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


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FM AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 0307
INFO AMEMBASSY HANOI 
ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
AMEMBASSY RIYADH 
AMEMBASSY ABU DHABI 
USLO TRIPOLI 
AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY

UNCLAS  HO CHI MINH CITY 000082 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM KISL KIRF PGOV SOCI PREL SA CB LY EG VM ETMIN RELFREE
SUBJECT: VIETNAM'S ISLAMIC COMMUNITY 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Southern and central Vietnam's 30,000- to 
50,000-member Sunni Muslim community does not appear to face 
significant restrictions in its ability to worship.  Unlike 
Vietnam's five other recognized religious organizations, the 
Muslim community does not have a national leadership to manage 
relations with the GVN or address overseas cooperation; Ho Chi 
Minh City's (HCMC) representatives take on such a role on an 
informal, ad hoc, and sometimes conflicting basis.  Vietnamese 
Sunni Muslims receive financial, material and educational 
support from overseas Cham Muslims, Persian Gulf states, Egypt 
and Libya, although reports of the scale of assistance are 
inconsistent.  Vietnam also is home to 40,000 Bani Muslims - 
practitioners of an indigenous form of Islam - who are seeking 
independent recognition from the GVN under the country's new 
legal framework on religion.  End Summary. 
 
Islam in Southern Vietnam 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) Over the course of 2005, ConGenOffs held a series of 
meetings with representatives of the Muslim community in 
southern and central Vietnam.  ConGen officials met with Musa 
Haji, Chief Representative of the Cham community in An Giang 
Province, in May and December.  PolOffs called on the 
Representative Board of the Islamic Community of HCMC, led by 
Machdares Samael, Vice President and spokesperson for the HCMC 
Islamic Community Board, in October and December 2005, as well 
as with Nao Du, Vice-Hakim of Mosque 104, Imam Chau Van Ken of 
Mosque 101 and Cham Bani Muslim cleric Tu Cong Du in Ninh Thuan 
Province in December 2005 (protect all). 
 
¶3. (U) According to Samael, Sunni Islam has roughly 50,000 
followers in Vietnam, clustered primarily in the southern and 
central provinces of An Giang, Ninh Thuan, Tay Ninh, Dong Nai, 
Binh Phuoc, Binh Duong, Tra Vinh and HCMC.  The two largest 
communities are in HCMC and An Giang, with 8,000 and 13,000 
members, respectively.  The vast majority of Sunni Muslims are 
of the Cham ethnic minority, although in HCMC, ethnic 
Indonesians, Malaysians and Indians make up a quarter of the 
Muslim population.  Islam is one of Vietnam's six 
officially-recognized religions. 
 
¶4. (SBU) HCMC and An Giang also are the only two provinces to 
have GVN-recognized Muslim representative boards; as a result, 
these two boards, especially HCMC's, recognized since 1992, have 
become the de facto national representatives of the Muslim 
community in Vietnam.  Creating a national Islamic organization 
is a top priority for Vietnamese Muslims.  According to HCMC 
Islamic representatives, the GVN will not recognize a formal 
national organization of Sunni Muslims until Sunni communities 
in other provinces gain provincial recognition first. 
 
¶5. (SBU) All the Muslim leaders we spoke with said that they 
enjoyed positive relationships with their respective local 
governments.  They had no complaints of GVN attempts to limit 
religious practice or the teaching of Islam.  HCMC 
representative board member Samael praised the HCMC government 
for providing USD 25,000 to rebuild his mosque in addition to 
the USD 75,000 compensation to his mosque for land lost in a 
road-widening project.  Muslim leaders also responded positively 
to questions about the impact of the new legal framework on 
religion, noting, for example, that they no longer have to ask 
permission for, but only to notify provincial authorities of, 
students studying overseas or community members traveling to 
Mecca for the Hajj. 
 
