200 Stand Ground Against Flag

About 200 Vietnamese Americans continued protests Tuesday for a third day outside a video store in Little Saigon, where the owner had hung a photo of Ho Chi Minh and a Communist Vietnamese flag.

Anti-communist sentiment continues to run high in the Vietnamese emigre community in Westminster, underscoring how deeply members still feel about a war that ended in 1975.

“This is like putting up a picture of Hitler in the Jewish community,” said protester Ngo Ky. “Ho Chi Minh was responsible for so many deaths. People have nightmares when they see his picture. Of course they are angry.”

Truong Van Tran, 37, the owner of Hitek TV and VCR, did not show up at his store Tuesday, and security guards and police kept the area cordoned off. Tran had been hit Monday on the back of the head by a protester as he was leaving the store for the day at 9550 Bolsa Ave. He has declined to file assault charges, Westminster police said.

Civil rights experts say those who come to this country must respect its tolerance of all points of view.

“If they love the freedom America has to offer, they need to think what that freedom really means and not silence this guy from expressing himself,” said Peter Eliasberg, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “He has every right to hang up the photo and flag. If people find that offensive, the proper response is to counterdemonstrate and express their feelings.”

On Tuesday, demonstrators hung a cardboard figure over the store that depicted Communist leader Ho Chi Minh in a noose. Later in the afternoon, they brought out a coffin, draped the South Vietnamese flag over it and filled it with photos of South Vietnamese soldiers who had died in the war.

“I saw my friends killed by the Communists. Every time I see the flag, I get so mad,” said Dung Huynh, 40, one of a dozen protesters who kept an overnight vigil outside the store. “I still see it; I still hear the gunshots. I cannot forget.”

The vast majority of Vietnamese Americans in the United States arrived as political refugees fleeing from the Communist regime that took over and reunited Vietnam in 1975. Southern California has the largest concentration of Vietnamese in the nation--an estimated 300,000. Little Saigon serves as the de facto capital for the immigrants.

The landlord of the shopping center, Danh Nhut Quach, said that at the request of other business owners, he is thinking of how he might evict Tran, possibly by blaming him for disturbing the peace and disrupting business in the area. Police have blocked off parts of the shopping center.

The protest began Sunday when a visitor to the video store noticed the photo of the Communist leader and called others to protest. A store employee took it down but Tran put it back on the wall along with a Communist Vietnamese flag when he reopened Monday. It remains in the locked store, visible through the windows. Tran told a Vietnamese newspaper he intends to keep the Communist items in place, and protesters vowed to remain until he takes them down.

“He has a right to say what he wants, but we have the right to be here too,” Ky said. If the flag is not down by the weekend, Ky said, he expects Vietnamese Americans in other communities, such as San Jose, to join the demonstrations.

Store owners in the plaza say the demonstrations have badly hurt business.

“It’s affecting all of us,” said Truong Nguyen, who owns a travel agency and money transfer business. “We usually make enough in a day to pay a month’s rent. This is the time of year [Tet] when people send money home. We aren’t getting any customers.”

But the majority of business owners say they sympathize with the protesters, said Lanh Phan, whose family owns a computer store in the shopping center. “Personally, we support them. Nobody has complained about the protesters, but people are mad at the owner.”