VIETNAM: REPRESSING ETHNIC MINORITIES AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84S00928R000200010002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 1, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of
Iligence
and Religious Groups
Vietnam:
Repressing Ethnic Minorities
-Seeree-
EA 83-10237
December 1983
Copy 2 r~
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Directorate of Secret
Intelligence
Vietnam:
Repressing Ethnic Minorities
and Religious Groups
A Research Paper
This paper was prepared b
Office of East Asian Analysis. Comments and queries
are welcome and may be directed to the Chief,
Southeast Asia Division, OEA
Secret
EA 83-10237
December 1983
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Vietnam:
Repressing Ethnic Minorities
and Religious Groups
Summary Since the Communist takeover in 1975, the Vietnamese leadership has
Information available carried on a massive program to eliminate any potential internal threat.
as of 25 October 1983 Hanoi has used military force or police repression against nearly every
was used in this report.
religious group and ethnic minority in the country. Church and tribal
leaders have been imprisoned or exiled, organizations without state
approval disbanded, religious practitioners harassed, and minorities pressed
to assimilate. Wherever possible, the regime has installed or supported
collaborators, who help the leadershi romote an image of religious and
racial tolerance.
This policy has been largely successful. Armed resistance in the Central
Highlands has been reduced to a nuisance level, and religious leaders have
been neutralized politically. Fear of political-or military-activism in the
south, as well as a concern that China could step up its support of anti-
Vietnamese resistance throughout Indochina, ensures that the government
will continue to repress religious and ethnic groups in the near future. In
reality, Vietnam has little cause for concern. We believe that none of the
groups poses a short- or long-term threat to the regime.
Secret
EA 83-10237
December 1983
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Selected Ethnic and Religious Groups
Chi
China
Laos
Thailand 1--- Laos
Vietnam
ti Kampuchea
Gulf
of
Thailand
Vietnamese
Cham Other
Religious group
C Cao Dai
H Hoa Hao
0 50 100 Kilometers
0 50 100 Miles
ThuanHai
Dog Chi Minh Cit
(((
hapl erly Sal
Giang
KAy
Can
Thofhme Mekong Delta
Pong Be)
South
? China
Sea
Khr--:T
Tay Ninh S?.
?Tay Ninh
Boundary representation is not
necessarily authoritative. Names
in V etnam are shown without
diacritical marks.
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Vietnam:
Repressing Ethnic Minorities
and Religious Groups
The Vietnamese leadership since 1975 has expended
considerable effort to eliminate Vietnam's ethnic mi-
norities and religious groups as alternate centers of
popular identification and loyalty. Hanoi's repressive
policies appear to be based on fears that these groups
might serve foreign interests and that the traditional
political activism of some of the groups might hinder
consolidation of control over the south. In addition,
some of the groups have mounted armed resistance
against the regime. We estimate that the guerrilla
organization United Front for the Liberation of Op-
pressed Races (Fulro) may still have as many as 2,000
insurgents operating in the Central Highlands.
Religious Groups: Broad Appeal
Hanoi is most worried by the religious groups, whose
appeal reaches beyond narrow ethnic lines. Vietnam's
Buddhist sects, with at least 30 million followers
among the country's 57 million people, are the largest
organizations in Vietnam not under the control of the
Communist Party. The largest and most formidable of
these sects is centered on the An Quang pagoda in Ho
Chi Minh City. Established in 1949, An Quang was
in the forefront of political opposition to South Viet-
namese governments. An Quang monks often immo-
lated themselves during the 1960s to protest govern-
ment actions, and their mass organizations, such as
the Unified Buddhist Church and the Buddhist Fam-
ily Organization, effectively mobilized people for po-
litical demonstrations. Today, despite the regime's
attempts to break the sect by arresting its leaders,
intimidating its followers, and organizing a rival
church, Hanoi has been unable to wean Vietnamese
Buddhists away from An Quang
Two uniquely Vietnamese religious sects add to Ha-
noi's security concerns. The Hoa Hao, located in the
Mekong Delta, is a militantly anti-Communist re-
formist Buddhist sect numbering about 2.5 million
people whose founder was assassinated by the Com-
munists in the 1940s. Relations between the party and
the sect have been bad ever since, although some Hoa
Hao joined the Vietcong when the Diem government
suppressed the sect's private army in the 1950s. The
Hoa Hao areas offered some of the stiffest armed
resistance to Hanoi's troops following the fall of
Saigon in April 1975, and the government in June
1983 noted that many Communist Party members
and their relatives in those areas have been murdered.
