GOP Activist Protesting Bush’s Vietnam Travel Plan

WESTMINSTER — A political activist who once rallied support for George Bush is leading a letter-writing campaign in Little Saigon to protest the former President’s planned visit to Vietnam in September, saying the trip may sidetrack efforts by many Vietnamese expatriates to bring freedom to their homeland.

Ky Ngo--who became the first Vietnamese GOP convention delegate in 1988 and later served as co-chairman of an Orange County Bush/Quayle campaign--said Saturday he felt betrayed by Bush’s decision to visit Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

Bush plans to travel as a guest of Citibank, which opened a branch in Hanoi earlier this year.

“Many people in this community have supported him in the past,” Ngo said. “And if he takes this trip with the intent of tightening the economic relationship between the United States and the Communist regime without any guarantees of bringing human rights to Vietnam, then he has betrayed us.”

Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, many Vietnamese Americans have protested against any U.S.-Vietnam normalization efforts because they believe those ties would benefit the Communist government, which they contend has not observed international human rights laws.

A Bush spokesman in Houston said the former President has received at least a dozen letters in the past two weeks protesting the Vietnam visit. But Bush is not reconsidering the trip, tentatively planned for four days in early September, Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said.

“First of all, Mr. Bush is going as a private citizen,” McGrath said. “Secondly, as with the case of China, he is interested in seeing private businesses bring opportunity to Vietnam and hopefully, through that, also bring democracy to the Vietnamese people.”

The trip is part of Citibank’s Leadership Series, which began in 1992 and engages high-profile speakers, such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney. Bush has visited Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan under the program.

“President Bush’s visit should give a jolt of confidence to the American business community who see Vietnam as a new and potentially important market,” said Bradley C. Lalonde, Vietnam country manager for Citibank.