CONSUL GENERAL FOCUSES ON ETHNIC MINORITY AND DEVELOPMENT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000307

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

NSC FOR SR. DIRECTOR GREEN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM SOCI PREL PGOV KIRF VM RELFREE HUMANR ETMIN
SUBJECT: CONSUL GENERAL FOCUSES ON ETHNIC MINORITY AND DEVELOPMENT
ISSUES IN CENTRAL HIGHLANDS PROVINCES OF GIA LAI AND KONTUM

REF: A) HCMC 248; B) HCMC 210; C) 04 HCMC 1590; D) 04 HCMC 1173;
E) 04 HCMC 1140


1. (SBU) Summary: A visit to the Central Highlands provinces of
Gia Lai and Kontum from March 15 to 17 reinforced our view that
Gia Lai is taking serious steps to address socio-economic and
religious issues affecting the provinces Montagnard minority. The
Deputy Director of the province's Ministry of Public Security
committed to work directly with the Consulate to resolve
outstanding Montagnard family reunification cases (Visas 93) and
pledged to uphold the Tripartite agreement on Montagnard returnees
with UNHCR. Leaders of the Protestant and Catholic communities
confirmed that conditions for religious practice have improved in
the two provinces over the past few months. However, until local
leaders and the Montagnard community close the education gap
between ethnic Minorities and ethnic Vietnamese in the region,
Vietnam will be hard pressed to resolve the socio-economic
problems at the root of the Montagnards' second-class status in
the province. This is the last in a series of cables reporting on
recent visits of the Ambassador and Consul General to the
Vietnam's Central Highlands provinces (other visits reported refs
A and B). End Summary.

Meetings with provincial leaders
--------------


2. (SBU) Consul General and PolOff traveled to the Central
Highlands provinces of Gia Lai and Kontum from March 15 to 17 to
review religious freedom, economic development and ethnic minority
issues. Gia Lai was a center of ethnic minority unrest in 2001
and 2004. During the visit, we discussed ethnic minority and
development issues with the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Gia
Lai People's Committee, the Chief of Staff of the Kontum People's
Committee and the Deputy Director of Gia Lai Ministry of Public
Security (MPS). The ConGen team also met with Protestant and
Catholic leaders, local industry, visited a boarding school for
ethnic minorities and an ethnic minority village. The visit,
which took place on the eve of the region's 30th anniversary
celebrations of the area's "liberation," was covered positively by
local media.


3. (SBU) People's Committee Chairman of Gia Lai province, Deputies
of the Committees for Religious and Minority affairs in Gia Lai
and Chief of Staff of the Kontum People's Committee, emphasized
their commitment to resolve socio-economic and religious freedom
issues affecting the provinces' ethnic minorities. However, the
provinces would not tolerate "hostile forces" undermining GVN
control. In his meetings, and in a very frank dinner exchange
with one of the Vice Chairmen of the Gia Lai People's Committee,
the CG stressed that it was apparent that "outside elements" were
helping to fan unrest in the Central Highlands. However, merely
blaming outsiders was not credible; the province needed to move
aggressively to address underlying socio-economic inequities,
prejudices and discrimination that foster Montagnard discontent.
The CG also pushed provincial leaders to be more open in dealing
with diplomats and the international media: the greater their
transparency, the easier it will be for Vietnam to debunk
unfounded allegations.


4. (SBU) The officials stressed that they are implementing
faithfully Hanoi's new legal framework on religion. They pointed
to the province's facilitation of widespread Christmas
celebrations despite the threat of unrest (ref C) and said that
relations with religious leaders are improving. Provincial
officials in Gia Lai and Kontum also emphasized that they have
expanded assistance programs for the province's ethnic minorities.
Gia Lai Provincial leaders said they had ended state-supported in-
migration of ethnic Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese) and now forbid the
sale of land between Montagnards and ethnic Kinh. However, Gia
Lai provincial officials said they are unwilling to turn away
"spontaneous" migrants. In Kontum, the Chief of Staff of the
People's Committee told the CG that the province's is not nearly
as fertile as Gia Lai. As a result the province has not
experienced the migration flows and land disputes of neighboring
Central Highlands provinces. (Note: in 1975, the population of a
combined Gia Lai-Kontum province was 500,000. Today, the
population of Gia Lai is 1.1 million and Kontum only 360,000. End
Note.)

UNHCR Tripartite Agreement and Visas 93
--------------


5. (SBU) Gia Lai provincial leaders, including the MPS Deputy,
said they would implement fully the UNHCR tripartite agreement.
They confirmed that 13 Montagnards were repatriated successfully
from Cambodia a few days earlier and said that they province would
work to ensure their reintegration. In this regard, the province
has provided each returnee 500,000 dong (USD 30) and a parcel of
land. (Provincial officials claimed that many Montagnards had
sold their land before crossing the border into Cambodia.) The
Police Deputy also said that the returnees would not be prosecuted
for illegally crossing into Cambodia. He added that the province
would "consider favorably" a future ConGen request to visit
Montagnard returnees.


6. (SBU) The MPS official said that his agency would work closely
with the Consulate to resolve quickly outstanding family
reunification cases involving ethnic minority applicants (Visas 93
cases). He said that no Montagnard that wished to travel would be
prevented from doing so, but cautioned that an applicant must
settle outstanding debts before a passport could be issued. He
denied that the province had ever obstructed a Montagnard's
departure and explained that sometimes petition-holders in fact
did not wish to emigrate or, if they did, had not yet begun to
process their passport application. However, the petitioner in
the U.S. somehow interpreted this to mean that the province was
obstructing the application. The CG emphasized that increased
transparency in the process would help eliminate such
misconceptions and that increased cooperation between the ConGen
and the MPS on Visas 93 is a win-win scenario for the families and
the province.

