PRM DAS KELLY RYAN VISIT TO VIETNAM DEC. 1-3:

UNCLAS HO CHI MINH CITY 000054

SIPDIS


SENSITIVE

DEPT FOR PRM AND EAP/BCLTV

BANGKOK FOR REFCOORD

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREF PREL PHUM VM
SUBJECT: PRM DAS KELLY RYAN VISIT TO VIETNAM DEC. 1-3:
AGREEMENT REACHED TO RESUME HUMANITARIAN RESETTLEMENT
PROCESS

REF: A) 04 HCMC 0505 B) 03 Hanoi 2098

Sensitive but unclassified. Please handle accordingly.


1. (SBU) Summary. PRM Deputy Assistant Secretary Kelly
Ryan held a second round of technical talks in Hanoi on
December 2 and 3 with a delegation of GVN officials to
discuss opening of the Humanitarian Resettlement (HR)
process, a USG proposal to accept applications for persons
meeting eligibility criteria for certain categories of the
former Orderly Departure Program (ODP). The talks resulted
in agreement to open a six-month public information outreach
phase on March 1, 2005, followed by a two-year processing
phase starting September 1, 2005. The two sides agreed to
initial the texts of two documents laying out the parameters
of the HR process: an "Understanding - Humanitarian
Resettlement - Mechanisms for Cooperation Between the GVN
and USG" and a "Joint USG-GVN Public Announcement Regarding
Humanitarian Resettlement (HR)," which will be issued at the
start of the public information outreach. A third document
describing specific activities of the HR public information
outreach was extensively discussed and the GVN requested
that the USG modify its proposal in some regards. The talks
were cordial, with the GVN delegation seeming predisposed to
reaching agreement. But certain issues proved difficult
in the course of the talks and several specific concerns in
actual implementation are still likely to come up. End
summary.


2. (SBU) A delegation led by PRM DAS Kelly Ryan, along
with DHS/USCIS Associate Chief Counsel Ronald Whitney and
USCIS Officer Ralph Foelster met December 2-3 with a GVN
delegation headed by MFA Director General of the Consular
Division Mr. Bui Dinh Dinh. This meeting was a follow-up to
a first round of technical talks held March 29-30, 2004 (ref
A) and to the visit of PRM A/S Gene Dewey in August 2003
(Ref B),during which agreement in principle had been
reached to re-open certain categories of the former ODP
program for further in-country processing. This most recent
round of talks was aimed at achieving definitive agreement
and setting dates for the start up of what is now called the
"Humanitarian Resettlement" process, a term agreed upon
during the first round of talks in March. The specific
objectives included agreement on the text of the initial
public announcement, the text of a paper describing the
modalities of the overall public information outreach and
the text of a document describing the mechanisms for
cooperation between the two governments in carrying out the
HR process.


3. (SBU) At the conclusion of the first round of talks
both sides agreed that the USG would provide drafts of these
three documents as the next step prior to the second round
of talks, and texts of the draft documents were provided to
the GVN in early November. During the first morning of
talks on Dec. 2, discussion centered on the "Mechanisms for
Cooperation" paper and it was agreed that, rather than doing
a separate "Minutes of Meeting" document as was done in the
first round of talks, this paper would be used as the basis
for an agreement to implement HR that both sides would
initial.


4. (SBU) The GVN delegation's comments on the draft
presented by the USG centered on their desire to ensure that
the HR process is nondisruptive to Vietnamese society.
Several of the items in the "Mechanisms for Cooperation"
paper were first discussed and fairly quickly agreed upon.
The summary of the previous discussions was acceptable to
the GVN with minor wording changes. They agreed to jointly
announce the opening of HR and to the formation of a GVN-USG
Joint Working Group to manage the implementation of the HR
process. On the subject of access, the GVN delegation
agreed they would not require a GVN-issued Letter of
Introduction (LOI) as a prerequisite for applicants' access
to the HR process.


5. (SBU) One very important early comment came on the
subject of document verification. The U.S. side asked
whether the GVN had any kind of central office to verify
information such as claims of time served in re-education
centers. Mr. Dinh admitted that since many of the older re-
education centers had been dissolved years ago, many records
had been destroyed or were missing. In many cases, the

files were not deemed important and were not kept in any
organized fashion. This admission highlighted a key concern
as to the difficulty of verifying claims for events that
happened nearly thirty years ago. In cases where people
have lost their own certification of re-education center
time served, it may give rise to an opportunity for graft
and corruption in both the creation and police certification
of fraudulent certifications. The two sides agreed to a
process whereby the USG could provide documents to the GVN
for review as necessary for verification purposes. But the
fact that the GVN readily admitted many old records are now
lost or destroyed highlights the difficulty of this task.


6. (SBU) A recurring issue throughout the two days of
discussions was the need for a Vietnamese passport as a
prerequisite for accessing the program. Although they had
agreed that a separately issued LOI would no longer be
necessary, at several points during the discussions, the GVN
delegation wanted to insert the passport requirement
directly into the section on "eligibility criteria" for the
program. The U.S. side was adamant that this type of GVN-
generated restriction could not be made a part of the core
eligibility criteria. Insertion of such a clause would
cause too much protest in the U.S. that the GVN was still
limiting access to the program and preventing legitimate
candidates from presenting their cases.


7. (SBU) Lengthy discussions took place concerning the
GVN's current passport procedures. The GVN delegation
repeatedly stated that the vast majority of Vietnamese
citizens currently have no problem receiving a passport,
unless there is some reason in Vietnamese law to deny
issuance. While it is acknowledged that anybody being
approved for resettlement under HR will still need GVN
permission to emigrate from the country, the passport
requirement should not be used as a means to deny access to
the program. A compromise on this critical issue was
crafted on the second day by adding a separate
"Authorization to Travel Abroad" section to the document,
stating that Vietnamese citizens will not receive final
authorization to go to the U.S. under HR without permission
to travel abroad under Vietnamese law.