Conflicting Accounts of Overseas Support 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) According to Samael, funding for community projects, 
such as rebuilding of mosques, typically comes from the local 
Muslim community and overseas Cham in the U.S., France and 
Australia.  For example, the 3,000-strong Cham community in the 
U.S. helped fund the rebuilding of one of HCMC's mosques through 
their donations of USD 7,000.  Another mosque in An Giang was 
rebuilt in 2000 largely through donations from the Cham 
communities in Indonesia and Malaysia.  Other mosques appeared 
to have less lucrative connections; Islamic representatives in 
Ninh Thuan, who are seeking to build a new mosque, complained 
that Cham relatives in the U.S. had difficulties raising or 
sending money back to Ninh Thuan, and attributed problems to 
post-9/11 restrictions.  Samael, however, said he had never 
heard of any such fundraising problems. 
 
¶7. (SBU) In our meetings, Samael failed to mention foreign 
contributions towards the building of Vietnam's largest mosque 
in Dong Nai Province (near HCMC).  In a series of phone 
conversations in January 2006, Mohamed Yousof (strictly 
protect), the HCMC Representative Board Member responsible for 
finances, told us that the Red Crescent Society of Abu Dhabi 
provided USD 95,000 of the USD 176,000 cost needed to build the 
Dong Nai mosque, which just celebrated its opening in January 
¶2006.  When asked about the mosque in an earlier phone 
conversation, Samael claimed that Yousof was a "maverick" who 
had independently found financing for the new mosque.  Samael 
implied that the funds may have come from "bad sources."  Yousof 
countered that although he had worked independently to secure 
the financing, Samael and GVN authorities knew about the 
project's funding, which was legitimate.  According to Yousof, 
members of the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Society visited 
Vietnam as tourists in 2001 and offered Yousof assistance. 
Actual funding comes from individual donors via the Red Crescent 
Society, which solicits donations for charitable causes.  Yousof 
added that the Red Crescent Society also had provided USD 
100,000 to fund the construction of an Islamic kindergarten in 
An Giang Province as well as for another mosque to be built in 
HCMC, information that neither Samael nor An Giang 
representatives shared with us. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Community leaders also noted that other countries 
provide financial and material support to Vietnamese Muslims. 
Malaysia provides funding for textbooks and training in Vietnam 
and in Malaysia for Vietnamese clergy.  The Saudi royal family 
has financed the publication in Vietnam of 3,000 Korans, which 
have been distributed by the HCMC Board to various Muslim groups 
around the country.  Since 2001, the Saudi royal family also has 
sponsored the travel of 30 Vietnamese Muslims per year to attend 
the Hajj.  At USD 3,000 per Vietnamese, the 12-day pilgrimage 
would otherwise be impossible for most Vietnamese. 
Additionally, the Saudi-based Islamic World League has sponsored 
the travel of five Vietnamese Muslims to Mecca every year since 
¶1995.  Samael noted that the United Arab Emirates sponsored 
approximately 30 Vietnamese Muslims to attend the Hajj in 2005, 
although he said he was not certain whether the funding was 
official or from private business sources in Dubai.  Samael said 
that although the HCMC Board theoretically has responsibility 
for only the city's community, in practice, the board has been 
responsible for distributing the Hajj travel slots throughout 
Vietnam. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) An Giang Muslim leaders told the Consul General in 
December 2005 that nearly 100 Vietnamese Muslims make the Hajj 
annually, and that Saudi Arabia funds a substantial portion of 
that travel.  In an earlier meeting, An Giang Muslim leader Musa 
Haji said that 49 individuals had traveled on the Hajj in 2004, 
30 at the invitation of the Saudi royal family.  He had no 
information on how the remaining 19 had paid for the trip. 
 
