State Dept

Time

refugees

Vietnam calls O.C. group terrorists
U.S. urged to rein in refugees accused of Asia bombing attempts; they term themselves govt in exile
10.21.01   Scott Martelle & Mai Tran L.A.Times

As the U.S. presses its war against terrorism, Vietnam is demanding that American officials extend the crackdown to an immigrant group they say has sponsored SE Asian bombing attempts from its headquarters in a nondescript Garden Grove office building. The group, which calls itself the Govt of Free Vietnam, consists largely of former S. Vietnamese soldiers & bureaucrats who, more than a quarter-century after the fall of Saigon, refuse to accept the Communist regime as the ruler of their native land. Members of the group say they have spent 6 years organizing jungle training camps in Thailand & Laos and that some of them have mounted unsuccessful bomb attempts against Vietnamese govt facilities. Hanoi last week called on the U.S. to "collaborate with Vietnam in stopping & punishing the masterminds and those who plan terrorist acts against the Vietnamese govt & its people."

The demand came after FBI agents arrested a member of the group, Van Duc Vo, 41, at John Wayne Airport in Orange County on Oct. 12 after Thai police named him the main suspect in an attempted bombing of the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok this summer. Vo, a naturalized American citizen formerly of El Monte, remains jailed on charges of use of a weapon of mass destruction by a U.S. national in a foreign country, a federal crime that could carry a life term. The State Dept had no official response to Vietnam's demand, but a spokesman said the U.S. govt "has concerns about the possibility of people violating our laws, and we've warned them not to do it." He referred questions about Free Vietnam to the Justice Dept & the FBI, where officials declined to comment.

Vietnam has asked the U.S. to bring terrorism charges against the group's leader, former civil engineer Chanh Huu Nguyen, 52. "Many times [group members] have organized bombings in Vietnam and against its agencies abroad," said Thuy Thanh Phan, spokeswoman for the Vietnamese Dept of Foreign Affairs. "Vietnam has asked the U.S. to stop harboring, tolerating or supporting that group. It should punish those who commit terrorist acts on Vietnam . . . like Nguyen & his group." Until Vo's arrest, Free Vietnam was little known outside the Vietnamese community. So far, its most clear-cut success seems to have been in annoying the Vietnamese govt. The group considers itself to be Vietnam's legitimate govt in exile, complete with a "cabinet" that meets frequently. But some dismiss it as irrelevant, and suggest that it is just a vehicle for Nguyen's personal ambitions. At least one supporter said he loaned the organization $50,000 and never has been repaid.

Nguyen walks a fine line. Overall, he is defiant, saying Free Vietnam members acting on their own have been involved in bomb attacks against Vietnamese interests. He vowed that his group would continue to select targets within Vietnam. "We can destroy factories; we can destroy ammunition," he said. Yet he also describes himself as a "peaceful political fighter for my country's democracy & freedom. . . . Vietnam is taking advantage of the terrorist situation by claiming that I'm a terrorist." The Vietnamese govt has tried to play off the 9.11.01 to kindle a sense of outrage that the U.S. could be harboring terrorists on its own soil while it bombs Afghanistan in its quest to destroy Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network. "It would be absolutely hypocritical for us to expect world cooperation against a group that attacked us if we were not willing to cooperate in going after groups attacking other countries," said Harvard Univ.'s Kennedy Ctr on Govt intl politics professor Stephen M. Walt. Though it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to call for the overthrow of a foreign govt, it is against the law for Americans to become involved in the effort to do so. Reports of Americans taking part in anti-govt attacks in Cambodia last November, and other unspecified actions elsewhere in the region, led to a special State Dept warning Dec. 19 that Americans could be prosecuted for acts against foreign govts.

