VZCZCXRO0354
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHNH
DE RUEHHM #0134/01 0381028
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 071028Z FEB 07
FM AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2100
INFO RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI PRIORITY 1501
RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 2265

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 000134 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREF PGOV SOCI PREL KIRF VM
SUBJECT: PRM A/S SAUERBREY MEETS ETHNIC MINORITY RETURNEES FROM 
CAMBODIA 
 
REF: 06 HCMC 1186 AND PREVIOUS 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000134  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  During a visit to the Central Highlands 
province of Gia Lai February 1-2, PRM Assistant Secretary 
Sauerbrey toured a village near the Cambodian border to 
meet with six ethnic Jarai returnees and their families. 
The interviews were conducted in the presence of ethnic 
village elders, but none of the returnees expressed any 
fear of persecution or mistreatment prior to their flight 
to Cambodia or their return to Vietnam even when speaking 
out of earshot of any minders.  All the returnees were 
young, poor and badly educated.  They did not have a clear 
idea of why they went to Cambodia and there was little 
awareness of resettlement expressed.  The visit helped 
highlight that many ethnic minority communities lack the 
skills to compete successfully in a rapidly modernizing and 
increasingly competitive local economy.  However, even a 
modest improvement in agricultural and animal husbandry 
techniques or the introduction of new crops such as pepper, 
could greatly improve the economic conditions for the 
ethnic minority villagers in the area and reduce the flow 
of persons across the Cambodian border.  Septel will cover 
other elements of the Assistant Secretary's visit to HCMC 
and Gia Lai.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) During a visit to the Central Highlands province 
of Gia Lai February 1-2, PRM Assistant Secretary Sauerbrey 
visited the village of Ba near the Cambodian border to meet 
with six ethnic Jarai returnees and their families.   These 
individuals were among 30 involuntary returnees recently 
repatriated to the Central Highlands under the UNHCR 
Tripartite Agreement after being rejected for refugee 
status by both UNHCR and the U.S. Citizenship and 
Immigration Service (USCIS). 
 
¶3. (SBU) Provincial government officials insisted that the 
ethnic minority village elders sit in on the returnee 
visits in accordance with "the customs and traditions of 
the ethnic minority community."  Overall, the atmosphere in 
the meetings and in the village was relaxed.  Returnees, 
other villagers and many young children milled alongside as 
the Assistant Secretary walked through the village.  Our 
provincial government minders were ignored.   Virtually all 
the homes in the village -- and all the homes of the 
returnees we visited -- had electricity. 
 
¶4. (SBU) All the border crossers from the village were 
ethnic Jarai.  With one exception, we were able to converse 
with the returnees in Vietnamese, utilizing the services of 
a ConGen interpreter. 
 
Young, Poor and Uneducated 
-------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Rolan Hpinh (MNT-641), age 22, was a daughter of 
the senior village elder.  Immediately after repatriation, 
she spent two days in Pleiku being interviewed by the 
authorities on the reasons for her flight to Cambodia and 
conditions in the camps before being returned home.  Hpinh 
told the Assistant Secretary that she was happy to be home 
as she "missed her family."  She "followed her friends" in 
an effort to get resettled to the United States for a 
"better life."  She said that she also was prompted to go 
after police had questioned her at home and accused her of 
lying over the plans of other friends who had crossed to 
Cambodia.  Her cousin Rolan Chao (MTN-627) crossed the 
border with her.  Another family member also had gone to 
Cambodia and had been returned in 2006. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Since repatriation, Hpinh returned to work on her 
father's plot of land, which she estimated to be between 
one and two hectares (2.5 to 5 acres) of cassava and 
cashews.  The family owns a television, motorbike and three 
head of cattle.  Hpinh has a ninth-grade education.  Her 
brother dropped out of school after fifth grade and one 
sister after third.  Another sister, however, finished high 
school and now is a teacher.  The family is Catholic and 
able to practice their faith without hindrance.  She has 
been treated well since her return and life is "the same as 
before."  She has not been visited by police since her 
return to the village.  She noted that she had a friend 
(NFI) whose circumstances were similar to her own, who had 
been resettled overseas.  Hpinh said that she wanted to 
continue with her studies, but the family could not afford 
the VND 20,000 to 30,000 a month (USD 1.50 to 2 USD) for 
school fees.  Hpinh's father smoked store-bought 
cigarettes. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Rolan Chao, 22, Hpinh's cousin, told us that he 
decided to cross the border in October 2006 with his wife, 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000134  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
Rmah Hoa, and one-year old child.  Chao and his family live 
with his in-laws.  He and his wife have fifth-grade 
educations.  They help cultivate his in-laws two to three 
hectares (5 - 7.5 acres) of cassava as well as another 
2,000 square meter plot in the village.  The family owns a 
motorbike.  Chao said he was interviewed only briefly by 
local police upon his return to the village.  Chao's five 
siblings all work on family land, but he said, there was 
not enough for everyone.  He complained that the state had 
taken without compensation land that his family had cleared 
when it opened a local rubber plantation some years ago. 
The family did not have any legal title for this land, 
however. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Chao is Protestant.  He said that conditions for 
religious practice had improved considerably in recent 
years.  He noted that the village had a good Christmas 
celebration.  Chao had no complaints about mistreatment 
since his return. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Ksor Nueh (MTN-632), 22, said that he fled to 
Cambodia in October 2005 with his partner Rahlan Phich, 18. 
(Rahlan gave birth to a child while in Cambodia.)  Neither 
he nor his partner had any formal schooling.  They work in 
her family's two hectares (5 acres) of cassava.  Nueh has 
13 siblings; Phich has five.  They said that the family 
does not grow enough food to support itself.  Nueh told the 
Assistant Secretary that they decided to "follow others 
from the village" and crossed into Cambodia.  They paid VND 
500,000 (USD 32) to a smuggler to facilitate the crossing. 
Rahlan Phich told us that her family was Protestant, but 
that she gave up religion at the insistence of her Nueh, 
who was not religious.  Nueh said that he had been 
interviewed four times by UNHCR in Cambodia before being 
informed that his refugee petition was rejected.  They had 
no complaints of mistreatment since their return. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The Assistant Secretary met Rmah Phyeo, age 20, 
with her father in their (relatively) well-appointed home. 
Phyeo understood Vietnamese, but "had forgotten how to 
speak," having dropped out of school in the fourth grade. 
(Her father translated for us from Jarai into Vietnamese.) 
Phyeo said that her older sister did not go to school; her 
brother dropped out after fourth grade.  Phyeo followed her 
boyfriend across to Cambodia.  After her return, she was 
interviewed once at home by local border authorities.  She 
resumed working as a farmer in her father's five to six 
acres of fields. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Phyeo's father told us that he had attended 
agricultural extension classes in the village sponsored by 
the government.  He had the class materials "somewhere in 
the house," but "the Jarai do not have the ability" to 
apply the instructions, he said.  Phyeo's father also said 
that the family lost "a few hectares" of land that he had 
cleared when the state developed the local rubber 
plantation.  The family did not receive any compensation, 
but also did not have or seek title to the land. 
 
