Protesters target concert by singers from Vietnam

About 200 or 300 people, shouting, "Viet Cong, go home!" and waving the flag of the defeated Republic of South Vietnam, took part in the protest outside the Majestic Restaurant at Annandale Road and Route 50 before a performance there by several singers who are among the most popular in Vietnam and are on their first U.S. tour. Le Quyen, a leader of the protest group, said in an interview this week that the demonstration was aimed at the communist government of Vietnam. He called the show communist propaganda. Quyen said that the performance was designed to "make divisions in the community" of Vietnamese living in the Washington area and that community groups had asked music promoter Hoang Pham, the restaurant's owner, to cancel the show.

"I'm not political," said Pham, 42, who came to the United States in 1978 as part of a wave of boat people who fled Vietnam by sea. "I'm a businessman, and I'm a promoter. "These singers are young, and they're singing pop songs," he said. "They're not sending out communist messages." Several patrons also said they came for the music, not politics. Pham's refusal to cancel the show was unusual because it has been rare for Vietnamese immigrants to take actions that others in the community may interpret as pro-communist. Washington's Vietnamese community, numbering about 50,000, is the largest on the East Coast. Last night's events -- with protesters often in their fifties and sixties and patrons in their twenties and early thirties -- seemed to exemplify the disparities between the generations. Younger Vietnamese Americans consider current music from Vietnam more lyrical and innovative, while their parents remain fond of songs recalling life before Saigon fell to the communists.

One of last night's protesters, Hoang Thi, 60, of Washington, told of coming to the United States in 1993 after being imprisoned for 10 years for his service in South Vietnam's army. "I had to leave my country [and] I can't go back because of the communists," he said. "I don't want to have anything to do with them."