Platform : Political Violence Comes to America, Following Those Escaping It

Many people who knew Dr. Haing Ngor believed that the Cambodian physician and actor was killed for his politics, not his money, when he was murdered outside his Chinatown home last month. El Salvador’s violence once haunted Los Angeles. The Vietnamese and Cuban communities are still deeply split; threats are commonplace. The people who live under the threat of political violence threat feel harmed and the larger polity suffers as well. TRIN YARBOROUGH spoke with immigrant and civil rights activists.

*

ARQUIMEDES LEYVA GONZALEZ

Cuban American activist, West Hollywood

We’d just finished our demonstration in front of the downtown federal building against the Torricelli bill, a U.S. law to increase the blockade against Cuba, and were walking back to our cars. Up ahead we saw several of the Cuban anti-demonstrators who’d been heckling us and shouting taunts hitting some of our group on the freeway crossover bridge. I ran to help our demonstrators and one guy threw a punch at me and pushed me to the ground. I grabbed him, but another guy kicked me in the ribs and a third kicked me in the head. It hurt but didn’t knock me out. Finally the police came and arrested some of both our groups. When the anti-demonstrators had been taunting us I’d said to some of them, “Why don’t you let us express our feelings and opinions if you believe in democracy?”

What happened was mild compared to three years ago when we were showing a video in support of Cuba at a public meeting in the West Adams area. We didn’t have good security and about 40 Cuban anti-demonstrators were standing in front of our meeting with banners, shouting slogans against us and chanting dirty words. As it grew dark they began to throw eggs and even pieces of concrete, and one managed to get into the building and throw a tear gas canister. People inside were affected by the gas but we went ahead and showed the video. As they grew more rowdy outside some of us got scared and called some other activist groups to come help us. All this time, the LAPD was sitting watching from their cars but said they couldn’t intervene.

I was born in Cuba, came here during the 1980 Mariel boat lift and got involved in the Solidarity movement in Southern California in 1985. I’ve been back to Cuba several times since and as someone who now lives in America, a country that has so much, I do care as a human being that Cuba can’t provide things like enough medicine because of the U.S. blockade. Not everyone who has come from Cuba is opposed to the revolution there.

To be honest, I am always concerned that something could happen to me. I check my car when I get into it, I watch the streets when I go out. In particular I remember the face of one guy who during a counter-demonstration glared at me and said he would “get” me someday, that he knew where I worked and where to find me. We never know what these people might do. And we feel their group has the support of the U.S. government.

*

ANGELA SANBRANO

Associate Director, Cental American Refugee Center, Los Angeles

*

At the height of the harassment and intimidation of those of us working to change U.S. policy toward El Salvador during its civil war in the 1980s, someone put a list in the home mailbox of one of our colleagues. It contained 19 names and a note saying that if the people on the list continued to speak out, they would be silenced permanently. My name was on that list.

We received death threats. Twice I picked up my home phone and a man’s angry voice said in Spanish: “We are warning you--keep your mouth shut.” I was upset, but also angry, and determined to continue to speak for what I thought was right. All through the 1980s it was very dangerous to do this work. One of the women activists here was kidnapped and raped and her child threatened with death. Right-wing Salvadoran death squads operated in Southern California.

But after U.S. policy did change in late 1989 and a search began for a political rather than a military solution in El Salvador, things began to calm down.

I haven’t recently heard of the kind of intimidation here that we experienced a few short years ago. Then when we had demonstrations at the downtown federal building there were always photographers from the LAPD and from the other political side taking our photographs. Our tires were sliced; some of us found threatening notes in our cars.

Nowadays, things still occasionally happen--cars break down, tires are slashed and so on. Occasionally we ask ourselves, is it common crime or political? But there is much less fear here now.

*

Vietnamese community leader, Garden Grove (name withheld at subject’s request)

*

Right now about 40% of the people in Vietnam are 15 or younger, not even born until after the war ended. But anyone in our community here who dares support normalization--or even charity work to help the poor in Vietnam--is accused of being a traitor and communist. Some receive death threats; there even have been one or two suspicious killings that many believe were political. In my own case my car windshield was smashed when I worked with a group supporting reconciliation; I did not report it [to police], but took it as a warning.

