Hanoi takes relatives’ cash, U.S. panel told

Press, 23 June 1984, Page 11

Hanoi takes relatives’ cash, U.S. panel told

NZPA-AP Washington

America’s Vietnamese immigrant community sent more than SUS2OO million ($3OB million) a year to relatives left behind but much of the money never reached them, a United States panel was told yesterday.

The money, as well as packages of goods dispatched from America, appeared to be a big source of foreign exchange for the Hanoi regime, according to evidence and documents placed before the banking sub-committee.

The panel’s chairman, Senator William Armstrong, of Colorado, said that the hearing had been called to determine whether a Hanoicontrolled “economic exploitation system actually exists and if so, how it works.” The panel also wanted to determine whether proposed legislation banning the export of funds to Vietnam would be justified, he said. Witnesses included detectives, Customs officers, and Vietnamese immigrants, four of them masked to conceal their identities. One witness, a 32-year-old

former naval officer of the old South Vietnamese Government, was identified only as “Mr X.” He said that he was wearing a blue mask to avoid being recognised by other immigrants, who fear that publicity for the flow of cash and goods might prompt the United States Government to halt the community’s effort to help distant families in accordance with Asian tradition. Other masked Vietnamese witnesses said that they had received anonymous telephone calls warning them not to appear before the committee.