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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. 
 
¶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