Overseas Study 
-------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Muslim community representatives also gave varying 
accounts of Vietnamese Muslims studying overseas.  Samael said 
that prior to 2000, the Saudi Government had sponsored 18 
students to study in Saudi Arabia, but that none had been 
sponsored since 2000.  He initially said they had gone to study 
theology, but later stated that their major was science and 
technology, with a minor in theology.  He added that some of 
these students had emigrated to the U.S. or France after 
finishing their studies; only four had returned to Vietnam. 
However, the Imam from Ninh Thuan Mosque 101 reported that one 
student from his community began studying in Saudi Arabia in 
either 2001 or 2002.  He noted that the HCMC Board always 
notified Ninh Thuan mosques of overseas study opportunities and 
that Saudi Arabia and Libya send representatives every year to 
HCMC to recruit students. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Samael added that, since 2000, Egypt has provided 
three scholarships and Libya five scholarships for Vietnamese 
Muslims to study science and technology in those countries. 
Additionally, the Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank 
has provided loans for 20 students to study technology and 
telecommunications in Indonesia and Malaysia since 1995.  Samael 
said that in theory, after the five or six year course of study 
in Indonesia or Malaysia, the students should return to Vietnam 
and repay their loans so that the HCMC Board can repay the Bank 
and sponsor new students.  In practice, the eight graduates to 
date have not repaid the loans.  Samael added that he hoped for 
more opportunities for Vietnamese Muslims to study economics, 
science and technology in the U.S. and other Western countries. 
Ninh Thuan representatives told us that three students from the 
community were studying religion, Islamic culture, and economics 
in Malaysia.  Another two students from the province were 
studying in Libya. 
 
¶12. (SBU) In a subsequent conversation, Samael said the Libyan 
and Egyptian Embassies notify the HCMC Representative Board 
regarding scholarships via GVN channels.  No recruiters are 
involved.  He could not explain how a student from Ninh Thuan 
received a Saudi scholarship after 2000.  He then added that 
during his Hajj pilgrimage in 2004, he had met five or six 
Vietnamese Muslim students from Ninh Thuan.  According to 
Samael, these Vietnamese students had studied Arabic in Cambodia 
for a few years then obtained Cambodian passports to travel to 
Saudi Arabia for further studies.  He had no information about 
how these students had obtained Cambodian passports or funded 
their travel and studies. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Samael added that the HCMC Board had refused 
scholarship offers in 1992 from Iraq, Iran and Algeria for fears 
of "bad" consequences.  In An Giang, Musa Haji told us that he 
works closely with officials to ensure that "bad people" do not 
corrupt the community.  He noted that radical Islamist 
propaganda had been spread via radio from abroad.  Musa Haji 
emphasized his hope that Vietnam's Muslim community could 
maintain and improve its relationship with the United States. 
 
 
The Bani Muslim Community 
------------------------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Another 40,000 ethnic Cham in Binh Thuan and Ninh 
Thuan provinces practice Bani Islam, an indigenous form of 
Islam.  According to the Ninh Thuan and HCMC Sunni Muslims, the 
Bani observe only one of the five basic principles of Islam, 
namely accepting Mohammed as God's messenger.  Sunni Muslim 
leaders told us that they do not consider the Bani "real 
Muslims," although the GVN frequently groups the Bani with the 
Sunnis.  Bani cleric Tu Cong Du told us that the Bani would like 
the opportunity to travel to Mecca for the Hajj - another of the 
five principles - but that they receive no assistance.  HCMC 
Sunni leaders said that once the Bani Muslims practiced all five 
principles, specifically fasting during Ramadan and praying five 
times daily, they would be eligible for aid to make the Hajj. 
Meanwhile, Du has organized the leaders of the seven Bani 
mosques in Ninh Thuan into a Representative Board and a 
16-member Council of Clergy.  In September, he applied for 
formal GVN recognition under Vietnam's new legal framework on 
religion.  The application remains pending.  He has not yet 
received any updates, despite meeting monthly with the 
provincial Committee for Religious Affairs. 
 
¶15. (SBU) Comment: Vietnam's Muslim communities appear to be 
able to practice their faith with little overt government 
interference.  Many details about Muslims' activities remain 
unclear and contradictory, in part reflecting the independence 
of, and lack of communication among, the various communities and 
their leaders scattered across southern and central Vietnam. 
(Even the size of the overall Muslim community is in doubt, with 
the HCMC board claiming 50,000 Sunni Muslims in 2005, but only 
30,000 in 2002.)  We will continue to seek clarification from 
contacts in the community on how overseas funding is managed and 
how students from Ninh Thuan Province might have obtained 
Cambodian passports.  That said, GVN officials, including from 
the Ministry of Public Security, have told us repeatedly that 
they are keeping close tabs on the Muslim community and its 
outside links.  End Comment. 
 
¶16. (U) Minimize considered. 
CHERN 
 
 
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