California city becomes 1st U.S. "no Communist zone".

Garden Grove, California, a city known as "Little Saigon" due to its large Vietnamese population, has become the first U.S. city to declare itself a "no Communist zone."

Garden Grove's city council passed, by unanimous vote, a resolution on May 11 declaring it "does not welcome, or sanction high-profile visits, drive-bys or stopovers by members or officials of the Vietnamese Communist government." The resolution also denounces "the current dictatorial rule of the Vietnamese Communist Party," instructs city employees and officials to refrain from "initiating engagements with or facilitating" visits by Vietnamese Communists and directs the police chief to require a minimum 14-day notice from any agency or jurisdiction requesting security assistance in connection with any such visit.

In April, the U.S. State Department was forced to cancel a visit to Garden Grove by a delegation of Communist officials from the Vietnamese regime because police and local officials said the federal government's 24-hour notice was not sufficient to provide adequate security. Garden Grove, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, is the nucleus of Orange County's Vietnamese population, which numbers about 100,000. Most of the Vietnamese residents are themselves "boat people," or are the children of refugees who fled Vietnam.

Chien Ngoc Bach, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, expressed disagreement with the Garden Grove resolution, saying Vietnam's Communist government "advocates putting the past behind us and looking forward to the future." But many of the city's Vietnamese-Americans suffered imprisonment and torture under the Communists, and most have family members who were killed or are still held captive by Vietnam's repressive regime. Previous visits to the area by Communist officials have been met by thousands of Vietnamese-American demonstrators.

City Councilman Van Tran, who came to southern California as a 10-year-old refugee, says the Vietnamese government's claims of friendship are disingenuous. "They claim they want reconciliation with the Vietnamese community here but they drive through Little Saigon in motorcades with lights blazing and with motorcycle escorts as if they own the place," Mr. Tran said in a Reuters interview. Councilman Mark Rosen told the crowd of more than 200 who gathered in support of the resolution: "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."