Thread: Anti-communist protests southern California's Little Saigon,

Anti-communist protests divide southern California's Little Saigon, anger neighbors

© AP
2008-04-07 17:27:48 -


WESTMINSTER, California (AP) - There seem to be few boundaries when it comes to displaying the South Vietnamese flag in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminister, California: the red-and-yellow banner flutters from rooftops and store windows, adorns T-shirts and ball caps and is even painted on cars.
But when the flag adorns a plastic pedicure
basin, it is another story.
Hundreds of noisy protesters have picketed outside the Vietnamese-language newspaper Nguoi Viet in the Southern California city for more than two months, ever since it published a picture of a bright yellow foot-washing basin lined with the flag's three red stripes.
The photo has proved an emotional flashpoint for hardline anti-communists in Little Saigon, home to thousands of refugees who fled their homeland in the late 1970s after communist forces took over and wiped out the South Vietnamese government.
Nguoi Viet, which has previously been accused of pro-communist leanings, is now being condemned as a communist front. Dozens of protesters, who camp outside its offices daily with bullhorns, recently began circulating decade-old photos that appear to show the paper's former owner meeting with communist officials.
The newspaper, the largest and oldest Vietnamese daily in the United States, has retaliated with a lawsuit and allegations of bomb threats, death threats, stalking and harassment. The publisher, Anh Do, has also publicly accused the protestors of being themselves backed by communist money.
The outcry is the latest in a surge of passionate _ and sometimes violent _ demonstrations by anti-communist protesters here. In recent months, activists have targeted newspapers, concerts and universities for everything from failing to print a photograph of a dissident Vietnamese priest to displaying a communist Vietnamese flag on campus. The demonstrations have divided Little Saigon and drawn unwanted attention to a thriving immigrant enclave that is the largest community of Vietnamese outside Vietnam.
Some see the escalating protests as a backlash against warming relations between Vietnam and the U.S., including last summer's visit to Little Saigon by Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet. Triet was the first Vietnamese head of state to visit the U.S. since the end of the Vietnam War.
Le Vu, publisher of the Viet Weekly, said the debate over Triet's visit and Vietnam's growing international role has exposed rifts within the expat community between hard-liners and the more moderate. The protests are part of resolving that tension, he said.
«It puts the community here in a difficult situation,» said Vu, whose own paper has been picketed for months because of perceived leftist leanings. «Some of these issues, these people have tried to hide under the rug for the last 30 years. Now, they have to settle all these differences.
That problem is compounded by an emotional gap between older Vietnamese, who lost everything to communist forces in the 1970s and passionately oppose the current government, and a younger generation of Vietnamese-Americans who don't feel as strongly about Vietnam.
«Holding the Vietnamese flag and shouting profanity, I don't know if it's even politics anymore. We're young people, we're second-generation and we just don't understand,» said Michelle Nguyen, who organized a concert that was picketed because it included songs by a Vietnamese singer suspected of communist sympathies.
The protest against Nguoi Viet began in late January after the newspaper ran a photo of a yellow-and-red foot-washing basin, similar to those used in nail salons, that was attached by a looping yellow cord to a cherry-red electrical outlet.
The photo ran with an article about an art student who had created the basin as conceptual art to honor her mother-in-law, a refugee who worked for 20 years in a nail salon to send money back to family in Vietnam.
To protesters, however, the picture symbolizes something much more sinister. They saw in the image the abuse of their homeland's now-stateless flag and a profound disrespect to countrymen who were left behind. They also believe the red outlet is a reference to communist Vietnam.

Ky Ngo, one of the protest leaders and a defendant in the lawsuit, fled Vietnam one week before the fall of Saigon. He later learned that his elderly mother had died in a re-education camp where upper-class or educated people were sent to «learn» communist ways. He says he is not overreacting.
«The most valuable things in my life _ my mother and my flag _ I lost it,» said Ngo, who spent $800 (¤510) to paint his 1992 Toyota Camry in the colors of the South Vietnamese flag. «What else do I have left in my life? I have nothing.
Do, the publisher of Nguoi Viet, declined to comment. Her attorney, Hoyt Hart, did not return repeated calls for comment.
In court papers, however, Do alleges that protesters e-mailed a death threat, threatened bombings, trailed her in her car as she left work, ripped up her newspapers, urinated on her property and assaulted customers and staff. A judge will decide Tuesday if the lawsuit can go forward.
Police have arrested one demonstrator for punching a reporter and are investigating about a half-dozen other complaints, ranging from a bomb threat to assault, said Sgt. Dan Schoonmaker. He noted that the protests are unusually violent for Little Saigon.
Ngo says his group is only trying to «take the mask off» Nguoi Viet for people who believe it is an anti-communist publication. He said he did not break any laws and Do's lawsuit, if successful, would restrict his free speech.
Still, Vu and others believe the protests are a necessary part of Little Saigon's democratic evolution as it struggles to keep up with a world that is slowly embracing modern-day Vietnam.
«I hope that all this craziness is a good thing,» Vu said. «It's like a fever _ and afterward it will all get better.





http://www.pr-inside.com/anti-communist ... 523728.htm

Originally Posted by jimpasz

WESTMINSTER, California (AP) - There seem to be few boundaries when it comes to displaying the South Vietnamese flag in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminister, California:

More AP propaganda, this is not the South Vietnamese flag because the Republic of Vietnam (incorrectly called South Vietnam) no longer physically exists. It is now called the Vietnam Freedom Flag. It is not just "South" Vietnamese who oppose the Communists, in 1954 millions of Vietnamese fled the Communist north and moved south to continue fighting against the Communists, a fight which they continue today.

Isn't diversity and multiculturalism grand !

We will go down in history as the dumbest bunch of people ever .

Sock it to me,sock it to me ,sock it to me !!!!