VZCZCXRO2722
RR RUEHLMC RUEHVK
DE RUEHUM #0198/01 1220312
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 010312Z MAY 08
FM AMEMBASSY ULAANBAATAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2111
INFO RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 3316
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 6117
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 2210
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 2993
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA 0615
RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 1723
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 1782
RUEHVK/AMCONSUL VLADIVOSTOK 0267
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORP WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ULAANBAATAR 000198 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS PEACE CORPS, OPIC AND EXIMBANK 
STATE FOR EAP/CM, OES, PD/ECA, AND EB/TPP 
USAID FOR DEIDRA WINSTON 
BANGKOK AND MANILA FOR USAID 
TREASURY FOR T.T. YANG 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ECON SENV PREL EMIN SOCI MG
SUBJECT: Mongolia's Southwest Part 2 of 3:  Gobi Altai: Vast, 
Struggling MPRP Stronghold 
 
Ref: Ulaanbaatar 0180 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  During the Charge's April 21-23 visit to Gobi 
Altai province, Vice Governor Erdenbat said the province's future 
hopes include food processing, especially canned beef for Russia, 
light industry (once the nearby hydropower plant comes online this 
summer), tourism, and mining.  On mining, he said the province had 
"left its wealth in the ground," awaiting better transportation 
networks and environmentally and community friendly mine operators. 
USAID's Gobi Initiative (GI) project is active promoting job 
creation through small and medium enterprise development.  The GI 
project is well known and well regarded by locals, government 
officials, and the media. Visits to some projects revealed GI is 
registering good progress.  Predictably, several interlocutors asked 
when Peace Corps Volunteers would return to the province.  The 
province has consistently voted for candidates of the ruling 
Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), and local MPRP reps 
are under pressure from their headquarters to deliver the province 
again.  Democratic Party reps hope to increase their seat total in 
the provincial parliament and complained about MPRP tendencies to 
give contracts and jobs to party faithful and family members.  A 
children's NGO rep catalogued a litany of problems facing children, 
stemming from poverty and the dearth of after-school activities and 
facilities.  TIP and HIV/AIDS are not yet problems in the province, 
and preventive/education efforts are underway.  Elder and children 
NGO reps both expressed interest in U.S. GSP handicrafts 
opportunities.  END SUMMARY. 
 
ALTAI ITINERARY 
--------------- 
 
¶2. (U)  The Charge, accompanied by E/P Political Specialist doubling 
as interpreter and driver, visited Altai, the capital of Gobi Altai 
aimag (province) April 21-23, on the second of three stops.   He met 
with Altai government and political party officials, local 
medical-college teachers and students, toured three USAID-funded 
Gobi Initiative development projects, met with local press, and 
visited a Buddhist temple.  This cable, the second of three (reftel 
reports on his Zavkhan visit; Bayanhongor septel to follow), 
provides a snapshot of the Charge's brief visit to Altai. 
 
GOVERNOR PROMOTES HERDING AND LIGHT INDUSTRY 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Vice Governor Erdenbat said Gobi Altai is Mongolia's second 
largest province, with 141,000 square kilometers.  The province is 
home to 59,000 residents, of which nearly 19,000 live in Altai, the 
capital.  VG Erdenbat said the province has nearly 2.5 million 
cattle; livestock is its primary industry and largest employer.  He 
promoted the food-processing industry as one of the province's 
goals, including development of a canning factory to export beef to 
Russia.  A nearby hydro-electric plant is scheduled to come on 
stream mid-summer, giving the province and capital electricity 
24hours a day, compared to periodic blackouts from its increasingly 
expensive diesel generator.  He predicated the province would 
thereafter sport a growing capacity for small-scale light industry, 
in part to provide employment for the 1,000 job seekers out of the 
province's 5,000 unemployed persons.   The VG said the province 
boasts substantial tourism potential, but admitted that 
infrastructure lagged, and that the province was off tourists' 
beaten path. 
 
MPRP Stronghold Ordered to Deliver Again; 
Incumbents Favored Over Needed New Blood 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) The nationally dominant Mongolian People's Revolutionary 
Party (MPRP), with 4,800 party members, holds 18 of the provincial 
parliament's 30 seats, as well as the chairman's seat and the 
Governorship.  Gobi Altai has voted MPRP since its inception, and 
the MPRP's provincial leadership has been instructed to deliver 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000198  002 OF 003 
 
 
again this year in the June 29 Parliamentary elections, the party's 
provincial chief said.  The provincial MPRP council has identified 
three qualified candidates to run in those elections from Gobi 
Altai, but as Gobi Altai only has two seats in Parliament, one 
candidate will drop out.  Voters tended to want candidates that can 
make major contributions to the province.  The two incumbents have 
done well in this regard,  have good name recognition and may be 
difficult to dislodge. 
 
