Vietnam War Passions at the Heart of Fellow Refugee’s Assault Trial

To an outsider who had not seen firsthand the brutalities of the Vietnam War, the remarks quoted in the 1986 magazine piece may have sounded reasonable enough.

“The only way to change Vietnam’s repressive Marxism,” Tran Khanh Van of Westminster said in the article, “is to work with those who will become the next generation of leaders.”

But to fellow refugee Be Tu Van Tran--a one-time English teacher in Vietnam who saw family members jailed by the Marxist regime and who was forced to flee the country after the fall of Saigon in 1975--the words were nothing short of blasphemy.

The suggestion of normalized relations with Communist Hanoi so infuriated the Costa Mesa immigrant that he was driven to try to kill the man who had dared to write the words, according to Orange County prosecutors and Tran’s own disputed statements to police.

Tran, seen by some as an anti-Communist hero and by others as a political extremist from a shadowy terrorist group, will soon be tried in Santa Ana Superior Court for the attempted murder of Van.

The case has already been presented to one jury. In 1986, a mistrial occurred just as the panel reportedly was leaning 9 to 3 in favor of acquitting Tran.

Lawyers are scheduled to seek a date for the second trial at a hearing on Monday.

It is a potentially explosive case which, at its root, centers on the intense and sometimes clashing views held by some members of the U.S. Vietnamese community toward their homeland. Tran, 33, a truck driver, stands accused of stalking Van for weeks and then trying to assassinate the former Saigon housing minister because of what Tran perceived to be Van’s pro-Communist views. Van, a local real estate businessman, was shot twice in the stomach and the shoulder in a March 18, 1986, attack near his Westminster real estate office. But he survived.

Tran’s defense attorney contends that Tran had nothing to do with the shooting and only claimed responsibility to police as a “badge of honor” to demonstrate his commitment to fighting communism.

But, as the defense attorney acknowledged, the implications of the Tran case extend far beyond the guilt or innocence of his client.

“This case is much bigger than a few gunshot wounds; it has clear overtones of international terrorism,” said attorney Robert K. Weinberg of Irvine.

“And I think that for better or worse, (the upcoming trial) will put in the spotlight the crossroads that Vietnam, and its people who have come to this country, are at right now,” Weinberg said.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and Vietnamese community leaders agree that the Tran trial and its surrounding issues of nationalistic pride make the case significant for thousands of Southeast Asians living in Southern California.

“This is one of the biggest and most delicate cases in our community,” Vietnamese writer Nhat Tien said.

Three years after his arrest, the name of Be Tu Van Tran still elicits strong emotions both pro and con from those in the Vietnamese community.

Virulent anti-Communist feelings have not softened, although 14 years have passed since Saigon fell to the Communists. And while some Vietnamese shopkeepers and restaurant owners denounced Tran, they did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Strong nationalists like Chuen V. Nguyen, a former fighter pilot in the South Vietnamese air force, maintain Tran’s innocence and consider his motivations “heroic.”

“You cannot measure the emotions of someone like Be Tu Van Tran, who lost relatives and property during the war,” Nguyen said. “You don’t understand when somebody comes into your village and kills your wife and your children. Are you going to ask yourself, ‘Do I have a right to shoot them?’

“Regardless of it happening 14 years ago or 20 years ago, this image, this picture of what they did to your relatives is still there,” Nguyen said.

Those close to the Vietnamese community say most people rallied in support of Tran after news broke of his alleged attack. Some went so far as to raise money for his defense and publish a laudatory book about him.

Yet some Vietnamese regard Tran’s alleged actions as objectionable.

“We have to learn to compromise. We have to come up with different answers than violent answers, and (to learn) that not all things are black and white. There are shades of gray,” said a Vietnamese businessman who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

While the subject of Vietnamese nationalism has long stirred intense feelings among the refugee community, the Tran trial is also likely to attract a broader interest as well.

The trial comes at a time of a warming trend between the United States and Hanoi, after years of roadblocks largely over the issues of Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia and Americans who are missing in action. And the success of the Vietnamese refugees in their transition to this country seems to have intensified questions surrounding the Vietnamese community and its attitudes toward the Asian homeland.

Last month, for instance, Vietnamese in Orange County were angered when Westminster Councilman Frank Fry Jr. told a Vietnamese military veterans’ group to “go back to South Vietnam” if they were unwilling to recognize traditional American military holidays. Vietnamese leaders launched a recall effort against Fry but called it off after he apologized.

Violence has also erupted in Little Saigon, the commercial hub of the Vietnamese community. In February, angry anti-Communists allegedly firebombed a travel agency that booked tours to Vietnam. A few weeks ago, the group also allegedly set fire to a truck belonging to a television studio that showed pro-Communist symbols--Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and an old Vietnamese liberation flag--on a television program.

Members of the district attorney’s staff, while declining to specify what security precautions will be taken during the trial, say they are worried about reprisals against both the defendant and the victim, Van.

Van moved to Thailand after the attack out of fear for his safety, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Evans. But he is expected to return to Orange County to testify, as he did in the first trial.

Highlighting its political overtones, that first trial featured the unusual sight of Tran, his then-co-defendant in the shooting, a defense investigator and their former attorney all sporting emblems on their coats that read “Viet Cong Hunting Club.”

This time around, prosecutors have granted immunity from prosecution to Tran’s former co-defendant, Cu Ngoc Duong, who was allegedly the “wheelman”--driver of the getaway car--in the attack on Van. That sets up the prospect that prosecutors may try to get him to testify against Tran.

Duong’s attorney, Roger S. Hanson of Santa Ana, said it is unclear whether his client would oppose an order compelling his testimony. He said it is also unclear what Duong would say if he was to take the stand against Tran.

But the single most damning piece of evidence against Tran may be his own statements to police after his arrest in 1986: “I shoot him; I accept responsibility,” Tran reportedly told police.