Crowd of 2,000 Assails Communists in Vietnam

In what police described as the largest rally held in Westminster, an estimated 2,000 Vietnamese immigrants marched along Bolsa Avenue on Sunday to protest alleged human rights abuses and religious oppression by their homeland’s Communist regime.

The 11 a.m. gathering brought out young and old, from veterans of the French occupation in the 1940s and ‘50s to those who fought in the war beside the U.S. military. Marchers said it was an opportunity for Orange County’s Vietnamese expatriates--72,000, according to the 1990 census--to show solidarity with people back home.

As the crowds grew, motorists honked their horns in support of the protesters, who held signs reading, “Speed up the Vietnamese Communist collapse” and “Freedom for Vietnam.”

Four vintage airplanes, modeled after South Vietnamese air force craft, flew above the crowds, with one trailing the red-and-yellow South Vietnamese flag.

Organizers said they planned the event in the wake of one of Vietnam’s worst episodes of public unrest in years.

In July, Vietnamese security forces arrested hundreds of protesters who demonstrated against high taxes and official corruption in two cities: Thai Binh in the north and Xuan Loc in the south.

“We hope that the people of Vietnam see our efforts here and that they know we support them in their struggle for freedom,” said Thich Giac Nhien, the most venerable monk of the Minh Dang Quang Temple in Westminster. “It’s not getting better in Vietnam for people, it’s worse. Things have to change.”

The organizers, who call themselves the Committee for Supporting People in Vietnam, began spreading the word about the gathering more than three weeks ago, said Thang Ngoc Tran, president of the group.

Tran said the situation in Vietnam has been getting worse for the population even as the country’s economy has begun to grow. For many common Vietnamese, the benefits of American and European investments and tourism are not trickling down, Tran said.

“People there are looking for a better life,” he said. “The Communist Party is still the only party. They control everything.”

Marchers said religious oppression continues in Vietnam, a country that is officially atheist but whose people practice Catholicism and Buddhism.

The national Buddhist organization, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, was disbanded in 1982 and replaced by a government-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Church.

In 1995, the U.S. monitoring group Human Rights Watch/Asia said at least two dozen Buddhist leaders had been arrested since 1992.

Though Vietnamese officials have loosened the reins on religious worship since 1989, Hanoi still exerts tight control over dissent and worship, according to the U.S. State Department’s 1995 Human Rights Report.

On Sunday, several members of the Vietnamese Catholic Community of Orange County and several Buddhist temple representatives attended the march.

“They need our support from the outside because if you speak out inside the country you get jailed,” said Tom Bui, who attended the rally. “We are here to support them.”

For 14-year-old Han Truong, the rally was about issues close to her heart. Her father, Minh, a senior civil servant, was jailed by the government in a remote holding camp near the Mekong Delta for seven years. After Minh Truong was released, he applied for political asylum; he brought his family to the United States four years ago, Han said.

The Communist regime, she said, has “caused our country a lot of pain. They caused us to move to this country.”

Minh Truong said he is slowly growing accustomed to life in the United States but is eager to return to his homeland--free of Communist rule.

“I would like to go back,” he said, when Communism falls, adding that he hopes “it won’t be too long.”