Vietnamese Peace Trip Protested
A group of angry protesters held a rally in Garden Grove on Sunday to denounce the former premier of South Vietnam for returning on a mission of peace to the Communist country he fled nearly 30 years ago.
“Nguyen Cao Ky is no longer in our hearts,” Chanh Huu Nguyen, general secretary of the Government of Free Vietnam and a protest organizer, said of Ky’s trip to Southeast Asia, where he has been feted by government officials for the last three weeks.
“We are political refugees and cannot ever reconcile with the Vietnamese Communists,” Chanh said.
Gathering at a fenced dirt tract, a crowd estimated by police to be about 1,000 waved signs and flags, shouted anti-Communist slogans and paraded effigies of Ky, 73. The air force pilot and former South Vietnamese leader returned to his homeland last month at the invitation of the Communist country’s leaders.
Ky’s three-week visit to the now-unified Vietnam included golfing with Communist leaders and touring cities throughout the country.
Ky had been expected to return to his Hacienda Heights home over the weekend but extended his trip, family and friends said. He could not be reached for comment Sunday.
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