It is illegal to raise money in the U.S. for overseas terror campaigns, although the practice by organizations ranging from the Irish Republican Army to the militant Islamic group Hamas has been noted for years. Law enforcement efforts to stop it occur sporadically but are difficult to pull off, experts say. Earlier this year, a New York group linked to anti-Arab Israeli groups was raided by federal officials who confiscated computers & records. And in 1998, federal officials in Chicago seized about $1.1 million from Mohammed Salah and the Quranic Literacy Institute after accusing them of fronting for Hamas. Syracuse Univ. law professor & expert on national security law Wm Banks said terrorism cases can be difficult to mount, requiring complex investigations domestically & overseas, where U.S. laws don't apply. Yet the evidence still has to be gathered in such a way that it's admissible in U.S. courts. "You do need to track evidence and build a case as if it occurred in New York or Los Angeles," he said. Nguyen said it would be unfair for the U.S. to arrest him at the request of Vietnam. "I haven't done anything wrong in America," he said. Nguyen, sitting at the head of a large table in a brightly lit Free Vietnam conference room, said his group is not terrorist because it operates openly and avoids injuring people. "Terrorists don't have addresses; they work underground and they kill people," Nguyen said in his loud & raspy voice as a dozen members of Free Vietnam's "cabinet" listened from the other end of the table.

The Govt of Free Vietnam came together in 1995 out of the remnants of earlier opposition groups, launched largely through the force of Nguyen's personality. Their base now is Little Saigon in the heart of Orange County, home to the nation's largest Vietnamese community. Nguyen clearly enjoys the spotlight. A picture of him shaking hands with former President Bill Clinton hangs on a wall of the Free Vietnam office, and he keeps a binder with copies of news stories in which he was featured. Verifiable details on the group are hard to come by. Nguyen said it has a budget of about $1 million a year, mostly from wealthy Vietnamese businessmen around the world and the group's cabinet, some of whom sold their homes & businesses to raise money. Nguyen claims about 200,000 members worldwide, about half in Cambodia & Vietnam, and about 10,000 members in the U.S.. But in the past, the organization has reported only a few thousand members worldwide. The group positions itself as the keeper of the chain of governance established in the 1940s, when France granted the former colony its independence and set in motion the events that led to nearly 3 decades of war. Nguyen said the group opened training camps in the jungle near the Thai-Cambodian border in 1995, geared toward indoctrinating Vietnamese citizens in democracy & free-market economics.

In 1998, Cambodian forces attacked a Free Vietnam convention at the remote camp, which was then shut down by Thai military forces, according to Nguyen & press accounts. Three people were reported wounded and Nguyen was arrested & deported. The group simply moved its operations to a remote region of Laos near the Vietnamese border, where it operates unfettered, he said. Nguyen said members were involved in the summer incident in Bangkok, in which 2 bombs were placed at the Vietnamese embassy but did not detonate. A second embassy bombing plot involving a Free Vietnam member was uncovered in Manila. Nguyen said he didn't authorize those actions but described them as bomb scares, not real attempts to blow up buildings. Vo, arrested 10.12.00 at John Wayne Airport in connection with the Bangkok incident, was described by the FBI in court papers as a member of an unspecified Orange County-based anti-Communist group that "wanted to overthrow the Vietnamese regime." Thai police said Vo was a member of Free Vietnam's military wing. Nguyen said he spoke by telephone with Vo soon after the bombs were discovered. "I asked Mr. Vo, who reported to me, and he said 'No, it's a bomb scare, boss; it's not real,' " Nguyen said. Nguyen also said he personally directed the timing of failed attempts to blow up Communist statues in Can Tho, a southern Vietnamese city, in 1999. In an ensuing roundup, the Vietnamese govt in May sentenced 37 Free Vietnam members & supporters to as many as 20 years in prison. Despite being wanted by Vietnamese officials, Nguyen said he has made repeated trips into the Communist- controlled country by slipping across the Laotian border.

Until Vo's arrest, the group's one run-in with authorities in the U.S. occurred in 1998, when the California Dept of Corporations ordered Free Vietnam to stop selling bonds to raise money because it lacked the proper permits. Nguyen denied any wrongdoing. He also rejects claims by some former group members that he never repaid money they had lent the effort. Van Tran, 59, of Arleta said he lent $50,000 to the group while he served as "secretary of commerce" after being promised he would be reimbursed. He said he wasn't. "I was so willing to sacrifice anything for the freedom of my homeland that I didn't know I was getting ripped off," Tran said. "I just wanted to get rid of the Communists." Former S. Vietnamese soldier Huy Thanh Nguyen, 60, sold his sewing business in New Jersey 5 years ago to move to Westminster and join the organization because "I really thought the group had a true mission to wipe out communism in my homeland." He said Nguyen, who is not related, told him of armed, trained soldiers waiting in Thailand to overthrow the Vietnamese Communists. When he visited the camp, though, he saw only about 20 people, including some former soldiers. "I didn't see anything that he had been telling us about," Huy Thanh Nguyen said.

