VZCZCXRO6202
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHNH
DE RUEHHM #0395/01 1081002
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 181002Z APR 06
FM AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0697
INFO RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI PRIORITY 0507
RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 0728

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000395 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM SOCI PREL PREF PGOV VM
SUBJECT: NEW INTERVIEWS WITH VISAS-93 APPLICANTS SHOW GRADUAL 
PROGRESS IN CENTRAL HIGHLANDS AND IN THE VISAS-93 PROCESS 
 
REF: 05 HCMC 1217 AND PREVIOUS; B) HCMC 29; C) 05 HCMC 1217 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000395  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary.  In March, ConGen conducted private interviews 
with 12 VISAS-93 (family reunification) Central Highlands ethnic 
minority beneficiary families in HCMC.  These interviews show 
that conditions for ethnic minority families -- including 
religious freedom -- continue to improve gradually. Almost all 
the applicants told us that they received government financial 
and material support.  They were able to travel to HCMC freely 
and to receive required documents from local officials.  Some of 
the interviewees contradicted elements of the claims their 
husbands made to officials in Cambodia following their flight 
from Vietnam in 2001/2002.  Sixty seven percent of VISAS-93 
cases to date have received passports.  End Summary. 
 
A Window on Conditions in the Central Highlands 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶2. (SBU) In March, HCMC's Refugee and Resettlement Section 
interviewed twelve families as part of their family 
reunification (VISAS 93) processing.  The petitioning husbands 
had fled to Cambodia following protests in the Central Highlands 
in February 2001.  As in past processing cycles (ref A), ConGen 
PolOff met in private with these families in an effort to 
develop unfiltered accounts of conditions for ethnic minorities 
in the Central Highlands.  Of the 12 families, eight families 
were from Gia Lai, three from Dak Nong, and one from Dak Lak 
provinces. Of the families from Gia Lai province, seven were 
ethnic Jrai and one was ethnic Bahnar. Two of the three families 
from Dak Nong province were ethnic Ede, one was ethnic Mnong. 
The family from Dak Lak also was ethnic Ede. 
 
Demographics and Living Standards 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) All 12 told us that their villages were electrified; 
ten of the 12 had electricity in their homes.  Two ethnic Jarai 
families in Gia Lai province did not have access to electricity 
as their homes were too far away from the electric grid. Only 
four families (two Ede families in Dak Nong and two Jarai 
families in Gia Lai) had running water in their homes.  The rest 
obtain water from local wells or nearby rivers. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The 12 women told us that their children were attending 
school. The highest-grade completed for any family member was 
the 11th grade. In general, the education level of children 
tended to be higher than that of their parents, with some adult 
interviewees having never attended school. 
 
¶5. (SBU) All interviewees were farmers.  Principal crops were 
rice, coffee, cassava and cashews. All families said they 
received money transfers from their relatives in the United 
States. Some received a few hundred dollars on a monthly basis, 
others tens of dollars on a handful of occasions. There was also 
no consistent transmission method for these funds. A few receive 
money via wire transfer to banks or the local post office. 
Others said they received funds through private intermediaries. 
We could only document one case where authorities prevented a 
Visa-93 beneficiary from receiving funds from the United States. 
 The ethnic Mnong interviewee from Dak Nong told us that in 2004 
provincial police seized VND 5 million (USD 315)  from her 
husband because it was "illegally sent." The authorities never 
returned this money. This same woman later received five 
payments of USD 100 from her husband via "other villagers, 
without further difficulty from police. 
 
Representation and Government Assistance 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) In Gia Lai, seven of the eight families said that local 
police and authorities largely were from the local ethnic 
minority community. Only one Gia Lai family claimed to live in a 
village with majority ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) police and 
administrators.  In Dak Nong and Dak Lak, there was much less 
ethnic minority representation in local police and government. 
The one family from Dak Lak added that their community was 
ethnically divided between a Kinh Village -- Blech A -- and an 
ethnic minority village -- Blech B.  All police and politicians 
in both sub-villages are ethnic Vietnamese except for the 
village elder of Blech B who is Ede. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Most families said that they received assistance from 
the government. For example, interviewees from Gia Lai province 
said that they received free salt, rice, blankets, clothes, and 
access to a clinic where they can obtain free immunizations and 
medical care. Two families from Gia Lai added that the 
government provided houses to the poorest families in their 
villages. The family from Dak Lak province received housing 
assistance in addition to receiving land and rice.  Only one 
interviewee, a Jarai from the Gia Lai village of Lang Del 
alleged government discrimination on assistance distribution. 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000395  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
She claimed that on one occasion the government provided salt to 
villagers.  Protestants were given four boxes, while those who 
claimed "no religion" received 25 boxes of salt. 
 