Recently the restaurant of City Councilman Tony Lam and two other Little Saigon businesses were bombed, and no one is sure if the bombings were political. Many of those who are most opposed to reconciliation with Vietnam are recent immigrants who have come in the past few years under a new U.S. law that permits in any Vietnamese who spent several years in reeducation camp because they worked with the Americans during the war. They have special hate for the Vietnamese government.

Recently more and more Vietnamese have gone back to visit without telling anyone, because many who told were branded communist sympathizers, their families called names and ostracized.

A few weeks ago, the FBI placed ads in some Vietnamese language newspapers asking people to call in and report anyone who was a spy or communist sympathizer. They got hundreds of calls from people accusing anyone the callers didn’t like, including some very conservative community leaders. I’ve heard that the FBI office had to meet with Vietnamese American leaders to tell them not to report people they just don’t like. In one way it’s funny, but in another, people are afraid of how serious it may be to be on a list of spies and communists kept by the FBI. After all, they come from a place where being on certain government lists can mean imprisonment and death.

*

Cambodian community leader, Long Beach (name withheld at subject’s request)

*

Like many other Cambodian Americans and Cambodians, the moment I heard that Haing Ngor [political activist and a star of “The Killing Fields”] had been murdered here, my first thought was that it was political. I later heard that Ngor’s brother in Cambodia was quoted saying he believes Ngor was killed by the Khmer Rouge because Ngor recently made a speech saying he would testify against them in a war crimes tribunal. His nephew here also said he believes it was political. Yet until I know more facts it would not be fair to say for certain. It could have been a robbery, or a killing for personal or business reasons. But I think Cambodians living here will think twice now, be more cautious, be more careful about what they say, feeling it might endanger their lives. The political situation in Cambodia is increasingly unstable and confused, and the factionalism spills over into the Cambodian American community here.

We know that there are some Khmer Rouge traveling around this country. They have attended conferences I have worked on and some of my friends have told me these Khmer Rouge tried to recruit them. I know they have tried to inject some of their ideas into conference resolutions. Some older Cambodians know who they are and have pointed them out to us.

People have gotten anonymous threats. I have a close friend, a respected community activist, who has had his home broken into and papers taken, and this has happened to others, too. Haing Ngor’s briefcase also was taken when he was murdered. In these cases we are not sure whether it was criminals or political enemies. There are also Cambodian gangs here that have blackmailed and firebombed Cambodian businesses for criminal gain.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Democracy Is Never Won Easily’

REV. JAMES LAWSON

Pastor, Holman United Methodist Church in L.A., veteran civil rights worker and former missionary in Asia

There are two responsibilities I see when thinking about immigrants coming to America. One is the responsibility of the newcomers and the other is the responsibility of all the rest of us.

Many immigrants never had a background of democracy in their native countries, but once here their task should be to become Americans and participate in our democratic process. They should not import their hostilities and impose them here, and most of all they should not use violence. America is a place for a new kind of life.

Immigrants should call on American political, religious and community leaders and on members of the peace and justice community to support and defend their safety and their political rights. Before every meeting or demonstration they should give a written letter to police, to elected officials and to the media, and meet with them to explain their goals and to ask their protection and support. They should reach out to religious leaders and ask them to insist that harassment and violence end and that democracy be followed.

As for American political and religious leaders, the media, and every American, all of us have a responsibility to ensure that every political right and protection is extended and guaranteed to all newcomers to our country. We must reach out to them and bring them into our political process.

The Swedish government instituted a program for Kurdish refugees immigrating from Turkey to escape oppression. They organized the refugees into eight-member groups and assigned each group a government-paid Swedish ombudsman to guide them into assimilation and political participation. Some variation of that program seems extremely worthwhile for us here.

It’s also incumbent on us to change those American foreign policies that block truth and justice and promote oppression in other nations. And we must also insist that U.S. government agencies such as the CIA and FBI stop using immigrants in their undercover work here instead of encouraging them to become loyal to democratic ways. It is unfair to them and to all of us.

Democracy is never won easily. During the 1968 Memphis garbagemen’s strike [which the Rev. Martin Luther King was in Memphis to support when he was assassinated], I was the chief organizer and receiving so many death threats that my wife and I decided we needed to talk with the oldest of our three sons to prepare him in case I was killed. He had already been on many marches with me and knew my work was dangerous. But we thought we needed to explain the reasons we believed it was necessary for me to risk death.

Democracy is precious. Wherever it exists it must be protected by all of us.