The other unique sect, the Cao Dai, has an eclectic .
creed that borrows heavily from both Catholicism and
Buddhism. Founded in Tay Ninh Province in 1919,
the Cao Dai functioned almost as a state within a
state during the 1950s and 1960s when it had its own
private army. Unlike the Hoa Hao, the 1-2 million
Cao Dai attempted unsuccessfully to reach an accom-
modation with the Communists in early 1975 in order
to protect the sect's Holy See near Tay Ninh City.
Faced with government repression since then, Cao
Dai followers have continuously attempted to form
antiregime underground organizations.
Ethnic Minorities: Strategically Located
Vietnam's ethnic minorities constitute only 10 to 15
percent of the population, but they play a more
significant role than their numbers would seem to
indicate. Some occupy strategic border areas; others
play a disproportionately large role in the trade and
Vietnam's 3-4 million Catholics, longtime opponents
of the Communists, were major supporters of the
former Republic of South Vietnam. Catholics in 1975
and 1976 mounted short-lived armed resistance
against the regime and have continued-especially in
the south-to resist assimilation into the Communist
state. Vietnam's 100,000 to 200,000 Protestants, al-
though less active politically, are heavily represented
among the hill tribes of the Central Highlands, where
service sectors of the Vietnamese economy.
The largest group is the 1.3-1.4 million ethnic Chi-
nese, who until the late 1970s dominated retail and
wholesale trade in the south and ran a large part of
northern Vietnam's vital transportation sector. They
armed resistance continues.
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also had become party cadre and government offi-
cials. But following the worsening of Sino-Vietnamese
relations in 1977 and 1978 and China's invasion of
northern Vietnam in February 1979, Hanoi looked
upon the ethnic Chinese-who had long been the
targets of Beijing's intelligence operations-as a po-
tentially dangerous fifth column
Eight to 10 percent of Vietnam's population consists
of 30 to 40 major hill tribes-the largest is the Tai of
northern Vietnam, who according to official estimates
numbered 820,000 in 1980. Located on Vietnam's
northern and western borders, the tribesmen tradi-
tionally have been excluded from the political main-
stream and consider ethnic Vietnamese officials and
settlers interlopers. This is especially true in the
Central Highlands, where ethnic minorities seek a
separate state for the 3.5 million tribesmen there.
At present, the only significant antiregime insurgency
is being conducted in the Highlands by the tribally
based Fulro. Fulro was established in 1964, when two
hill tribe separatist fronts merged to combat what
they believed was a policy of cultural annihilation
directed against the hill tribes. By 1969 Fulro had
obtained autonomy for the hill tribes within the South
Vietnamese state and formally disbanded. It main-
tained an underground network, however, and resur-
faced following the fall of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh
City).
The approximately 800,000 ethnic Khmer (Khmer
Krom) living in southern Vietnam are the only group
whose position has not seriously deteriorated since the
Communist takeover. Because of their ties to Kampu-
chea's major ethnic group, the Khmer, Hanoi has
used them extensively in military and civilian posi-
tions there. According to refugee and defector ac-
counts, Khmer Krom not only serve in the Vietnamese
Army in Kampuchea (often as interpreters) but also
staff Kampuchean Government and party positions.
Nevertheless, the Vietnamese remain suspicious of the
Khmer Krom because of longstanding ethnic animos-
ities and because of Khmer Krom connections with
the US-backed Saigon government. Moreover, Hanoi
may suspect that some Khmer Krom have ties to
Khmer resistance forces in Kampuchea
Lastly, there are the 100,000 Cham, historical ene-
mies of the Vietnamese and rulers of southern Viet-
nam until displaced by the Vietnamese in the 15th
century. Now concentrated in Thuan Hai, Dong
Thap, and An Giang Provinces, they are of different
ethnic stock from the Vietnamese and are further
separated by being Muslims. Before 1975 the Cham
enjoyed a special status. They were exempt from
military conscription, could go to the Middle East to
make the pilgrimage to Mecca or pursue Koranic
studies, and had their own Cham administrators and
their own leader, the mufti. Local leaders were popu-
larly elected, and the Muslim Association handled
social and economic programs within the Cham com-
munity. Nevertheless, their historical antipathy to-
ward the Vietnamese led the Cham to make common
cause with the Montagnards, and they remain active
in the Fulro resistance movement.
