Protesters Condemn Lam in Vietnam Controversy

About 60 demonstrators packed Monday’s Westminster City Council meeting to condemn Councilman Tony Lam and demand that he be recalled.

A defiant Lam said: “They want to crucify me. I stand ready, and I assure you I’d never quit.”

In an emotional showdown, foes denounced the councilman as a traitor and a communist, and Diedrich Nicholson, a leader of the effort to recall Lam, was ordered to leave by Mayor Frank Fry for repeatedly speaking out of turn.

As Nicholson was escorted out by uniformed police, other protesters followed, shouting “Recall Tony Lam! Recall Tony Lam!”

Meanwhile, Lam’s family members, friends and council colleagues pleaded for an end to angry demonstrations that have rocked the city’s Vietnamese community.

Lam has been under fire for remaining silent during the weeks of demonstrations over a merchant’s display of a Communist flag and picture of Ho Chi Minh at his video store.

“Where were you when we needed you?” Toby Vu of Westminster asked Lam. “You were nowhere to be found.”

The loudest cheers came when Lam was denounced.

“He gets votes from our people and he promises he will do anything for our people, but during the protests he didn’t show up to support us,” said Frank Le, who came from Canoga Park to attend the meeting. “He did a lot of damage to our community.”

Protesters carrying small yellow- and red-striped South Vietnamese flags said they are singling out Lam because he is Vietnamese and should be held to a higher standard than the other City Council members, none of whom have spoken out during the demonstrations.

At the very least, they say, Lam could have appeared at some of the anti-communist rallies at the video store, which is now closed.

Lam’s family, many near tears and their voices breaking with emotion, responded by describing the family’s pain. In a statement by Lam’s wife, read by the couple’s daughter Jackie, Hop Lam begged the city attorney to explain to the crowd why her husband’s position requires neutrality.

City Atty. Richard D. Jones had advised all city officials in February, when thousands were protesting outside the video store, to remain impartial to prevent possible lawsuits against the city.

Monday’s tension in council chambers followed a weekend of protests at Lam’s Garden Grove restaurant, where demonstrators yelled obscenities at patrons of the Vien Dong restaurant and accused Lam of being a communist.

Lam, who fled Communist Vietnam in 1975, has said the controversy has devastated him and his family.

His son Phil said Monday night: “These people have made a mockery of what my dad has had to do.”

To the crowd he said: “You people get a life. You are Vietnamese Americans. This is America. You live in America now.”