In O.C., Emigres Call for Hanoi Guarantee of Rights

Orange County’s Vietnamese community and local congressmen expressed cautious optimism Wednesday over news that the United States is ready to normalize relations with Vietnam, yet opposes any deal until the Communist regime restores basic human rights to its people.

But a Santa Ana woman who believes that her husband is still being held as a prisoner of war was outraged at the development. Veterans groups, meanwhile, had mixed reactions to the Bush Administration’s move, with the American Legion condemning the plan as a “tragedy” and others giving cautious approval of the prospect of putting one of the most painful chapters in U.S. history behind them.

“I see the only way to improve economic conditions in Vietnam is if the U.S. government lifts the trade embargo,” said Nhi Van Xuan Ho, executive director of the Community Resources Opportunity Project Inc. in Orange County, which is home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside Vietnam.

“But just because we sympathize with our people does not mean we don’t care about the political situation,” Ho said. “We want to help rebuild the country, but it has to be under certain conditions.”

The current regime must allow its citizens to elect government officials, release political prisoners and grant human rights such as freedom of religion and speech, activists say.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) agreed and vowed to lobby the Bush Administration to ensure that such rights would be a condition of normalized relations.

“I hear Jim Baker in the State Department bringing up POWs, and rightfully so,” said Rohrabacher, who visited Vietnam in November to see conditions there firsthand. “But what about the Vietnamese who languish in prison there?

“Normalization should absolutely be our goal,” he said. “But before we get there, we should insist on the freeing of all political prisoners. . . . We need to end the Vietnam War and . . . get on with business, but we can’t do it at the expense of our country’s commitment to human to rights.”

For Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), full disclosure about U.S. soldiers missing in action and POWs must be come before any thawing of relations with a nation he still refers to as North Vietnam.

“The American people are going to insist that we have a full accounting of our MIAs,” he said. “There are a lot of unanswered questions about what went on in that war.”

Dannemeyer would “require that we get answers to those questions from the North Vietnamese, and I don’t mean just relying on what they would say, but getting independent verification.”

MIA/POW activist Barbara Robertson of Santa Ana said normalization talks should not begin until live U.S. POWs have returned home.

“I’m absolutely livid about this,” said Robertson, who said she believes that her husband, Lt. Col. John Leighton Robertson, is being held in Vietnam. He was shot down in his jet fighter over North Vietnam in 1966. Her family believes that he is one of the three men pictured in a grainy photograph that was publicized in July but has since been discounted as a fraud by U.S. officials.

“Knowing that my husband is alive and suffering over there, it just absolutely kills me to hear them talk of trade policies and putting money into people’s pockets,” Robertson said.

The American Legion’s national commander, Dominic D. DiFrancesco, said that by recognizing Vietnam, the United States would lose all leverage for resolving the POW-MIA issue.

“I fear that normalization with Vietnam will allow that country’s leaders to get away with ignoring their agreements under the Paris Peace Accords of 1973,” DiFrancesco said.

Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, called the Administration’s “road map” to normal relations with Vietnam “dangerously flawed.”

“As currently written, the plan lets both Vietnam and Laos off the hook in accounting for hundreds of POWs known to have been captured in Laos,” said Smith, a Vietnam veteran.

But members of the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Disabled American Veterans and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia say they support preliminary talks because Baker has promised that the “scope and pace” of such dialogue will be “governed by” Vietnamese cooperation on the POW-MIA issue.

“For years, (Vietnam Veterans of America) has advocated an open dialogue with the government of Vietnam, with the stated goal of obtaining full accountability of our missing servicemen,” said James L. Brazee, the VVA’s national president.

Noting that his group had sent several delegations to Vietnam to press for information, Brazee said: “Government-to-government contacts and negotiations are the keys to ending the POW-MIA nightmare.”

Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, said the Administration’s plan for moving toward normalization holds “the potential for dramatic results, but only if implemented with integrity by both governments.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy flier who spent nearly six years in North Vietnamese prison camps, called Baker’s announcement of imminent talks “an important signal of encouragement to move this process along as rapidly as possible.”

If normalization becomes reality, a U.S. embassy in Vietnam could help guarantee the rights of Vietnamese-American visitors, said Ho of the Community Resources Opportunity Project. He estimated that 50,000 Vietnamese-Americans annually return there.

His family had a harrowing experience last summer when his father and brother, the Revs. Nhi Van Ho and Vu Van Ho, traveled to Vietnam as underground Christian evangelists. The men--who both have U.S. citizenship--were detained at the end of June for questioning because of the government’s crackdown on Christian religions, they said. Vu Van Ho came back to Orange County on July 2, but the elder Ho was not allowed to return until July 23.

Such situations make the Vietnamese community wary. “If the U.S. government wants to explore normalization talks with Vietnam, it should go right ahead,” said Tuong Duy Nguyen, executive director of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc. “But it should also investigate a number of conditions, the primary one being that Vietnam should express an attitude of political freedom for the people.”

He too said if Washington rushes into granting normalization when there have been no improvements in Vietnam, Hanoi would have no incentive to change.

Nam Wheeler, a board member of the Vietnamese-American Republican Heritage Council of Orange County, said normalization is practical and would bring hope for Vietnam--under the right conditions.

“Many of the older generation living overseas (in America) would like to return to Vietnam to live,” she said. “As for the younger generation, those with learning gained here could go back to help put a new face on Vietnam.”

Hau Nguyen, chairman of the Viet Nam Political Detainees Mutual Assn., said normalized relations would make travel between the two countries easier. But as for him, “only when I see the Communist regime allowing an election with the supervision of the United Nations would I ever return.”

Staff writer Paul Houston contributed to this article.