Seeing Red

Actual Malice

How did this happen? The story only begins to make sense, Rosha says, when the charges of Communism are understood as a smoke screen for another kind of attack.

In the original district court case, the judge ruled that Tuan Pham was a public figure. That raised the burden of proof for his defamation charge to the highest level. Instead of just demonstrating that the accusations against him were false, he had to show that the defendants acted with “actual malice.” In other words, Rosha says, “We had to show that they knew the accusations weren’t true.”

While some community members came to believe the charges against Pham, if only on a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” basis, “the [defamers] never believed that Mr. Pham was a Communist. But they did this anyway to try to hurt him,” Rosha says. The jury did find actual malice. (The principal attorney for the defense did not respond to Twin Cities Business’s invitations to comment.) Yen Pham and Vy Pham, the Vietnam Center officials who were the protesters’ original targets and experienced similar attacks, chose not to sue.

Rosha says the defamation has its roots in a power struggle that predates the Catholic bishop’s visit, between those in the Vietnamese community who want to promote the success of that community in the United States, and those who want to continue the battle against their native land’s Communist regime.

Yen Pham and Vy Pham represent the former group, Rosha says. The charge that they had disrespected the Yellow Flag was intended as “their comeuppance” for having taken leadership in the Vietnamese community years earlier.

Tuan Pham was a peripheral figure in the political dynamic, Rosha believes, which explains why two months elapsed before he was targeted. But the Capital Market “offered a nice, visible target,” and the Dean Do letter provided extra ugliness, albeit unrelated to the primary charge of Communism.

Then, too, Tuan Pham’s presidential appointment to the Vietnam Education Foundation board was resented on status grounds, Rosha says. The hardliner faction includes people who held relatively high-level roles in the old country, including military officers. Pham was a mere sergeant.

“It’s hard for non-Vietnamese to understand the dynamics,” daughter Lan Pham observes. She herself is far enough removed from the community’s politics that “it sounds bizarre to me, as well.” But she confirms the outlines of Rosha’s depiction. Choosing her words cautiously, she says there is “a small group of people,” often older, “who want to be leaders whether or not other people recognize them. Back in Vietnam, they held high positions. And they live for those days.”