Vietnam criticizes 3 O.C. officials for pushing rival flag   The emigres, who favor flying the banner of the former South Vietnam, are accused of sowing discord, a charge they reject.   4.22.03   Mai Tran L.A. Times

Vietnam govt has condemned 3 prominent members of Orange County's Vietnamese community, branding them "overseas extremists" for promoting public displays of the flag of the former South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese banner is being flown alongside the U.S. flag on utility poles along the streets of Westminster's Little Saigon and in parts of Santa Ana & Garden Grove, with the unveiling of a Vietnam War memorial statue in Westminster set for Sunday and with the 28th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30.
Vietnam's consul general in San Francisco Nguyen Manh Hung accused Westminster City Councilman Andy Quach, Garden Grove Councilman Van Thai Tran, and Garden Grove Unified School Dist. board member Lan Quoc Nguyen of "intentionally sowing discord among the Vietnamese community." He also named Boat People SOS exec. dir. Thang Dinh Nguyen in Merrifield, VA.
"Their actions are unacceptable and strongly rejected by the Vietnamese people, incl the Vietnamese community" in U.S.", Hung said in a written statement issued Thursday.

All 4 have promoted the flying of the yellow banner with three horizontal red stripes, and oppose doing business with Vietnam until that govt adopts democratic measures. Vietnam's govt has expressed opposition to other stands taken in the staunchly anti-Communist immigrant community of Orange County, home to the largest population of Vietnamese outside the Southeast Asian nation. But Hung's statement marked the first time that govt has criticized anyone by name.
Lan Quoc Nguyen said that he and the others believe they are on a Vietnamese govt "hit list" but that they don't fear reprisals because they don't plan to return to their homeland unless democracy is restored. The debate over which flag to fly arose first in Virginia in January and has spread to Orange County, San Jose and Washington state, where city officials have unanimously approved resolutions to banish the flag of Vietnam, a red banner with a gold star. Instead, the flag of the former South Vietnam will be the official choice at relevant events.

While the resolutions have no effect on foreign policy, Vietnam's govt has expressed outrage and complained to Gov. Gray Davis, noting that U.S. & Vietnam are trying to improve relations. "This runs counter to the development of the relationship for mutual interest of the Vietnamese & U.S.," Hung said in his written statement.
Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Bach Ngoc Chien in Wash.D.C., said Monday that he has received many calls of support from Vietnamese Americans who oppose flying the South Vietnamese flag. "The war is over and it has been more than a quarter of a century now. There's no point now for them to cause discord among the Vietnamese community," Chien said. "We, the Vietnamese people all over the world, look for a bright future for the country."

Lan Quoc Nguyen said he & his Vietnamese colleagues reject such criticism and compared Hung to Iraq's former minister of information, who had insisted that his country was winning the war even as U.S. forces were entering Baghdad. "Like the Iraqi talking head, those Vietnamese characters frequently say things without any regard for the truth, validity or consequences of their statements," Nguyen said. "We don't dignify ourselves to respond to some statement that certainly does not have any weight or effect in the real world."

'Keep Your Trap Shut'
Traveling through the 'new' Vietnam
1.18.02   by R. Scott Moxley OC Weeklt

I'm far from all that, in the second-floor room of a modest govt-run hotel in a Ho Chi Minh City neighborhood tourists rarely see. Outside, the littered streets are still dark; on the next corner, a brooding statue of an American War-era Communist soldier carries what looks like an AK-47. I am asleep. Until precisely 6 a.m., when I am awakened by a harsh, metallic voice that fills every space, indoors and out. It's like wake-up call in a maximum- security prison. I am instantly awake and alarmed. I wrench at the balcony door like a disheveled, disoriented Martin Sheen in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. I expect tanks in the streets below. But the streets are still empty. Later, I discovered the source of the ruckus: a loudspeaker tethered to a pole outside. Then I learned that my loudspeaker was just one of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, broadcasting every morning and again at 5 p.m.
I am not a native Vietnamese speaker; I've only recently begun to decipher the language. But even a rookie could detect in that first broadcast a hectoring, admonitory tone. Vietnamese told me the messages are almost unvarying: 30 minutes of Orwellian doublespeak, patriotic songs and morality messages seemingly culled from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Reverend Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition and California's ham-fisted anti- smoking campaigns. The concern for moral fitness is a phantasm. People here say the Communists' real message is: we're watching you, so stay in line and keep your trap shut. But no one is really listening. Wherever I was, whenever I asked, Vietnamese told me the diurnal broadcasts are nothing more than annoying background noise. One businessman, who said he would never openly criticize the govt, described the messages as "VC trash", a reference to the Viet Cong, the outgunned guerrilla soldiers who drove American and U.S.-backed soldiers from the country in 1975.