The Ethnic Vietnamese Shopkeeper 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) The village general store was run by an ethnic 
Vietnamese family who had migrated to the area from Thanh 
Hoa province in northern Vietnam.  The shopkeeper told us 
that conditions in Thanh Hoa were "very difficult," 
prompting their decision to leave eight years ago.  They 
moved to the Cambodian border area after working in Gia 
Lai's provincial capital of Pleiku for four years.  Her 
husband was out working a one-hectare plot of land that had 
been given to them by the ethnic minority villagers after 
they saw "how poor we were."  The shopkeeper's three 
children were in school; the eldest, aged 13, would begin 
studying English next year, she proudly told us. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) The visit to the village of Ba was representative 
of the challenges facing the ethnic minority returnees and 
their peers between the ages of 16 and 25.  Their economic 
future is not bright.  Most are uneducated and 
uncompetitive for even the few menial non-farm jobs 
available.  They have few prospects other than working the 
family farm.  However, family landholdings increasingly are 
too fractured to subdivide.  The returnees are competing 
with their many other siblings for the family's land.  Land 
that the villagers once called their own -- traditional 
tribal lands -- have largely been taken over by state-owned 
 
HO CHI MIN 00000134  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
rubber and coffee plantations. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Ethnic Vietnamese settlers and successful ethnic 
minority farmers that we have met in the Central Highlands 
maximize the value of their landholdings, converting the 
areas around their homes into gardens, engaging in animal 
husbandry or planting high-yield, high-density crops such 
as pepper.  Unfortunately, we did not see a single pepper 
vine, a pig sty or a chicken coop in the village.  While 
the government does run at least some agricultural 
extension programs, there appears to be a real barrier to 
absorption and application by ethnic minority farmers.  The 
silver lining may be that, starting from such a low base, 
even a modest improvement in agricultural techniques or the 
introduction of new crops, could greatly improve the 
economic conditions for the ethnic minority villagers in 
the area. 
 
¶15. (SBU) While the government fears over ethnic minority 
separatism and the role of the "Dega Protestant Church" 
continue to be a factor, government and village officials 
appeared more relaxed than in the past.  This was our 
second visit to the village and our second interaction with 
the village elders.  In contrast to the frosty reception we 
received in October 2006 (reftel), the village elders were 
more relaxed and much less doctrinaire.  For example, 
during our first visit, they said firmly that they opposed 
the spread of Protestantism in the village because it was a 
"counter-revolutionary religion."  In contrast, during the 
Assistant Secretary's visit, one elder told us in a private 
conversation walking between returnee homes that it was his 
responsibility to help ensure that all religions were able 
to practice freely.   There also was a new Christian 
meeting point in the village since our last visit.  (None 
of the villagers we spoke with were sure if the meeting 
point belonged to the Catholic Church or a Protestant 
group.) 
 
¶16. (U) Assistant Secretary Sauerbrey has cleared this 
message. 
Winnick