Crowd Rallies Against Death Sentences for 3 in Vietnam

Speckled with the yellow of Buddhist monk robes and the rainbow hues of Vietnamese women in traditional Ao Dai dresses, a lively crowd interrupted speakers Sunday to chant “Down with communists, liberate Vietnam!”

Under a lead-colored sky in Westminster, more than 400 people rallied in the cold morning to protest death sentences handed down in Vietnam for three high-ranking Buddhist intellectuals.

The men--the Venerable Thich Tue Si, the Venerable Thich Tri Sieu and Tran V. Luong--were sentenced to die by a special people’s court in Ho Chi Minh City on Sept. 30 for allegedly trying to overthrow the communist government, said Tran Thuan, co-chairman of the rally’s organizing committee.

“They have done nothing but protest human rights,” Thuan said.

The 2-hour rally, which was more like a revival meeting, mixed politics, religion and human-rights protests.

A recording of the pre-1975 Vietnamese national anthem, the title of which loosely translated means “The Call Upon Citizens,” opened the rally, and an enthusiastic crowd sang along.

The speaker’s dais, set in the parking lot of the Asian Village shopping center, was flanked on each side by a row of yellow flags with three cardinal stripes, the flag that flew over Vietnam before the country became a socialist republic in 1975.

A traditional Buddhist altar, called Ban Tho To Quoc, sat on the stage with red lilies in porcelain vases aside flickering red candles before a bronze bas-relief map of Vietnam. Incense sticks burned in a brass pot.

Sunday’s protest was part of a worldwide cry to lift the three death sentences and free another 66 prisoners sentenced in separate trials last September and August to terms ranging from 4 years of hard labor to life, Thuan said. Two of the men sentenced to die were professors at the University of Saigon before 1975 and longtime Buddhist activists. All three men have had new trials scheduled in Hanoi but no date has been set, Thuan added.

According to Thuan, more than 160 members of the U.S. Congress sent letters to the Hanoi government last month protesting the trials and sentences. Amnesty International and other human-rights groups have also lobbied on behalf of the convicted men and women, he said.

“We are very encouraged at this moment,” Thuan said.

News of the sentences escaped Vietnam initially by a telegram to activists in the Orange County Vietnamese community, Thuan said. The trials were secret, he said.

The account was confirmed later in October by stories in the government’s official newspaper, Saigon Giai Phong, and the army newspaper, Quan Doi Nhan Dan, said Trinh Minh of Garden Grove, a member of the Vietnamese PEN Club Overseas, a human-rights group of artists.

“They are naming these people as counter-revolutionary to create the im age in Vietnam that there are some bad elements,” Minh said. “But the government is just trying to eliminate a society element who are really human-rights activists.”

The Orange County rally came together quickly, he said. Local activists handed out flyers at businesses, letters were sent out and the issue was aired on a recent cable television show in Vietnamese.

“We want to put world pressure on the Vietnamese government,” Minh said. “We’re trying to show the world that the communist government is acting outrageously.”

A flock of local politicians also took advantage of the turnout of possible Tuesday voters. Men in blue business suits, white shirts and red ties followed speakers from the Vietnamese community up on the dais to make pitches for human freedom and then mention their own candidacies.

The short speeches in English were greeted with light applause that grew hearty only after a translator on stage quickly rendered them into Vietnamese.

But it was the Republican Party that proved quickest on its organizational toes and conveniently parked two large buses across from the protest. People were invited for a ride up to a George Bush presidential campaign rally later that afternoon in Los Angeles. And as the crowd dribbled away shortly after noon, the two fully loaded coaches roared away.