Viet Writer Shot in Fresno Told of Death Threats Three Years Ago

Doan Van Toai, the internationally known Vietnamese writer shot as he walked through his Fresno neighborhood Saturday, said in an interview three years ago that his life had been threatened by anti-Communist extremists.

Toai, who remained in serious condition Sunday at Valley Medical Center in Fresno, recently wrote an article sympathetic to the current Vietnam government and has long been a controversial figure because of his actions during the Vietnam War and his writing since.

Toai’s views and anti-war actions in South Vietnam had put him at odds with many in Southern California’s Vietnamese refugee community. Vietnamese-language newspapers wrote editorials against him, while outspoken leaders warned him that his views were unwelcome.

Several Attacks

The shooting of Toai is the latest of several attacks in California in recent years against Vietnamese refugees who advocate that the United States establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam.

Through his books and a magazine, Toai in recent years has advocated restoring ties with Vietnam in order to deliver humanitarian aid to the people. In a 1986 interview with The Times, he said that an article he wrote exposing alleged fraud by an anti-Communist group provoked death threats.

“I wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times saying these people who want to fight the Communist government are collecting money for that cause but are actually using the money for themselves,” Toai said then. “The group that I wrote about in 1982 was overwhelmingly supported by the refugee community in Los Angeles.”

“The group threatened to kill my whole family after the story ran,” Toai said.

As he walked through his Fresno neighborhood at 9 a.m. Saturday, witnesses told police, a “dirty” brown Pontiac station wagon carrying two Asian men drove by, with several shots being fired at Toai. The 42-year-old author was hit three times and later underwent surgery.

Fresno Sheriff’s Department investigators divulged no new information Sunday about the attack, a possible motive or suspects. But Sheriff’s Sgt. Oliver Moon said Saturday that the victim had not been strong enough to be interviewed.

Nhat Tien, a Santa Ana writer and poet, said Toai recently published a Washington magazine, Institute for Democracy in Vietnam, which served as a vehicle for expressing his political views on Vietnam.

In the magazine’s summer 1989 issue, Toai argued in an article that the United States should establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam, said Tien, who had a copy of Toai’s magazine.

“He (Toai) believes that if there is a relationship with the United States, the condition of the poor Vietnamese people would change for the better. He believed that if economic conditions improved, the political climate would change, much like China,” Tien said.

“He wrote many, many articles saying that,” he added.

On Sunday, Fresno Sheriff’s Sgt. Rick Cobbs said there has been no recent political firestorms “that I know of” in Fresno’s Vietnamese community.

In both Fresno, one of the largest Vietnamese resettlement communities in the country, and in Orange County’s Little Saigon, Toai was far from popular among refugees, several community leaders said Sunday.

In Fresno, a member of the Vietnamese Assn. of Central Valley said Sunday that many people in the refugee community were suspicious of Toai and didn’t trust him.

Toai, the member said, would make statements that led people to believe he really supported the Communists. “He said, ‘The Communists do some good things for the people of Vietnam.’ If they do good things, then why are we here? We escaped to come here; no way we can support the Communists.”

A prominent member of Fresno’s Vietnamese community, who asked not to be identified, added: “The Vietnamese community is really talking about this, they’re not surprised he was shot.”

Chuyen V. Nguyen, a former South Vietnamese Air Force pilot who now lives in Orange County, recalled that Toai was a member of South Vietnam’s educated class who led anti-war protests in Saigon.

“He did a lot of damage to the democracy of Vietnam back home,” Nguyen said.

Served in Prison

“Even after Toai escaped from some so-called prison in 1977 or 1978, he traveled to China with a North Vietnamese official who then opposed the regime in North Vietnam. We in the Vietnamese refugee community believe he has close ties to Vietnam,” Nguyen said.

“The Vietnamese people here in the U.S. view him as another member of the Communist Party. Despite his imprisonment, he was more well-known for leading the protests because he had organized a whole bunch of students, some of them imitating American students at the time who advocated a ‘resist the draft’ movement,” Nguyen said.

“These were educated members of the nation, who didn’t want to go out and join the military but protested instead. That is why a lot of suspicion surrounds Toai,” he said.

Asked if Toai had been targeted by the right, Nguyen said the shooting might be the result of his former activities, which is crucial right now because, he said, the Vietnamese government is trying to to reconstruct the country and help sway opinion.

Toai has co-authored two books, “The Vietnamese Gulag,” and “Portrait of the Enemy” with writer David Chanoff.

In 1986, a former Saigon housing official, Tran Khanh Van, was shot in Orange County’s Little Saigon after he was quoted as saying he supported normalizing relations with Vietnam. His assailant pleaded guilty and was convicted. And on April 30, 1988, novelist Long Vu, a well-known Vietnamese author, suffered partial paralysis after a severe beating in the same Westminster refugee community. Times Staff Writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.