Sun, July 17, 2005
Vietnamese decry gangs
Community voices urge end to cycle of vengeance
By SARAH KENNEDY, Calgary Sun
Members of the Vietnamese community broke their silence yesterday, calling on parents of gang members to help police stop the violence before it "boils over."
Van Tran said he has friends who are well aware their children are involved in gang-activity but keep quiet in order to protect them from both police and rival gang members.
"Some of these parents have already lost a child to gangs and they feel they protect their other children more by not saying anything," said Tran, a Forest Lawn business owner.
"But that's like putting a Band-Aid on cancer, it won't make it go away."
Tran also blames some parents for inciting retaliation attacks after their child is killed in gang warfare.
Some of the people he knows have lost children in very recent shootings, he said.
"Parents are asking people to get even for them but we're asking them to stop the 'getting even,' " he said.
"If we let the people keep killing and killing, it will never end. Families have to start opening their hearts to each other because what's been lost is lost."
Huynh Ba, a Vietnamese Calgarian who also works in Forest Lawn, said mistrust towards police, stemming in large part from experiences with corrupt police forces in Vietnam, also makes many parents nervous to speak out.
"Older people don't trust police and they don't trust that they will protect them if they talk," he said.
Police officers in the gang unit have said numerous times one of their main challenges in investigating these shootings is lack of co-operation from witnesses and members of the Asian community.
And Tran agrees the police can't calm the war without the community's help.
"People don't want to speak up because they fear the terror will come to their door but we can't just leave it in the hands of the police, we have to assist them -- even if it's under the table," said Tran, who has lived in Calgary for 17 years.
Teresa Woo-Paw, chairwoman of the Ethnocultural Council of Calgary, said the increased gang activity in the city has a lot of Asian parents fearing their innocent children may get dragged into the violence.
"As parents, we are concerned because these gang members could be part of our children's lives," she said.
"I think the community is concerned that some of the good kids could be mistaken as gang members and get stopped by police or hurt ... or worse."
The council's board of directors plan to focus on the issue of gang violence over the next several months, said Woo-Paw.
"We hope to be pro-active and get to the root cause and help parents to look for the signs of gang activity," she said.
Although gang members only make up a tiny portion of the Vietnamese community, Tran said their actions are having a destructive impact on the reputation of all Vietnamese residents.
"People are afraid but they're angry, too, because this impacts job searches and the credit of the entire community," said Tran, who has three children, age 19, 23 and 25.
"When people talk about the Vietnamese community, we want them to say it's a good community with people who have good education and work hard."
Tran said the current gang situation in the city is like a simmering pot of water that's about to "boil over."
"It's going to get worse for sure," he said.
"More people will be killed if we don't stand up."
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and look at what happened.
