Vietnamese Say They’ll Send Aid to Homeland Despite Criticism : Relief: Group expects negative reaction from anti-communists in Orange County, but says Vietnam expatriates should join Westerners in helping the underdeveloped country.

Braving a potential conservative backlash, a group of Vietnamese-Americans have formed the first nonprofit organization in Orange County to collect humanitarian aid for Vietnam.

Dubbed the Social Assistance Program for Vietnam, the group of 10 expatriates was founded in Garden Grove, according to Bang Cong Nguyen, the chairman.

Nguyen said the members expect some controversy, principally from conservative refugees who have attacked actions or comments deemed sympathetic to the communist government in Vietnam.

The conservatives “have no problem with Westerners going in as groups to help Vietnam, but if Vietnamese do it then they don’t like it,” Nguyen said. “Well, there’s something wrong with that. We want our own people to get help from us too.

“The number in a group would give us more strength and power to help our people more effectively,” he said.

Individually, Vietnamese-Americans have been donating supplies such as medicine, books and money, but only four other groups have been formed by Vietnamese-Americans, said Jim Spencer, program assistant for the U.S.-Indochina Reconciliation Project based in New York. The others are spread throughout the United States.

Locally, some leaders in the Vietnamese community expressed doubts about the new group.

“The government system over there is so corrupt you can’t trust anybody to deliver the goods to the people who need them,” said Chuyen Nguyen, an active member of several Vietnamese organizations in the county.

And he expressed suspicion toward any Vietnamese organization that will deal directly with the communist government.

“We’d still have to wait and judge this group by their actions, words and results whether they have any motives other than humanitarian aid,” Chuyen Nguyen said. “I’d hate to see them use these unfortunate people as bait to bring more businesses (into Vietnam) or help strengthen the war machine that rules the people there.”

Mai Cong, chairwoman of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., said Vietnam still tends to make things harder for Vietnamese-American visitors, and that alone can hinder the success of Social Assistance.

“Our situation is still too complex when it deals with Vietnam,” she said.

Ban Cong Nguyen cited a trip to Vietnam last month as the catalyst for the group.

He displayed photographs from the trip, one with rows of crippled children leaning on crutches and another depicting youths sleeping on concrete in a camp for the homeless.

That visit, his third, served as a fact-finding mission for Social Assistance. He met with people who ran medical clinics, schools and social service agencies. Based upon his report, the group will decide where help is needed first and then raise funds.

“Everything is needed, and we can no longer afford to stand by silently watching American groups going there to give aid,” Nguyen said.