoke with two ethnic Vietnamese
employees from a local factory that manufactures bamboo toothpicks
and chopsticks. The two men had come to the Central Highlands in
the past few years from Thanh Hoa Province in northern Vietnam.
They said that all the factory workers were ethnic Vietnamese from
Vietnam's northern and central coastal provinces. The two men had
finished only ninth grade, but they commented that even this
modest education put them ahead of the local Montagnards. The
shopkeeper added that in his experience, the bulk of ethnic
minority children in the village drop out after fourth grade to
work at home. He was not aware of any local ethnic minority
children from the region that had gone on to attend the high
school, which is located at the district seat, some 16 kilometers
away.


8. (SBU) According to Dong, the Montagnards in the area are either
animist or Catholic. He is Catholic. Both he and Montagnard
Catholics have to travel 30 kilometers to the nearest church;
priests and religious workers have not come to the village. He
observed that relations between ethnic Vietnamese and ethnic
minorities are correct; the two sides largely keep to themselves.
(Dong's general store and his home were 500 meters away from the
Montagnard village.) Dong said there has been no ethnic unrest or
violence in the area. There were no ethnic minority villagers
present during our visit. There did not appear to be a police
presence in the immediate area.

WINNICK