The broadcasts are the same throughout the country, except in Vietnam's sacrosanct tourist districts. Even the Communists understand that visitors from the West wouldn't appreciate Big Brother's wake-up calls. But rice farmers, hog tenders, shop owners, teachers, infants and hospital patients can't escape the cloying reminders: work hard for the glorious state, don't stay out late, don't do drugs, don't hang out in bars, don't employ prostitutes. The messages are delivered from speakers on every street and in almost every hamlet, no matter how remote. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is it so obvious that the state is a mother.
In the nearly 3 decades since American soldiers retreated from this place, Ho Chi Minh's successors have worked assiduously to regulate every aspect of human behavior. The ubiquitous street speakers are just one ugly manifestation. On bright billboards and in relentless radio and television programming, the govt of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam reminds its citizens that their first allegiance is to the state and that dissenters will be punished. One TV broadcast shown repeatedly during prime time in December recounted the 30-year-old death-or- glory tale of a captured female VC soldier who preferred to bleed to death rather than allow an American medic to administer life-saving care. Long before Sept. 11, when it became fashionable for Americans to parade the flag, Vietnamese in even the rudest huts flew the state's gold star on a red field.

Such expressions of nationalism are everywhere, and they are perhaps necessary for survival—signifiers of loyalty in a country whose leadership protects its image with the zealousness of Disney trademark lawyers. "Zealous" barely describes it: in one Hanoi park, armed soldiers blocked me from taking a photograph of a tree. Communist Vietnam is hardly the environment for an honest opinion poll, in other words. Buried deep in their report, the UCI researchers acknowledge that salient fact: "Some respondents may [have felt] hesitant to express their opinions fully." But that nod toward the real Vietnam had no influence on their conclusions. UCI has steadfastly defended as "scientific" findings that suggest Vietnam is a paradise:

• More than 90% of Vietnamese are "quite or very happy with their [life] situations."
• A jaw-dropping 98% enjoy their Communist form of govt.

The facts support Tu. Average annual income for the Vietnamese is $380, barely above $1 per day. There is no visible middle class, only extreme wealth and, by even the most minimal standards, abject poverty. Middle-aged and elderly women sit on filthy street curbs, swatting flies and urging passersby to buy their homegrown fruits and vegetables. In rural areas, tens of thousands live without electricity or indoor plumbing in shacks reminiscent of 1930s Mississippi. The archaic road system is riddled with holes the size of trucks; some stretches end abruptly without warning in trackless dirt or jungle. So maybe it's fortunate that automobile ownership is rare (unless you're a Communist official); most people rely on motorcycles, bicycles or their feet for transportation. It's not uncommon to witness men, women and children urinating without embarrassment on major public streets. Others sleep on cardboard boxes in alleyways and beg for food. Still others desperate for money risk their lives to work for ruthless but well-paying organized-crime families. Street vendors believe they've won a major victory if they can squeeze an extra 1,000 dong (the equivalent of about 6 cents) from a customer. Some Dickensian urban streets are populated by shoeless, grime-covered children who graduate from begging to pickpocketing. People try to earn extra money gambling at bloody nighttime cockfights on city streets.

But there's not even a whisper of such economic injustice in the misguided if well-intentioned UCI report. And when it comes to issues of morality, the university's findings depict a world 180 degrees from reality. In the World Values Survey, Vietnamese condemned homosexuality (82%) and prostitution (92%). Forget for a moment the study's gaffes in this regard (the question about homosexuality, for instance, comes under the category "ethics" and was lodged between questions about bribery and prostitution). Travel in Vietnam reveals a far different world. Gay clubs thrive in Ho Chi Minh City, and if media accounts are accurate, so does prostitution. One can buy female companionship for an entire night for $10 or less. Narcotics use, especially of Ecstasy and the hallucinogen Special K, is rampant in nightclubs. Police corruption, though reportedly less blatant than in the past, remains widespread. Money is so scarce that, in just one month (December 2001), police arrested 39 women in Ho Chi Minh City for trying to sell their newborn babies to foreign tourists for $400 each.