¶5. (SBU) However, the provincial MPRP chief said "new blood" is 
needed to invigorate the party.  Local MPRP committees identified 
two highly qualified, up and coming MPRP candidates who could be 
selected by the national MPRP leadership to run from Gobi Altai:  J. 
Enkhbayar, Chief of Staff of the State Supervisory and Inspection 
Agency, and Dashdorj, the Vice Minister for Construction and Urban 
Development.  (Although the campaign season has yet to officially 
open, both Enkhbayar and Dashdorj happened to be visiting the 
province that week, engaging in activities that were aimed at 
boosting their popularity.)  The Chief implied that "new blood" was 
needed to reinvigorate the party and for its future, but that the 
central MPRP committee would select the MPRP candidates that would 
run. 
 
DP SANGUINE ABOUT PROSPECTS BUT HOPES FOR GAINS 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶6. (SBU) Democratic Party (DP) reps noted that the DP holds 12 of 30 
provincial parliament seats, a number it hopes to improve on during 
autumn elections, but they expressed doubt that the DP would gain 
any seats in the national parliament.  The DP claims 3,000 
provincial members, but unofficially, they said, Gobi Altai might 
have 5,000 members.  The DP reps complained that the MPRP did not 
listen to voters and that what investments had flowed into the 
province had largely benefited MPRP supporters or family members. 
Civil service jobs depended on MPRP party affiliation, they said, 
adding that some DP workers had succumbed to pressure to resign from 
the DP and join the MPRP in order to keep their jobs.  The DP 
expected to field five to seven women candidates for the provincial 
assembly. 
 
ELDERLY AND CHILDREN SUFFER FROM POVERTY 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU)  Over lunch with NGO reps on April 22, an official of a 
senior citizens advocacy organization representing 7,800 elders said 
many found it difficult, if not impossible, to live on their monthly 
government subsidy of Tugruk 81,000 (about $75), adding that about 
495 lived in abject poverty.  An official of a children's NGO said 
the province was home to 23,000 children under the age of 18 -- 
about 30% of the province's total population.  She said the problems 
Gobi Altai's children face include poverty that leads to crime; most 
arrests stem from thefts of food by poor, hungry children. 
Disability also contributes to poverty, with some 700 disabled 
children requiring parental support at home, leading to reduced 
family incomes.  Child labor, she said, is a modest problem, with 
some children serving as jockeys and others engaged in artisanal 
mining.  Children's health problems stemmed from malnutrition, in 
particular vitamin deficiencies.  Latch-key and  other children who 
lacked parental supervision sometimes became delinquent and/or 
developed problems with alcohol.  In general, the rep said, a dearth 
of after-school facilities and activities left children with no 
place to go and nothing to do but to get into trouble.  She said 
there were a few incidents of sexual harassment of teenage girls by 
teenage boys, as well as some family-related problems.  Trafficking 
in persons (TIP) was not yet a problem in the province, she said, 
and that NGOs had been proactive in preventive and educational 
efforts.  The same was true of HIV/AIDS.  Both the children's and 
senior citizens NGO reps expressed interest in the U.S. Generalized 
System of Preferences for handicrafts opportunities. 
 
GOBI INITIATIVE SHOWING PROGRESS 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000198  003 OF 003 
 
 
¶8. (U) Mercy Corps representatives provided an overview briefing of 
Gobi Initiative activities over the past four years, showing rising 
trends in all categories (individuals serviced, jobs created, sales, 
loans, etc.)  Afterward, the Charge visited three client projects (a 
veterinarian, a cobbler, and a camel-milk processor), all 
registering good progress and profits. 
 
NEW BUDDHIST TEMPLE DRAWS GOVERNMENT SUPPORT 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (U) During a visit to the Dashpeljeelin Buddhist Temple, head 
monk Enkhjargal estimated his temple had a following of about 10,000 
people (among the city's 19,000 residents), supported by seven 
lamas.  He noted the province's leaders were strong supporters of 
the construction of a large temple complex incorporating the 
existing temple plus other facilities capable of accommodating 
500-600 worshippers.  (Indeed, the Vice Governor had hinted a 
donation would be welcomed, and the VG invited the Charge to a 
fundraiser dinner in May in Ulaanbaatar.)  He opined that his temple 
was among Mongolia's poorest, and expressed gratitude for USG 
efforts at cataloguing Mongolia's Buddhist structures.  He said his 
province had had nearly 1,000 lamas prior to the repression of the 
1930's, but that all had been slain.  He understood, from 
second-hand sources, that a handful of Christian worshippers 
gathered for services in a private home.  He did not know of any 
Muslims in town. 
 
MEDICAL COLLEGE DOMINATED BY WOMEN; 
SCHOLARSHIP, LANGUAGE EXCHANGES, TEXTS NEEDED 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (U) Altai Medical College teachers and English language students 
said males amounted to less than 25% of the school's 1,000 students. 
 They inquired about scholarship opportunities as well as language 
exchanges via internet.  The College suffered from a shortage of 
textbooks, as well as modern medical equipment on which to train. 
GOLDBECK