8. (SBU) Separately, the two delegations also reviewed the
draft "Joint USG-GVN Announcement Regarding Humanitarian
Resettlement (HR)." The GVN delegation did not have any
substantive changes in the text of the proposed
announcement, but suggested re-ordering it somewhat. They
suggested moving up the entire section on "Access Criteria
for HR," which detailed the specific criteria for the HO (re-
education center detainee),U-11 (former USG employee) and V-
11 (former U.S. private company or organization employee)
categories. Both sides carefully reviewed these access
criteria together and agreed on the exact wording of the
category criteria. The remainder of the public announcement
consists of several "Important Notes," which are mainly
designed to warn against fraudulent or frivolous
applications and to warn applicants against using the
services of a visa facilitator or "fixer" to assist them.
The GVN emphasized again and again that they wanted the
initial public announcement and the public information
outreach on HR to be minimally disruptive and focus on the
likely target populations without creating nationwide
expectation or confusion.


9. (SBU) With the "Mechanisms for Cooperation" paper and
the Joint USG-GVN Announcement" essentially agreed to, on
the afternoon of the second day the two delegations then
discussed the various specific proposals for the broader
Public Information Outreach (PIO) to publicize HR following
the initial announcement. The GVN delegation accepted the
"Introduction" and "Goals and Objectives" of the USG
proposal, except for the goal which stated, "Reach the
Broadest Segment of the Population Possible." Again
expressing their concern to keep the HR process minimally
disruptive, the GVN suggested rewording this along the lines
of "Targeted Dissemination to Intended Audiences."


10. (SBU) More specifically, as the two delegations
reviewed the list of suggested publicity methods, it became
clear they had different ideas regarding how to handle the
publicity campaign. The GVN expressed some surprise that we
had suggested using International Organization for Migration

(IOM) mass media resources to assist in this project. They
felt that the GVN itself could do a satisfactory job of
placing media spots without involving the IOM. The USG side
asked what exactly the GVN had in mind, and Mr. Dinh listed
several possible items that included most of what the USG
would want plus a few items we did not think the GVN would
permit. For example, they suggested using the loudspeaker
systems at the grass-roots level to make public
announcements, as well as professional communicators at the
commune and village level; TV and radio programs in all the
provinces where we think there may be many cases; ethnic
language broadcasts on certain TV and radio channels
targeting ethnic minority groups; and print ads in several
wide-dissemination popular newspapers.


11. (SBU) Where the GVN drew the line in the discussion of
the publicity effort was in not running ads on nationwide TV
broadcasts, not allowing ads in political newspapers and
magazines and not using flyers or brochures that could be
easily reproduced by would-be "brokers" and sold to
unsuspecting persons. Again, this emphasized the GVN
concern about disseminating the information in a more
limited and targeted way to minimize the disruptive effect
on society. The two delegations agreed that there was
generally broad agreement on the methods of publicity, but
that the USG would modify its proposal to work more directly
with the GVN in this area and eliminate the role of the IOM
as the USG's partner.


12. (SBU) With agreement generally reached on all three
papers, the two delegations discussed and reached agreement
on implementation dates. The two sides agreed that the
initial public announcement would best be made after the Tet
Lunar New Year Holiday, and agreed on March 1 as the
tentative announcement date, to be followed by the six-month
Public information Outreach. The actual application-
processing phase would then begin September 1, 2005, and run
for two years until September 1, 2007.


13. (SBU) One further concern was highlighted in the
discussion of implementation dates. The GVN emphasized it
wanted the "processing" phase to be completed by September
1, 2007, while the USG sees this as the "application"
deadline. We emphasized to the GVN that there would
undoubtedly be some residual cases still not completed by
September 1, 2007, especially if they had just recently
applied. The GVN side replied that it needed to set a
definite end date to the processing phase in order to have
the agreement accepted by more senior GVN officials. To
compromise, a statement was added to the "Mechanisms of
Cooperation" paper stating that "The USG will make best
efforts to complete processing of all cases during this
period." The agreed upon language suggests a recognition by
both sides that residual cases may remain pending at the end
of the processing phase. This issue was discussed with the
Ambassador prior to DAS Ryan's giving final agreement to the
documents. It is recognized that we may need to negotiate
with the GVN in mid-2007 to permit continued processing of a
small number of residual cases after the September 1, 2007
end date, but we do not believe the GVN will object.


14. (SBU) Next steps: Overall, the agreement to open the
Humanitarian Resettlement process is a satisfying conclusion
to several years of addressing this issue with the GVN. The
next step will be to work with the GVN on final plans for
the Public Information Outreach, with the intended initial
announcement date set for March 1. ConGen Ho Chi Minh
City's Refugee Resettlement Section (RRS) is working out
anticipated resource needs for the expanded workload,
anticipating initially a need for several additional local
caseworker assistants in the Infocomm Unit to handle the
increased volume of inquiries expected after the public
announcement and to start reviewing claims of eligibility.
In anticipation of the September 1 start of active
application processing, the hiring of several Vietnamese-
speaking expatriate caseworkers will also be necessary. The
goal will be to run the Humanitarian Resettlement Process
efficiently and effectively over the next two to three
years, giving all interested and eligible applicants one
final chance to enter these programs before bringing these
programs based on pre-1975 ties to the U.S. to a
satisfactory conclusion.
E

Winnick


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