Arson Fire Hits Vietnamese Magazine

An arson fire damaged the Santa Ana headquarters of an anti-communist Vietnamese magazine early Friday, but the blaze could have been much worse----four gasoline-filled containers found in the building did not ignite, fire officials said.

Damage to the building in the 5400 block of 1st Street was estimated at $10,000, according to Santa Ana fire spokeswoman Sharon Frank. Sprinklers in the office doused much of the fire, and firefighters brought the remaining blaze under control just after 1 a.m, Frank said.

Arsonists spilled about 5 gallons of gasoline through an 18-inch hole in a rear wall to start the blaze, said Le Tunong, editor of Thoi Bao. The office alarm system might have detected the intrusion, but Tunong said he forgot to turn it on Friday.

Tunong, who has published editorials attacking Vietnam’s Communist government in the Vietnamese-language magazine, said he does not believe the arson was politically motivated. But his landlord, a fellow refugee who oversees many buildings in the Little Saigon community, disagreed.

“Personally I feel it’s related to politics,” said Victor Fong of Western International Property Management. “That’s my estimation.”

He said he will install lights behind the one-story strip of offices where Tunong’s magazine rents space.

Police in Santa Ana and Garden Grove say they have investigated many instances of political violence within the Vietnamese community, including the August, 1987, murder of the publisher of a Vietnamese weekly in Garden Grove. The victim in the killing, like the targets of most of the political attacks, have been viewed as sympathetic to Vietnam’s Communist government.

“It’s the anti-communists that are usually doing the attacking,” said Garden Grove Sgt. Phil Mason, who has investigated may incidents of violence in the city’s Little Saigon community.