Vietnamese File Claims for Confiscated Properties

An Le fled Vietnam in 1978, leaving behind his home, which he claims is now occupied by members of the Communist government. The Westminster man said he wants Vietnam to return his property, so he can either sell it or rent it out to provide income that his family here needs.

Le was one of the nearly 800 Vietnamese Americans who flooded the offices of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California on Saturday to file papers listing the properties that they said were confiscated by the Vietnamese government after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

About 500 Vietnamese expatriates and Vietnamese Americans showed up at the office last week to file the forms.

The organization, which includes an elected slate of officials, is attempting to represent the interests of local Vietnamese Americans on a variety of matters. It will forward the claims to the U.S. State Department and ask the U.S. government to help retrieve the property.

“We have to ask them for the property back,” Le said. “I worked hard for that house--with my sweat and tears. We are refugees. We came here empty-handed.”

The U.S. and Vietnamese governments are to begin negotiations next month on the possibility of returning homes and businesses that were confiscated from U.S. companies and fleeing Vietnamese citizens when the Communists gained control of the country, Vu Nhu, first secretary of the Vietnamese mission to the United Nations in New York, said Saturday.

Nhu said he could not comment on the likelihood that the property would be returned, but said the two governments will try to negotiate an agreement.

He said claims by Vietnamese who lost their homes will probably reach $1 billion. But claims by U.S. businesses could total $36 billion, Nhu said.

The bid to retrieve the properties has been made possible by warming relations between the United States and Vietnam, highlighted by President Clinton’s Feb. 3 decision to lift the economic embargo against Vietnam, said Lien Nguyen, who heads the Vietnamese Community organization’s assets claims committee.

Such a request would have been unthinkable last year, Nguyen said.

“Before, the Vietnamese Communists played by the law of the jungle,” said Ban Bui, president of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California. “But now, if they want to join the civilized world, they have to play by civilized laws.”

The Vietnamese Americans who filled out asset claim forms Saturday said they do not know whether their requests will be granted, but they believe that listing the lost properties will give them a chance of recovering their homes.