Protesters Call for Boycott of Thai Goods

Angrily tossing into a box bags of rice, noodles and other food products made in Thailand, about 100 Vietnamese Americans on Wednesday called for a boycott of Thai goods in protest of alleged brutality against Vietnamese refugees.

The event was organized by Project Ngoc, a Vietnamese refugees support group based at UC Irvine. According to the group, about 2,300 Vietnamese refugees, or “boat people,” remain in Thai detention camps awaiting repatriation to Vietnam.

The refugees are among the last of hundreds of thousands of migrants who fled to such places as Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Thailand during the 1970s to escape Vietnam’s Communist regime. Many who were unable to receive political asylum and do not want to return home have languished in refugee camps, which the United Nations, 21 years after the end of the Vietnam War, is now closing.

United Nations officials maintain economic and political conditions have improved in Vietnam and expect the refugees to fare well in their homeland.

But that assertion has been vehemently rebutted in Little Saigon, where the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside Southeast Asia reside. With only the Philippines agreeing not to return the refugees to Vietnam, many Vietnamese Americans have turned their ire at the countries that will forcibly remove those remaining in the camps.

Waving handmade signs with such slogans as “Boycott Thai Rice,” and “Don’t Forget the Vietnamese Boat People” written on them, the protesters gathered in Little Saigon at Bolsa Avenue’s Tan Mai Supermarket, which has agreed to stop selling products made in Thailand.

“By stopping the use of Thai products, hopefully we can raise people’s concerns about the Vietnamese boat people,” said Linh Nguyen of Anaheim. “We want Thailand to stop the violence toward the boat people.”

Said Nicole Nguyen, a UC Irvine student: “They are being beaten and forced back to Vietnam [while] they just want a taste of freedom.”

Jaclyn Fabre, who said she has worked as a volunteer on behalf of human rights in Thailand and China, contends Thai police often are behind acts of brutality.

“[Refugees] are clubbed and beaten into submission. We’ve been receiving reports of brutal beatings and deaths at the hands of the Thai police,” she said.