Little Official Harassment 
-------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Overall, the interviewees did not report significant 
police or official harassment.  The most serious case involved 
an ethnic Jarai woman in Gia Lai who sought to flee to Cambodia 
with her husband.  She was caught, but her husband was able to 
cross successfully.  She told us that she was detained initially 
for 24 hours at a provincial military post. After she was sent 
home, the provincial police came to speak with her twice a day 
for the first two months.  After this initial period, police 
came to check up on her on a monthly basis. Before traveling to 
her Visas-93 pre-screening interview in HCMC, police came to 
visit her again.  According to the applicant, police questioned 
her on why she wanted to move to the U.S. and tried to scare her 
into not following through by claiming that her family would be 
split-up upon reaching the United States. 
 
¶9. (SBU) In other cases, five applicants from Gia Lai told us 
that police visited them immediately after their husbands fled 
to Cambodia, but were never questioned again. Similarly, police 
summoned the applicant from Dak Lak immediately after her 
husband fled. (She said her son also was questioned on whether 
he had participated in the same protests with his father). 
Occasionally, police would come to ask her if she had heard from 
her husband, but there was no harassment.  One applicant from 
Dak Nong and two from Gia Lai told us that they had to seek 
permission to travel to HCMC for their Visas-93 interviews. 
 
Religious Freedom 
----------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Some applicants said that they continue to face 
restrictions on religious practice.  However, overall, the 
applicants described a general improvement in conditions for 
religious freedom in their villages.  For example, of the seven 
families in Gia Lai who self-identified as Protestant, four 
indicated that they have been able to assemble in local house 
churches over the past year.  Three families have only been 
permitted to pray at home for the past several years, they did 
not explain why.  The family from Dak Lak, also Protestant, said 
 that, since the protests in the province in 2001, they have 
been unable to gather to worship.  (Per refs B and C, provincial 
governments in Gia Lai and Dak Lak have allowed the 
GVN-recognized Southern Evangelical Church and some other 
non-recognized house church groups to gather.  However, the 
provinces maintain tight control on any groups that they believe 
are promoting ethnic minority separatism.) In Dak Nong province, 
the two Protestant families said they were able to gather to 
worship without interference.  One of the two families said that 
this improvement started in 2006. 
 
Passports and Documentation 
--------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) None of the interviewees had yet obtained their 
passports.  Two families from Gia Lai had applied recently, but 
the majority were waiting for the results of the Visas 93 
interview process.  One interviewee from Dak Nong complained 
that, thus far, she has been unable to obtain certification from 
her hamlet that would enable her to apply for her passport. 
 
¶12. (SBU) All the applicants were able to obtain from local and 
provincial officials needed supporting documentation for the 
Visas-93 interview process including:  family registry books, 
birth certificates, and marriage certificates.  None claimed 
that they had to pay a bribe to obtain the paperwork.  One woman 
from Gia Lai province told us that she tried bribe local police 
to expedite her documents but it was refused. 
 
Anomalies in the Case Files 
--------------------------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) One Jarai interviewee presented a false marriage 
certificate issued in 2005 (after her husband fled to Cambodia). 
 The document was forged with her husband's signature (the 
interviewee later admitted that her mother signed the document). 
 The applicant had not yet clarified her exact legal status with 
the Visa-93 petitioner.  In other instances, we found that the 
interviewee's testimony was inconsistent with the statements 
given by the petitioner in the refugee camp during the 
asylum-seeking process. For example, an ethnic Bahnar 
interviewee from Gia Lai province (village of To Drah I), whose 
husband told interviewers in Cambodia that his house was burned 
and destroyed by police, told us that her house was never burned 
and that she has lived in the same house for the past six years 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000395  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
(dating from before the time her husband fled Vietnam).  Another 
ethnic Jarai woman from Gia Lai, whose husband reportedly told 
officials in the Cambodian camps that he fled from Vietnam 
because his house was seized by police and because he had been 
arrested several times, told us that her husband fled to 
Cambodia because the government wouldn't let him attend the 10th 
grade. She added that her home had never been seized and that 
the police had never arrested her husband.  None of the 
applicants demonstrated any awareness of an ethnic minority 
separatist movement in the Central Highlands. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Comment:  The results of these private interviews 
reinforce our observations that the overall climate for ethnic 
minorities in the Central Highlands continues to gradually 
improve.  That this group was able to travel to HCMC without 
harassment and applicants now are consistently receiving 
documents and passports -- including from once-intransigent Dak 
Lak province -- indicates that the Visas-93 program is becoming 
more routinized throughout the Central Highlands.  Of the 
current 170 VISAS-93 cases, 114 families from all five Central 
Highlands provinces have received passports, or roughly 67 
percent of the current Visas-93 caseload.  71 cases -- 275 
persons -- or 42 percent of the caseload have departed for the 
United States.   We continue to track the 56 cases/207 persons 
who have not yet received their passports.  Of this cohort, 41 
cases/159 persons have been interviewed in HCMC.  Another 15 
cases/48 persons remain pending.  End Comment. 
WINNICK