Nightmare trip to Vietnam
Tien Jane Dobui looked forward to relaxation and family reunions when she and her husband returned to their native Vietnam on July 20. Nine-year-old Nien Dobui, their youngest child, traveled with them.
Now Dobui and her three children are spending night and day trying to get Cong Thanh Do home. Dobui has not seen her husband since Aug. 14, when she says he was detained by officials in Vietnam.
According to the family, the 47-year-old engineer from San Jose has been accused of conspiring to bomb the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. He has not been charged but has been in the custody of Vietnamese officials for the past two weeks, his family said Monday.
Because of the long Labor Day holiday weekend, the family's story could not immediately be verified, but there is a new urgency to the situation, they said: Do has started a hunger strike that will only end ``either in his freedom or his death.''
``His health is No. 1 right now,'' said Bien Dobui, the couple's 21-year-old daughter. ``We're starting a petition campaign for the American government to take more action.''
The family said Vietnamese officials would not allow Do to meet with authorities from the U.S. Consulate in Saigon until Friday. And that was when the family received another surprise.
At the meeting, Do announced that he is a member of the People's Democratic Party of Vietnam and secretly has worked as a human rights activist for the past several years. He did not inform his family of his activism because he wanted to protect them, they said.
During the 45-minute meeting with consular officials, with six Vietnamese officials in the room, ``my father identified himself as a member of an underground political party, the People's Democratic Party of Vietnam,'' Bien Dobui said. ``It is a pacifist, political group hoping to change Vietnam to a pluralistic political system.''
When his activism was relayed to the family in San Jose in a phone call from consular officials, ``I was stunned,'' his wife said. ``I couldn't talk anymore and handed the phone to my daughter.''
Tien Dobui said she and her husband and young son were staying with relatives in Phan Thiet, on the coast of central Vietnam, when six men came to the house at 6:20 a.m. Aug. 14. Two were in police uniforms and four were in regular clothes, she said.
``They took out a citation book and said they want my husband to come to the police station,'' she said. ``They said he had been accused by somebody'' -- whom none of the family recognized -- of being a terrorist.
Dobui said her husband was asked to sign the citation, but he refused. She said they allowed him to change into street clothes before he was taken away. She was asked to appear two hours later at the local police station. Do was taken to a different location.
``They said they were officers with the Vietnamese Immigration Administration,'' Tien Dobui said.
When she appeared at the local police station at 8 a.m., she was asked numerous questions about her husband and her family. About 10 a.m., while she was still being questioned, she said she was allowed to accept a cell phone call from her husband.
``He told me he was on his way to Saigon with them,'' she said. ``They accused my husband of being involved with a group that planned to bomb the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.''
Do had been in China on business before he joined his wife and son in Vietnam, she said.
The family immediately called U.S. officials in Vietnam but said it took two weeks before even the consular's officials were allowed to meet with Do. Dobui and her son, Nien, last saw Do on Aug. 14.
Dobui finally returned home Aug. 25, upset and scared. She kept thinking her husband would be released at any moment. She arranged for a nephew to fly Nien home Aug. 22.
``During the two weeks, nobody heard anything from him,'' she said.
Dobui said she spent the two weeks at her sister's house in Vietnam, ``and they cut the phone service and Internet service'' to the home.
``Dissent is illegal in Vietnam, but he is a U.S. citizen,'' said the couple's 24-year-old son, Vien.
``My father denies any involvement in groups that are violent,'' daughter Bien said. ``The People's Democratic Party of Vietnam is made up of intellectuals who work under aliases on Internet sites,'' writing papers.
Vien Dobui said his father is determined ``to prove his innocence. He is committed to finding a multi-party political system for Vietnam. He's a democratic human rights activist.''
While her older son and daughter make calls on Do's behalf, Tien Dobui is still trying to make sense of how she left on a vacation with her husband and young son -- and had to come home without Do.
``We've been married for 25 years,'' she said. ``It's a nightmare, since the moment they took him away.''
By Linda Goldston - The San Jose Mercury News - September 5, 2006.
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