Mediators Cite Progress in Calming Little Saigon Tensions

With thousands of people expected to arrive in Little Saigon for a Tet parade Saturday, mediators said Thursday they made some progress in calming tensions over a businessman’s plan to rehang a Communist flag and a picture of Ho Chi Minh in his store.

Demonstrators agreed to limited ground rules aimed at keeping their protests orderly and peaceful, said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

Leaders of the ongoing protest met for four hours Thursday with commission members, Westminster Police Chief James Cook and Orange County Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas.

Kennedy said the protesters, including leaders of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California, agreed to designate liaisons for police to contact during demonstrations. He said the protesters agreed that the liaisons would help keep any protests peaceful and avoid interfering with businesses.

“With the celebrations coming up and all the people coming in, the demonstrators have agreed to outreach to people to try to spread the word that we’re cooperating with the police, we’re bound to make this a legal assembly, we’re law-abiding,” Kennedy said.

Separately, commission staff members have been speaking to store owner Truong Van Tran and his attorneys, but have not yet obtained any concessions from them.

Tran’s insistence on displaying the flag and the picture in his Hi Tek TV and VCR store on Bolsa Avenue has drawn hundreds of protesters. He has been struck by angry protesters on two occasions.

The display is not hanging in the store now, but Tran last week won a court order allowing him to place it back up again.

Both the demonstrators and Tran have been inflexible in asserting their rights to continue expressing themselves, Kennedy said. The two sides will probably not sit down at the same table to discuss their differences, he added.

“People who have lost family in a war find it very difficult to sit down with people who are presenting the other side of that in the symbols of the people they feel murdered their family, tortured their loved ones and took away their homelands,” Kennedy said. “Sometimes those things take more than one generation.”

Police are still bracing for Saturday’s parade. Cook said he is calling in extra officers, though he hopes the parade will be as peaceful as it has been in the past. Officers will try to “maintain the lowest profile possible,.” the chief said.

Tran has until the end of today to vacate his store before his landlord goes to court to force him out.

Jonathan Slipp, attorney for the landlord, Terra Buchard Inc., said he will file court papers Monday to evict Tran. Slipp said Tran owes back rent of $20,000, and has violated his lease agreement by failing to provide proper insurance and by causing a nuisance at the shopping center where his store is located.

Tran is on a month-to-month lease and received a 30-day “notice to quit” on Jan. 20. Assuming success in court, Slipp said Tran could be in the store for up to 45 days more before his lock would be changed and county marshals would force him out.

An attorney representing Tran on the eviction could not be reached Thursday. But Peter Eliasberg, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented Tran on other issues, said his client will speak to the press Friday morning about the eviction.

“His basic position is he has been paying his rent that they agreed on,” Eliasberg said.

Westminster Police Lt. Bill Lewis said Tran is now free to return to his store any time. On Monday, police had ordered Tran to stay away from the store for his own safety as hundreds of people gathered to protest and more than 150 officers in riot gear responded.

Also on Thursday, Chief Cook apologized to the Associated Press for an incident in which an undercover officer posed as an AP photographer, with fake credentials, to observe a demonstration on Monday.

Cook, who said he did not authorize the plan, said he rebuked the officer and will review department policies to ensure that officers know they are prohibited from impersonating journalists.

Sue Cross, the AP’s Los Angeles bureau chief, said she is satisfied with his response as long as the incident does not happen again.

“We think it’s very inappropriate for any government officials to misrepresent themselves as a journalist because it’s important for the public to recognize journalists as independent observers of news events, not participating in any way,” Cross said.

Times wire services contributed to this report.