Vietnam Broadcasts to Begin This Week

Radio Free Asia is expected to begin broadcasts to Vietnam this week, a move being hailed in Orange County’s large Vietnamese community, where thousands of expatriates have an active interest in their homeland.

The broadcasts start Thursday to coincide with the Lunar New Year, or Tet, celebrations.

“I feel very excited, and I’m sure the Vietnamese of Orange County will be excited as well,” said Minh Cong Tran, a member of the Orange County Radio Free Asia Committee.

Tran has been promoting the broadcasts at several Vietnamese stations in Southern California and hopes that listeners will inform their relatives in Vietnam to tune in to the new program.

“We started letting the public know,” he said, “ever since we found out the frequencies the programs will air in Vietnam.”

He believes interest will be high in Orange County, home to many Vietnamese who fled the Communist regime.

Radio Free Asia will offer two hours of programming, one in the morning and another in the evening, featuring news about Vietnam with briefs on events around the world. The programs will be produced in the United States and broadcast to Vietnam via transmitters in other countries.

“The main goal of Radio Free Asia is to provide news,” said Thanh Trang Nguyen, chairman of the Indochinese Committee of Radio Free Asia.

Although the Washington, D.C.-based Radio Free Asia receives its annual $10-million funding from the U.S. government, Nguyen insisted there is no pressure from the government on what to broadcast.

“We want to bring news into closed societies,” he said. “The people don’t know the true information around the world and in their own countries.”

Nguyen, a former vice-president of the University of Vietnam, said that many officials in the Vietnamese government want to hear Radio Free Asia broadcasts.

“Privately, many in the government know that Communism is no good for the country,” he said. “They realize it was a big failure in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.”

“I’m pretty sure the Vietnamese government will try to jam our broadcasts,” Nguyen said, adding that Radio Free Asia staffers will combat censorship by keeping transmission sites secret and using mobile transmitters.

Radio Free Asia went on the air last September with broadcasts to China and two months later started transmitting to Tibet. Programming to Myanmar is expected to begin Feb. 3, while broadcasts to North Korea, Cambodia and Laos are set to begin in the next four months.

RADIO FREE ASIA