Viet Struggle Gaining, Says Rebel Leader

Efforts to overthrow the Vietnamese government have been going on for nearly 10 years and the plot for which three men were recently executed was part of a continuing struggle rather than just an isolated incident, a rebel leader said Saturday in Orange County.

Le Quoc Tuy, identified as the mastermind of the plot and sentenced to death in absentia, said the Communist rulers of his homeland have for years been covering up the activities of his group, the United Front of Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Vietnam.

Tuy, speaking through an interpreter, said that while the trial last December of 21 men charged with espionage and sabotage was the government’s first public admission that there had been attempts at overthrow, such activities have been going on regularly since the Communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975.

Some of those on trial had been arrested as long ago as 1979 and 1980, Tuy said, and included two field commanders who were captured in the last pitched battle his organization fought with government forces. Tuy escaped from Vietnam in October just before the government arrested a large number of suspected plotters.

All 21 were convicted and three were sentenced to death, including Tuy’s younger brother, Le Quoc Quan. The three were executed by firing squads earlier this month.

Tuy was in Orange County on Saturday as part of a speaking tour that will take him to San Jose today and then on to Houston and Washington, D.C. He appeared at Anaheim High School before an estimated 350 members of the Vietnamese community, telling them of his organization’s activities and answering questions from the audience.

Tuy’s appearance, which was videotaped for broadcast at other meetings, came a week after a rally in Santa Ana at which more than 1,000 people turned out to honor the three men who were executed.

While noting that the “American public doesn’t have any expectations of regaining Vietnam from the Communists,” Tuy said Saturday it was the aim of his group to try to stir up the Vietnamese populace to attack the government through such activities as terrorism and sabotage. Its most recent victory was the destruction of a major highway bridge 30 miles from Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

After suffering the loss of an entire battalion in the 1980 battle near the Cambodian border, Tuy said, his organization underwent a marked change in strategy and no longer operates with large units. Instead, in an effort to avoid detection, activities are now carried out by very small groups.

Tuy said his organization has also developed ties with Cambodian rebels who have been battling for months with Vietnamese invasion troops.

Tuy, a former member of the Vietnamese air force who was educated as an engineer in France, denied charges the government made at his compatriots’ trial that the group was being supported by the United States, China and Thailand. But he also said he would not rule out asking for aid from other governments at some time in the future.

The rebel leader also said his purpose in coming to the United States was not to raise money or volunteers for his organization.

“We have enough people already in Vietnam, and we are gaining more from among those who are being drafted into the military, especially those who have gone to fight in Cambodia,” he said.

If Vietnamese living in the United States want to donate aid, Tuy said, he will set up a committee to ensure that it gets to his people in Vietnam.

Tuy said that one thing he did not want was for his presence in this country to rekindle the divisiveness the American public experienced during the Vietnam War.