Rohrabacher Urges U.S. Action on Prisoners in Vietnam

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) pressed a State Department official Thursday for information on the plight of three Orange County residents and seven other Americans he says are being held by Communist officials in Hanoi.

Rohrabacher, along with Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), handed a list of the prisoners to Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, during a hearing of the Asia and the Pacific subcommittee and asked for a “full report” on each case.

“All Americans should know our government will come to their defense if they are unjustly prosecuted or jailed anywhere in the world,” Rohrabacher said in a statement after the hearing, which focused on Southeast Asian regional security issues.

State Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana), who was unsuccessful in December in gaining the Americans’ release during a 10-day trip to Vietnam, brought the issue to Rohrabacher’s attention.

When he returned from Vietnam, Morrissey said the prisoners were serving sentences of as many as 20 years on “trumped-up” charges.

On Thursday, Morrissey said at least one is being held for ransom.

“Are we such a weak nation with such a weak president that we can’t do something about a foreign country holding U.S. citizens for ransom? It’s pathetic,” Morrissey said. “The U.S. government doesn’t seem to care about these Vietnamese Americans.”

A relative of Westminster resident Van Thanh Nguyen said last year during a news conference with Morrissey that Nguyen is an anti-Communist held in a Vietnamese prison since March 1993, when he returned to his homeland to visit relatives.

Besides Nguyen, Van Hong Do of Santa Ana and Bien Tran of Anaheim are being held.

Rohrabacher said he is concerned the cases are of lower priority for the State Department because the prisoners are of Vietnamese descent.

“Our embassy should have the same level of concern for Americans of Vietnamese heritage as they do for any other Americans,” Rohrabacher said.

State Department officials were unavailable for comment late Thursday.

Rohrabacher’s aide on foreign affairs, Paul Behrends, said the congressman expects a response from the department in about two or three weeks.

“We have an agreement with the Vietnamese and they’re not living up to it,” Behrends said. “We’re not getting full cooperation from Vietnam in giving us information and finding out about them.”

The 10 prisoners all hold U.S. passports; six are citizens and four are permanent residents.

* Times staff writer Len Hall contributed to this report.