This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 001310 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KIRF SCUL SOCI PHUM VM RELFREE HUMANR ETMIN
SUBJECT: CENTRAL HIGHLANDS:  SECURITY JITTERS ACCOMPANY RELIGIOUS 
FREEDOM GAINS ON THE EVE OF CHRISTMAS 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Reliable contacts in the Protestant community 
in the Central Highlands told us that security has been 
intensified throughout the region in the run-up to Christmas. 
In archconservative Dak Lak Province there appear to be 
near-blanket restrictions on Protestant gatherings.  Elsewhere 
in the Central Highlands, villages that are considered to be 
sympathetic to the "Dega Church" and ethnic minority separatism 
are under the most intense police scrutiny.  Our contacts are 
not aware of any recent police arrests or beatings of ethnic 
minority individuals, including recent returnees from Cambodia. 
However, tensions between ethnic minority communities and local 
police remain high, especially over land issues; tensions led to 
a clash with a local military unit in Gia Lai that left one 
soldier dead.  On the other hand, our contacts report 
significant progress in legalizing the operation of the 
GVN-recognized Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam in Gia Lai 
and Kontum provinces.  In particular, the SECV cites the 
December 12 formal registration of 248 "meeting points" in Gia 
Lai, effectively legalizing operations for all of the SECV's 
75,000 believers in the province.  The United World Mission 
Church -- a house church organization based in Danang -- also 
reports an improved operating environment in much of the Central 
Highlands.  The GVN appears to be adopting a two-track strategy 
of promoting the operations of non-threatening religious groups 
while suppressing the "Dega Church," which it considers nothing 
but a front for ethnic minority separatism.  End Summary. 
 
Security Intensifying Amid Pre-Christmas Restrictions... 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Over the past week, leaders of the Protestant house 
church movement and the GVN-recognized Southern Evangelical 
Church of Vietnam (SECV) have told us that, beginning in 
December, police and military units have been deployed in 
increased numbers throughout the Central Highlands.  Teams of 
three or four police and security officials have been assigned 
to monitor specific ethnic minority villages.  Police have set 
up checkpoints along the roads and routinely stop and question 
travelers headed to ethnic minority villages.  Officials 
reportedly are concerned that ethnic minority separatists will 
take advantage of Christmas celebrations to organize anti-GVN 
activity.  This led police to prevent at least one SECV church 
worker from accessing an ethnic minority village in Gia Lai 
Province. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The security presence and restrictions are particularly 
strong in "sensitive communes" where villagers participated in 
protests in 2001 and 2004 or fled to Cambodia.  For example, in 
M'Drak district of Dak Lak, police decreed that villagers could 
not gather to celebrate Christmas, although families could 
worship and celebrate individually.  Similar conditions have 
been imposed on certain villages in Gia Lai considered by the 
government to be strongholds of the "Dega Church."  In a number 
of cases, these Dega churches sought to apply for legal 
registration using a "cover name," but were denied.  Our SECV 
contact spoke with one Dega pastor who reportedly could not 
articulate to which denomination of Protestantism he belonged, 
but was well versed in concepts of ethnic minority nationalism. 
That pastor reportedly told our contact that there is an 
operational Dega government in exile and that ethnic minorities 
in the Central Highlands had to continue to hope for 
"liberation." 
 
¶4. (SBU) In Kontum Province, one village in Sa Thay district 
also faced restrictions on gathering.  Our contact explained 
that this village was the source of a recent group of ethnic 
minority individuals who sought to cross to Cambodia.  Another 
ethnic minority village in Kon Plong district was allowed to 
gather, but Protestant worshipers reportedly were being 
discriminated against in the distribution of government 
assistance, with the unstated goal of inducing them to abandon 
their faith. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Our SECV contact also reported that a group of ethnic 
San Chi that had migrated from northern Vietnam to Gia Lai and 
had sought to affiliate with the SECV were expressly forbidden 
from gathering to celebrate Christmas.  Their application to 
register as a congregation in accordance with the new legal 
framework on religion was denied because the group had only 
recently arrived in the province and officials considered their 
situation "unstable."  Unfortunately, the San Chi could not 
participate in other SECV church services in the area there 
because they did not speak Jarai or Vietnamese, the lingua 
franca of the SECV churches in the region.  The SECV is 
appealing the decision with the provincial government. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Although the police have not arrested or otherwise 
detained or beaten ethnic minority individuals, including 
returnees from Cambodia, their presence has made villagers 
"edgier."  In early December, in one ethnic minority village in 
Duc Co district, Gia Lai Province, dissatisfaction over land 
compensation and encroachment from a state-owned rubber 
plantation led to a serious clash between villagers and a local 
military unit, during which one soldier was killed.  There were 
no reported ethnic minority casualties.   Despite the death, Gia 
Lai authorities -- at least thus far -- have not arrested any of 
the villagers.  Our contact explained that authorities recognize 
that the grievances that fueled the outburst were legitimate, 
that the military unit was conspiring with the rubber plantation 
to disadvantage the ethnic minorities, and that arrests would 
trigger further disorder. 
 
...But Significant Progress As Well 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Despite the stepped-up security, our contacts said that 
significant progress continues to be made in easing the 
restrictions on most Protestant church operations in Gia Lai and 
Kontum provinces.  On December 12, the Gia Lai SECV received 
official notification from the provincial Committee for 
Religious Affairs that the province had formally accepted the 
registration of 248 SECV "meeting points" throughout the 
province.  According to our SECV contact, taken together with 
the 29 SECV churches that already had been recognized -- the 
bulk in 2004 and 2005 -- all SECV operations for its 75,000 
worshipers in the province have been legalized.  In coming 
months, as these individual congregations meet internal SECV 
regulations, the SECV will petition with the provincial 
government for recognition of these "meeting points". 
 
¶8. (SBU) Our contacts report that conditions in Kontum also have 
improved significantly in 2005.  House churches belonging to the 
United World Mission Church (UWMC) -- headquartered in Danang -- 
which previously faced significant harassment, now function 
without incident.  Provincial officials proactively reached out 
to UWMC local leaders to encourage them to register under the 
new legal framework on religion.  In a separate phone 
conversation, Pastor Nguyen Toi, UWMC President, confirmed that 
conditions for his church had improved throughout the Central 
Highlands.  Similarly, the SECV, which previously had a very 
limited footprint in Kontum because of official harassment, has 
found it easier to operate there.  For example, a local SECV 
pastor who previously was told that worshipers could not gather 
at his home because he was not legally registered in the 
province was asked to worship "normally."  He also was informed 
that he could expand the meeting room in his home even though 
the house is not yet legally registered in the province. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Comment:  Formal registration of the SECV's 248 meeting 
points in Gia Lai is a significant milestone; the SECV has been 
lobbying hard for the past three years to reach this point. 
Equally encouraging is the treatment that the SECV and some 
other house church organizations are receiving in Kontum. 
Government efforts to liberalize operations for the SECV and 
some house churches, coupled with the intensified security focus 
on "Dega" villages, suggests that the GVN is adopting a 
two-track strategy of promoting the operations of 
non-threatening, apolitical religious groups while continuing to 
try to suppress the "Dega church," which it considers nothing 
but a front for ethnic minority separatism.  The clash in Duc Co 
district between ethnic minority villagers and the local 
military is a sharp reminder that this strategy will fail absent 
a sustained effort to address the underlying socio-economic 
grievances that drive ethnic minority disaffection in the 
Central Highlands.  End Comment. 
CHERN