Little Saigon Furor: Politicians Pass

One voice has been conspicuously absent from the daily anti-communist protests outside a Westminster video store: the politician.

Protesters over the weekend demanded to know why Westminster City Councilman Tony Lam, who won reelection in November, was absent from the ongoing demonstration that began 13 days ago.

“What is he doing? Where is he?” asked Ky Ngo, a protest leader. “We want him here to listen to what we have to say.”

But it’s not just Lam, the first Vietnamese American to hold political office nationwide, who kept his distance. He and other local officials said Monday that City Atty. Richard D. Jones told them to stay away to avoid possible lawsuits over comments that might incite the crowds.

Community protests started in mid-January when Truong Van Tran posted a Vietnamese flag and a photo of late Communist leader Ho Chi Minh in his store. A judge temporarily ordered Tran to remove the items Jan 21, but she reversed herself Feb. 10, saying the flag and the picture constitute protected speech.

Since then, residents have been camped outside Tran’s store, determined to prevent his return. But Tran, with a police escort, returned Saturday and rehung the items, triggering outrage among about 8,000 people. Police arrested 31.

Little Saigon normally is a favorite site among politicians for speeches and photo opportunities that use the colorful Asian shopping district as a backdrop. But since the protest began, only three--state Sen. Joe Dunn, Assemblyman Ken Maddox and Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas Jr.--have been visible there.

Longtime political activist Dietrich Nicholson of Garden Grove, who has joined the protest with a sign demanding Lam’s recall, said politicians are obligated to join with the community during such an important event instead of visiting only for canned campaign speeches.

“If I was a politician, I’d be down here every day,” Nicholson said.

But former Mayor Charles V. Smith, now chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said politicians “will only get in the way.”

“You wouldn’t want to do anything to cause the situation to escalate,” Smith said. “But if I were there, I would encourage [protesters] to keep it up, because it’s a real slap to the Vietnamese community.”

Smith and other elected officials chose to avoid the demonstration on their own, saying the situation was too volatile and too muddled between competing free-speech issues. Smith, for instance, decided against appearing at the demonstration last week after television coverage showed police ordering the crowd to disperse.

Outspoken anti-communist Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said he doesn’t intend to make an appearance. He said protesters are wrong for trying to silence Tran’s free-speech rights.

But Tran also is wrong, he said, for callously provoking the protest, which allegedly violated his lease agreement by interfering with adjacent businesses. “If he [owned] his own store, I’d be down there defending his right to speak,” Rohrabacher said.

The congressman, though, also sent a message to protesters: “The same people who are so adamant in opposition to what he’s doing should realize that one of the reasons we hate communists is because they silence people who disagree with them.”

Westminster Mayor Frank Fry Jr. said he, like Lam, was asked by Jones to stay away while Rackauckas, Police Chief James Cook and the Human Relations Commission meet with Tran and the protest leaders to diffuse tensions.

“We’re allowing them to protest, but we’ve also got to protect the rights and property of [Tran],” Fry said. “We can’t take sides in this. It’s a very precarious position.”

Lam, in fact, left town last weekend during the most explosive period yet in the flag controversy, for a prearranged trip to celebrate Tet in San Jose.

Back on Monday in his restaurant elsewhere in Little Saigon, Lam described his dilemma.

“I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t,” he said. “If I go there, some of the factions that don’t like me, they’d boo me and embarrass me. It would cause problems to go over there.”

Lam said he also has avoided the protest because he defeated one of the organizers, Jimmy Trong Nguyen, in his first council race in 1992, and the two have been at odds ever since.

There are other, more personal reasons: Lam has been accused of being a communist sympathizer because his brother worked with a company that hoped to build a hospital in Vietnam. Lam also spoke in favor of normalizing relations with Vietnam.

Such moderate stances are suspect in Little Saigon. Hatred and anger run deep in a community where many immigrants still mourn the murder and torture of family members at the hands of Communists.

In fact, rumors circulating through the crowd over the weekend accused Lam of assisting Tran’s cause and encouraging arrests. Several onlookers signed a petition favoring Lam’s recall.

“This is very hard for me because I never did what they said,” an emotional Lam said. “Instead of defusing this situation, [the organizers] are inflaming it.”