Religious Practitioners acknowledge some improvement
-------------- --------------


7. (SBU) Representatives of the Southern Evangelical Church of
Vietnam (SECV) and the Bishop of Kontum (the diocese covers Gia
Lai and Kontum provinces) said that conditions for religious
worship had improved in the past six months. The SECV's house
churches are allowed to operate freely. The SECV is planning to
petition for recognition of all its house churches in Gia Lai
under Vietnam's new legal framework on religion. SECV pastors
said that they now are able to travel around the entire province
without prior notification, although they continue to remain under
police surveillance. They added that the SECV in the province has
worked to build a more positive relationship with local officials
down to the village level and has taken great pains to ensure that
"Dega separatism" is not a characteristic of their churches. The
Bishop of Kontum told us that the situation has improved modestly
for the diocese's 200,000 Catholics. The Bishop has begun to
apply the Ordinance on Religion to appoint new priests and to
assign new candidates to the Hue seminary in order to address a
shortage of 160 priests.

Economy lagging: good jobs scarce
--------------


8. (SBU) While local officials claim that the region's agrarian-
based economy grew by 10 percent in 2004, 2005 looks to be a very
difficult year for agriculture in the Central Highlands. Local
coffee traders told us that Gia Lai province's coffee harvest -- a
key cash crop -- will be halved because of ongoing drought. More
broadly, visits with local entrepreneurs demonstrated how hard it
is for the geographically isolated Central Highlands to develop d
industry. Gia Lai has been unable to attract FDI. Its only
industrial park, opened in 2002, and is less than 50 percent full.
Of the park's 25 projects, only one, a USD one million project to
cut and polish granite, is from a domestic investor outside the
province. The industrial park's 600 workers are all ethnic Kinh;
ethnic minorities thus far are only hired as day laborers. The
Park's management told us that despite provincial financial
incentives, the companies are reluctant to hire Montagnards that
they consider less qualified educationally.


9. (SBU) A visit to an export-oriented furniture manufacturer in
Kontum demonstrated that even this sector, which was supposed to
be a jobs generator for the region, has stagnated since local
logging was halted to prevent further deforestation. Companies
must truck in timber from coastal ports, sharply eating into
profits. The factory owner indicated that jobs growth in his
company would be in his new factory in the coastal port of Quy
Nhon, not in Kontum.

Montagnard Education Deficit Compounds Problems
-------------- --


10. (SBU) The Bishop of Kontum, the SECV leaders, local provincial
officials all expressed concern over the yawning education gap
between the provinces' Montagnard and ethnic Kinh communities. A
Montagnard leader agreed, telling us privately during a village
visit that education is not a top priority for many in his
community and that Montagnard children routinely drop out of
school by 9th grade. Statistics from Gia Lai province bear out
our discussion with the Montagnard elder. Of the 31,265 high
school students in Gia Lai province, only 4,984 or 16 percent are
ethnic minority. (Montagnards comprise about 50 percent of the
province's population.) The Bishop of Kontum and the MPS Deputy
told us that the average Montagnard does not have the educational
skills needed to take advantage of the agricultural extension and
vocational training programs that the provinces fund. As a result
Montagnards cannot compete for higher-skill, higher-paying jobs
and their crop yields are significantly lower than their ethnic
Kinh counterparts.


11. (SBU) Comment: Our visits to the Central Highlands make it
clear that land, education and jobs are the principal factors
driving ethnic minority unrest in the Central Highlands. Dak Lak,
perhaps the richest and most fertile of the Central Highlands
provinces has attracted the most in-migration, has the hardest
line government and has seen the strongest ethnic minority
backlash. On the other end of the scale, impoverished Kontum,
with poor soil and poor weather, has attracted little in-migration
and has had seen little inter-ethnic tension.


12. (SBU) It is notable is that provincial officials in Gia Lai,
which falls closer to Dak Lak than to Kontum on the economic
scale, appeared far more serious and committed to resolving ethnic
minority issues than their counterparts in Dak Lak. Since our
last visit to Gia Lai in September 2004 (refs D and E),Gia Lai
province has made some progress in easing restrictions on
religious practitioners, particularly the Protestant Community.
It also has moved away from polices that encouraged the migration
of ethnic Kinh to the province in an effort to reduce minority-
majority tensions over land. Also of interest are the commitments
from Gia Lai People's Committee and Police officials to work with
us to resolve outstanding Visa 93 cases and to respect the UNHCR
Tripartite agreement. In coming months these verbal commitments
will be put to the test; for example, Gia Lai will have to respond
to SECV and Catholic Church initiatives stemming from Vietnam's
new legal framework on religion. We will seek to build on this
successful visit to broaden our dialogue with the provinces on
economic development and education reform, issues that go to the
heart of the Montagnards' second-class status in the region. We
will continue to urge Gia Lai and Kontum provinces to provide
ethnic minorities with a greater political voice in decisions that
affect the province, as well as to encourage the provinces to
partner with NGOs and other international organizations to bring
in vital development expertise and funding. End Comment.

WINNICK