The ongoing protest against Viet Weekly is a natural response from those who have felt insulted by the publication over the years. The author mentions the article that is often cited as the basis of the protest, but that is merely the straw that broke the camel's back. Viet Weekly always boasts of having found a new form of journalism by a young generation of reporters in Little Saigon. In reality, these self-styled journalists have managed to insult some person or the community in almost every issue of the publication. When the call for protest came, it brought together all elements in the community to build up a perfect storm against the newspaper… The persecution continues even today and did not end some 30 years ago, as many like to believe. Non-Vietnamese may not understand why a display of a communist symbol can invoke such intense reaction. But to many Vietnamese, these symbols bring back the nightmares that they lived through or risked their lives to escape from. They want to forget the past and get on with their lives, but they cannot tolerate the kind of provocation that Viet Weekly and Mr. Tran Truong exhibited to their faces… The protest against Viet Weekly is only a natural response to the journalism menace practiced by the newspaper. To judge the protest against Viet Weekly, one must understand what the publication truly did to many of those protesters. This editorial opinion is by Lan Quoc Nguyen, President of the Garden Grove (California) Board of Education. The full article was published in the L.A. Times on September 14, 2007. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-nguyen14sep14,0,2124873.story?coll=la-opinion-center   more »

If Nick Schou ("A Vietnam War in O.C." in L.A. Times Sept. 6, 2007) investigated how many are voting American citizens among the people he calls “Vietnamese exiles” he might think again about his knee-jerk reactionary rhetoric. This is the regime that is supported by the publisher of Viet Weekly, Le Vu. He has been caught red-handed cutting and pasting articles from the Communist papers into his own. His Spring 2007 trip to Hanoi to cover the police manhandling of women outside the Ambassador’s residence in the presence of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is a good example. On the previous day the former Ambassador Michael Marine had written a powerful op-ed essay criticizing the Vietnam government and political imprisonment of Father Nguyen Van Ly... There was a demonstration of 2,000 people in Saigon only a month ago who demanded redress for their losses in the aftermath of communist victory. They were forcefully dispersed into the countryside in military trucks. One elderly woman demonstrator died. An African news agency says there were more. It’s not about yesterday that 1,000 Vietnamese Americans in Orange County are peacefully assembling and protesting within the law, it’s about today. Jean Libby's response is based on experience with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi press office, which has done the same obfuscation technique with Nick Schou. As an investigative journalist with a recent book on the alliance of the CIA with the cocaine traffic that was exposed by Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury in 1996, and then denied by that newspaper, the OC Weekly investigative editor has done little investigative reporting for this story. He prefers to vilify and ridicule the Orange County Vietnamese American population.   more »

First response is to article published in the L.A. Times September 2, 2007 by Mike Anton, Times Staff Writer, by Jean Libby, editor, VietAm Review. Comparison is made to American civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s when local whites opposed to the demonstrations were treated as experts on Constitutional issues of free speech and free press because that makes an easy story for the reporter. One line only is quoted from an organizer of the demonstrations, Long Kim Pham. Viet Weekly editor's Le Vu is discussed, and a brief history of Viet Am Review articles on the topic, which have centered on Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Orange County), and former Ambassador Michael Marine at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Comments on the OC Weekly article by Nick Schou center on this press conference and manipulation of the audio tape by Viet Weekly. The Embassy denies knowing anything about the controversy. The position of Viet Am Review in opposing Viet Weekly is complimented by California Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove).   more »