Violent Repression: Establishing Dominance
Immediately after the 1975 takeover, Hanoi began
using military force to control the ethnic minorities
and religious groups in the south. In 1976 Vietnamese
troops cordoned off Hoa Hao areas, imposing a virtual
economic blockade in conjunction with military
sweeps. Most of the sect's top leaders were impris-
oned, although five were released in 1977 in return for
publicly confessing their "crimes" against Hanoi. By
1979 all Hoa Hao real estate had been seized and
much of the farmland transformed into cooperatives.
Sect members today are drafted into labor brigades,
their schools and hospitals are administered by the
regime, and their local management committees have
been dismantled.
The Central Highlands tribal groups (Montagnards)
and their organization Fulro have also been the target
of military operations. Aggressive patrolling and con-
stant sweep operations by the Vietnamese Army have
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reduced Fulro's effectiveness; Fulro officials them-
selves have admitted losing 2,000 killed since 1981. In
addition, tribal leaders who worked in the Republic of
South Vietnam's Ministry of Ethnic Minorities (which
was established to obtain hill tribe cooperation) and
those who had a long relationship with US advisers
were arrested in 1975 and placed in reeducation
camps. The hill tribes' autonomous political status
Security forces have been even more brutal in their
treatment of the Catholic Church. They moved swift-
ly in 1975 to neutralize the southern Church, conduct-
ing mass arrests and executions. 25X1
at least 100 priests remain in 25X1
reeducation camps. One of the most serious instances
of police repression was the Vinh Son Church affair in
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The Heavy Hand of Security
Vietnamese military actions have now been largely
replaced by public security operations. Public security
officials use several methods to blunt the effectiveness
of the ethnic and religious groups:
? House arrest or imprisonment of potential opposi-
tion leaders.
? Control of the use of religious centers (Buddhist
pagodas, Catholic churches) as meeting sites.
? Harassment and travel restrictions of low-level cler-
gy and ethnic leaders.
? Media censorship, monopoly of publication facili-
ties, and prior clearance of church sermons and
other speeches
All groups are subjected to such security harassment.
For example, Cao'Dai refugees state that police are
constantly stationed on the once inviolate grounds of
the Cao Dai Holy See. Of the 2,000 sect officials and
monks living at the Holy See in 1975, refugees say
only 50 to 100 remain. All but two buildings within
the extensive grounds now house Communist Party
cadre, while sect members living around the Holy See
have been relocated to collective farms.
Vietnamese media reports give a partial picture of
continued Cao Dai resistance. In August 1978 securi-
ty forces destroyed the Cao Dai underground (al-
though another has been formed since then), and 19
mostly high-ranking Cao Dai officials were convicted
in a public trial of plotting the overthrow of the
government. Three were sentenced to death, another
four to life imprisonment. The following year, another
37 sect members were arrested. Last April the govern-
ment arrested Pham Ngoc Trang, in charge of the
sect's worldwide propagation activities, for running a
counterrevolutionary organization. Four months later
another group was convicted in nearby Song Be
Province, and two members were given the death
sentence
1976, when public security forces raided a church in
Ho Chi Minh City and arrested dozens of priests and
their followers for antiregime activity.
The regime severed the Church's international con-
nections in the mid-1970s by expelling all foreign
priests and the Vatican representative. Official
Church news is now printed in the government-
approved Catholics and the Nation, which replaced
12 Church-owned magazines. According to Catholic
refugees, security cadre monitor sermons and sched-
ule "volunteer" work or social projects to conflict with
the few permissible masses. Catholic schools are
under state control, Church social and educational
programs have been ended or reduced, and most 25X1
seminaries closed. Catholics cannot hold government
or party jobs or attend the university.
Vietnamese clergy cannot travel or be transferred
between parishes without official permission, and very
few new priests have been ordained. The few seminary
applicants approved by Hanoi face two years of labor
service before beginning a four-year theology course
and another two to three years of labor service
afterward-with no guarantee of ordination. Accord-
ing to one refugee, priests from the more docile North
Vietnamese parishes have been sent south.
