ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Terror Stalks the Vietnamese

An implied article of American faith is that people shouldn’t be persecuted either for their political ideas or their commitment to them. A fierce intramural squabble in the local Vietnamese-American community is putting that belief to an important test. It’s no small added concern that lives are literally at stake.

For several years now, shadowy anti-Communist groups have terrorized the Vietnamese community with threats and occasional violence. The FBI has been investigating the arson death in 1988 of a Garden Grove newspaper publisher, for example, and Westminster police are concerned about a death threat recently made against the editor of a Vietnamese-language newspaper and several other prominent citizens. At issue is whether the U.S. should normalize relations with the Communist government of Vietnam. The targets of the threats all are certifiably anti-Communist, but they’re apparently not anti-Communist enough for extremists in the refugee community. But even if they were Communists, they would have the right to express their views in this country without fear.

Normalization of relations with Vietnam may seem like strictly an internal matter to Vietnamese-American extremists. It isn’t, of course, because the larger American community has a stake in this issue--just as it has a stake in how the debate is conducted. The chairwoman of the Orange County Human Relations Commission recently condemned the death threats, and it would be good for the entire commission to do the same.

Freedom has lured many immigrants to these shores. But freedom lies as much in a willingness to allow others to exercise it as it does in claiming it for ourselves. Debate over normalization of relations with Vietnam should be held in a rational and peaceful atmosphere, in keeping with the best American tradition.