[Vacets-local-dc] [To Vietnamese Communists, From Garden Grove: Stay Away]

[Hai Tran]

To Vietnamese Communists, From Garden Grove: Stay AwayTo the delight of observing crowds, council members easily pass a resolution voicing opposition to visits by Hanoi delegations.By David Haldane
Times Staff Writer

May 12, 2004

With a unanimous vote Tuesday by the City Council, Garden Grove became the first U.S. city to officially declare itself a "no-communist zone," going on record as strongly opposing visits from representatives of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Because "the vast majority of … residents of Vietnamese descent … reject the current dictatorial rule of the Vietnamese Communist Party," reads the resolution passed before a cheering throng of Vietnamese American residents, the city "does not welcome or sanction high-profile visits, drive-bys or stopovers by members and officials of the Vietnamese communist government. "

The resolution urges city employees and officials to refrain from "initiating engagements with or facilitating" visits by Vietnamese communists, opposes the expenditure of city funds to promote such events and directs the police chief to require a minimum 14-day notice from any agency or jurisdiction requesting public safety assistance in connection with them.

"This is a moral issue for these people," Mayor Bruce Broadwater, who proposed the resolution, said following the vote as an overflow crowd of about 200 Vietnamese residents, who had watched the meeting on television monitors from an adjacent room, chanted "Thank you" and "We love you." 

"They have very strong feelings about this," Broadwater said. 

Added Councilman Mark Rosen, speaking directly to the crowd: "As long as the people in Vietnam don't have the right to speak for themselves, the Garden Grove City Council will speak for them on behalf of freedom."

The council's resolution — which expires on April 30, 2009, or, in its own words, "at the time when the U.S. State Department officially declares that Vietnam is a free and democratic nation" — came less than a week after neighboring Westminster postponed a widely anticipated vote taking similar action.

Both Westminster and Garden Grove have large numbers of Vietnamese American residents, many of whom fled their native land as refugees more than three decades ago.

Chien Ngoc Bach, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, expressed disappointment at Tuesday's vote. 

"Those who favor and advocate such a resolution," he said, "do not serve the interests of the majority of the Vietnamese people, and they are making a desperate attempt to hinder an irreversible trend of contacts and exchanges between the government of Vietnam and Vietnamese people living in the U.S."

In reaching out to Vietnamese Americans, he said, the government of Vietnam "advocates putting the past behind us and looking forward to the future."

The Garden Grove and Westminster resolutions were launched late last month after the State Department gave Garden Grove two days notice that a delegation of Vietnamese officials on a goodwill trip would be touring Little Saigon, a largely Vietnamese area that straddles both cities.

The tour was canceled when police said they couldn't ensure the delegates' safety.

Last year, both cities adopted laws declaring that the flag of the former nation of South Vietnam — which the communist republic replaced after the Vietnam War — be flown during city-sponsored events.

And in 1999, Vietnamese community members — at one point numbering 15,000 — demonstrated for 53 days after a Westminster video shop owner hung a picture of communist leader Ho Chi Minh and the communist flag.

Tuesday's resolution has been debated by legal and political experts, some of whom see potential legal and ethical issues.

A constitutional law expert reviewing the proposed Westminster resolution, however, said recently that he saw no immediate problems.

"If they're just passing a nonbinding resolution expressing their concern about delegations," said John Eastman, a professor at Chapman University, "they have no less a right to do that than any other citizen."





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