Vietnamese Protestants receive similar treatment. Ac-
cording to diplomatic reports, 100 of the 500 Protes-
tant churches in southern Vietnam are closed-as is
the.only Vietnamese Protestant theological seminary,
at Nha Trang. Protestants in the Central Highlands
have come under special government scrutiny because
the regime suspects that the Montagnards, many
converted by US missionaries, may be using the
Protestant churches as bases to organize support for
Fulro.
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Security forces also have moved forcefully to undercut
the Buddhist An Quang sect's influence. An Quang's
mass organization was disbanded in 1975, and antire-
gime monks were imprisoned or fled into exile. The
sect's most prominent leader, Tri Quang, has been
under house arrest since the Communist takeover.
Hundreds of monks were forced to return to secular
life by threats of military conscription and by being
forced to work for their meals rather than living on
the food traditionally obtained by begging or contri-
butions. Buddhist schools either have been closed or
had their curriculums cleansed of "reactionary" sub-
jects and teachers. By 1979, according to one refugee,
over 600 monks remained in reeducation camps; 80
percent of Vietnam's pagodas were closed; and only
one-third of the 3,000 monks and nuns who were
members of the General Association of Young Monks
in 1975 were still practicing.
Buddhist resistance to these measures peaked in 1977,
when An Quang unsuccessfully attempted to hold a
congress of its Unified Buddhist Church and then,
with members of at least one other sect, led antigov-
ernment demonstrations. In the Mekong Delta town
of Can Tho, over a dozen An Quang monks immolat-
ed themselves as their predecessors had during the
previous decade. The regime reacted with mass ar-
rests and even tighter controls on pagoda activities.
Vietnam's ethnic minorities have received similar
treatment. As Hanoi's relations with Beijing began to
deteriorate in 1977, ethnic Chinese were given the
choice of going either to China or the remote New
Economic Zones. Between 1978 and 1980, 230,000
ethnic Chinese fled into China. Ethnic Chinese cadre
were removed from party and government positions.
Chinese families have difficulty obtaining higher edu-
cation for their children, and Chinese schools have
been closed. Chinese areas are placed under strict
curfews, businessmen are constantly harassed, and
youths are drafted into military labor units. For the
smaller Cham and Khmer Krom minorities, leaders
have been arrested and sent to reeducation camps,
and their independent cultural and social organiza-
tions disbanded. Refugees state that the Cham, be-
cause of their Fulro connections, are closely watched
by public security officials
A More Subtle Approach: Co-Option and Absorption
As it stepped up its public security operations, Hanoi
began to infiltrate or co-opt the leaders of the ethnic
and religious groups and now is using this approach
increasingly. The Cao Dai's top 25 "dignitaries"-
who were sent to reeducation camps in 1975-have
been gradually replaced by others more amenable to
the regime. According to refugee reports, Truong
Ngoc Anh-one of the top leaders in the Cao Dai's
Tay Ninh faction, a National Assembly delegate, and
a member of the party-supported Fatherland Front
Committee-is being pushed by the regime as the
coming Cao Dai leader. Hanoi also supports collabo-
rationist clergy within the Catholic Church, and the
Church's only official mass organization-the Na-
tional Liaison Committee of Patriotic and Peace-
Loving Catholics-is a party front group.
Among the Buddhists, the regime has mobilized
support from pro-Hanoi monks both in and out of the
An Quang sect, gradually placing them in leadership
positions or using them to staff new progovernment
organizations such as the Patriotic Buddhists' Liaison
Committee. In November 1981 Hanoi sponsored a
National Council on the Unification of Buddhism in
Hanoi in an attempt to unify all Buddhists under a
single government-controlled organization. Unifica-
tion was finally achieved in January 1983, when the
Unified Buddhist Association-the North Vietnamese
front organization created in 1959-was dissolved
and the Vietnam Buddhist Church proclaimed the
"only Buddhist organization representing Vietnamese
Buddhism."
the majority of Buddhists continue to support the
"unofficial" Buddhist organizations.
Hanoi at the same time is slowly altering the ethnic
composition of tribal areas by settling tens of thou-
sands of ethnic Vietnamese there and encouraging hill
tribesmen to abandon practices and traditions that
distinguish them from the ethnic Vietnamese. Accord-
ing to press reports, normally nomadic hill tribesmen
are being settled in permanent villages. Vietnamese is
used as the language of instruction in Highlands
schools, and Montagnards are urged to dress in
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Vietnamese style. Many of these policies are imple-
mented by party members of hill tribe origin. Com-
munist Montagnards hold substantive positions at the
district and provincial levels, and some are at the
national level.
