Countywide : Protest Set for Speech by Vietnamese Envoy

Hundreds from Orange County’s Vietnamese community are expected to protest a speech today by Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States, who was invited to speak to the World Affairs Council of Orange County.

The protest will mark the first visit by a Vietnamese ambassador to Orange County, home of the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, since President Clinton normalized relations with that country in July.

“We’re sending a message to the American people here and also the government of Vietnam that we don’t accept the regime because it oppresses freedom,” said Vinh Cao, a former South Vietnamese naval officer, now a retired banker in Garden Grove.

Cao said several groups, including the Overseas Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and the coordination committee of the Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Vietnam, oppose the council’s invitation to Le Van Bang, who is scheduled to speak before the council’s general meeting at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Irvine.

“Personally, we have nothing [against] Mr. Le Van Bang,” Cao said. “But he represents the government of Vietnam and in the last 20 years, they’ve never had a free election. In fact, the government that Mr. Le Van Bang represents is a corrupted and brutal dictatorship that continues to deny the Vietnamese people all basic human rights.”

Sir Eldon Griffiths, the council’s president, said the council’s invitation “implies neither approval or disapproval” of the President’s decision for diplomatic ties.

Speakers, Griffiths said, are invited to address the council because they have responsibility as representatives of their governments. Foreign ambassadors are invited, Griffiths said, only when the U.S. recognizes their governments.