The govt itself, in an inadvertent daily admission of trouble in paradise, agitates incessantly against public disorder. In December, officials launched a PR effort to warn of upcoming govt crackdowns on people who "disrupt the social order." Deputy Prime Minister Kheim Gia Pham, for example, described Ho Chi Minh City as "a hotbed of vice and villainy" and said citizens can expect tougher police surveillance. Chief Inspector Ton Thanh Nguyen of the govt's Culture and Information Department promised an "all-out assault" on "social evils," beginning with efforts to curtail the distribution of unapproved entertainment videos, music and magazines. The govt doesn't allow imported books or magazines or, for that matter, any artwork that they think might undermine their power or their sanitized portrait of Vietnamese life.
Nguyen explained to the English-language, govt-controlled Vietnam News that access to unsanctioned mass communications causes "extraordinary spending, partying, drugs, sex, even savage murders." Officials demonstrated their abhorrence to freedom of expression in the post-Christmas arrest at Tan Son Nhat airport of a Vietnamese filmmaker whose only "crime" was to ignore the govt's authoritarian script guidelines. On 12.28.01 Communist officials bragged that they had destroyed six metric tons of confiscated books they described as "poisonous."

"The state needs both effective and weighty measures in its fight against depravity," said Nguyen. "The state must focus policies on the preservation of the country's values so that it may guide people's thinking and lifestyles." Vietnam is not a dark country. The white sand beaches of Nha Trang and its nearby islands rival those of popular Hawaiian resorts. Hanoi's Hoan Kiem Lake is a breathtaking mélange of human and natural art. Once the horrific site of earth-scorching U.S. military bombings and napalm attacks, the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail today could pass for a sleepy national park in Virginia.
In a Bien Hoa restaurant, a twentysomething father gently caressed his infant daughter's head and proudly smiled at his wife while his five-year-old son bragged about his computer-video-game scores. In Ho Chi Minh City, a family of six who live in a dilapidated but tidy 350-square-foot apartment served me tea and fretted about offering the best advice on where to go and what to do on my trip. I stood at the base of a 40-foot waterfall near Da Lat, home to spectacular pine forests and rubber tree plantations. I saw an elderly, robe-clad monk smiling devilishly as he wove wildly on his motorcycle through Buon Ma Thuot traffic. I sipped delicious coffee in Bu Dang as a young man walked by with his arm tightly around his feeble grandfather's shoulders. With palm-tree-lined rice paddies and hills covered in thick, green jungle as background, I watched teenagers in one dirt-poor village happily battle one another in a soccer match as older community members cheered from the sidelines.

The Vietnamese are not immune to the joys of life and the beauty of their country. Everywhere I went, I found Vietnamese, like their American counterparts, enjoying the outdoors, laughing with family and friends, and working hard to survive. Because if Vietnam is beautiful, then it's also difficult. It's not a nation that hands out easy livings. Each day, men, women and children work ingeniously to wrest a living from the next 16 or 17 hours. They have learned to survive. And when a pollster from the govt's Institute for Human Studies arrives to ask questions and record answers about support for the Communists, the Vietnamese smile, open the door and welcome the visitor. They know what to say. Here, too, they know how to survive.

Shadow Dancing
In Vietnam's scandalous "dark coffee" cafes, young couples can make out (or more) in semi-privacy
2.18.02   Amit Gilboa Nerve.com

Others are tucked into inland side streets, away from city lights and traffic. At minimum, a dark coffee is dim enough so that you won't be recognized; others are pitch black, and their navigation requires the aid of a flashlight- carrying waiter. All seats face the same direction, so your view is limited to backs of other couples. Each set of chairs is separated by a divider, usually a vine-entwined screen or a solid partition. Music masks the smacking of lips and emittance of sighs. It's all atmosphere, at twice the price of a normal café. People don't come to drink, and waiters don't cruise around asking people for second orders, so the house gets only one chance to make a sale. And once people are settled inside, they're usually in no hurry to leave.