Along the northern border, there is no active re-
sistance to the regime. Hanoi's present leaders began
their drive for power in these areas and developed
good relations with the local population. Northern
tribesmen now staff local militia units and man party
and government positions at the district and province
levels. However, Hanoi's policy of moving ethnic
Vietnamese to the border areas indicates that the
tribesmen still may not be completely trusted.
Under Hanoi's rule, the Cham have lost many of the
privileges that distinguished them from their ethnic
Vietnamese neighbors. Refugees claim that Cham is
no longer the language of instruction in school. The
position of mufti has been abolished, as has the
Muslim Association. Importation of Korans is prohib-
ited and none are produced locally. Cham are no
longer allowed to go abroad for either Koranic study
or to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. However, most
mosques remain open and Cham worshipers are sub-
ject to less public security harassment than groups
such as the Montagnards
Even the Khmer Krom, so useful to Hanoi in Kampu-
chea, have not escaped the regime's assimilationist
policies. The minority's Theravada Buddhist organi-
zations-major repositories of Khmer Krom cultural
identity and the centers of political and social influ-
ence-have been either disbanded or brought under
state supervision. Land has been collectivized, and,
according to refugees, Khmer Krom peasants were
forcibly removed from some areas along the Kampu-
chean border during the mid-1970s and replaced by
ethnic Vietnamese.
Continued Regime Pressure Likely
We doubt that any of the religious or ethnic groups
poses a significant short- or long-term challenge to
Hanoi. The leadership's tactics have clearly been
successful-the 20 divisions stationed south of Da
Nang in late 1975 have been reduced to one (in the
Central Highlands).
moreover, work against "counterreactionaries"
is now handled by only 200 public security personnel
in the Ministry of the Interior's office in Ho Chi Minh
City.
Several other factors, when added to Hanoi's repres-
sive policies, work against any significant progress by
religious or ethnic groups. All of the groups, except
the Buddhists, are minorities that cannot attract
widespread support; many are traditionally hostile
toward ethnic Vietnamese. In addition, several of the
groups-the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai, for exam-
ple-are mutually antagonistic, greatly reducing the
chances of forming a united front. Guerrilla organiza-
tions suffer from severe supply shortages
Fulro guerrillas have difficulty
obtaining food and must dedicate. four days each week
to growing crops. Finally, the resistance groups have
no havens in adjoining countries.
Nevertheless, we do not expect Hanoi to ease up on its
policies for fear there could be a resurgence in active
political or military resistance in the south. Popular
discontent with Communist rule there remains strong,
and passive resistance to government policies is com-
mon. In the past several years, for example, Hanoi
was forced to back off from a socialization program
that had resulted in a dangerous drop in industrial
and agricultural production.' Hanoi may also fear
that such resistance could over time spread to the
north. According to refugee reports, southern goods
are already being sold in the north, and black mar-
kets-rife in the south-are growing in Hanoi.
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Beijing is trying to aid the
northern hill tribes, which straddle the Sino-Vietnam-
ese border. Vietnamese newspapers periodically carry
stories about the capture of Chinese agents operating
Ethnic minorities will thus remain under pressure to
conform to Vietnamese norms while religious organi-
zations will increasingly be controlled by the state.
Over the next few years, we look for continued
resettlement of ethnic Vietnamese in tribal areas.
Ethnic Chinese-unless there is a radical change in
Sino-Vietnamese relations-probably will be subject-
ed to increasing bureaucratic harassment designed to
encourage them to choose emigration or assimilation.
And we expect Hanoi to strictly limit the number of
seminarians and newly ordained clergy.
We doubt that foreign assistance to resistance groups
will become a significant factor in antiregime activity
in Vietnam. China already has a sizable investment in
the Kampuchean resistance and has shown no inclina-
tion to offer substantial assistance to any group other
than the hill tribes. Furthermore, we doubt that these
isolated self-centered groups, which are penetrated by
the Vietnamese security apparatus and lack the infra-
structure and havens necessary to mount an effective
resistance, would be able to use any increase in
foreign support effectively.
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