Riot, vietnamese got beat up,
one girl blind... help help

Prepared for internet by Vietnamese Missionaries in Taiwan

From: "Peter_Huy_Le"
To: camp117-list
CC: bo_gia@juno.com
Subject: Riot, vietnamese got beat up, one girl blind... help help
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 05:59:54 -0500

 Bo Gia, Please help me out. I am in a rush.
HUY

 ------------------------------------

 To My Vietnamese Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 Please help me to help our Vietnamese countrymen and women. They are crying and need our help. Currently, I am living in American Samoa in the South Pacific Island, near Guam and Fiji. There are currently 250 Vietnamese garment workers, only 20 are men, the rest are women in their mid20's. These Vietnamese came to Samoa to work for a Korean company, called "Daewoosa" (a sweatshop business).

 Yesterday (Tuesday, 28 Nov 2000), there was a riot. Many Samoan workers beat up our Vietnamese workers. They were ordered by the President, Kilsoo Lee who at the compound, that "go ahead beat them (vietnamese) up until they die. If they die, I will responsible for it." This was at 9:30AM.

 I arrived to Daewoosa at 10:00AM, cooled down the riot, roughly around 300 people there, cops were all over the place, people with blood. Around 11:00AM, everything was cooled down. 20 of us went to the police station. My attorney was with me.

 All of us got out at 3:00 pm, ran to the hospital, Quyen (21 years old) was hit hard to her eyeball, so the doctor took one of her eyes out. She blinds now. That night, everyone was so afraid, and throughout the night, we went in and out Daewoosa to rescue many of the workers out of the compound of Daewoosa.

 Kilsoo Lee has a stone hearted man. The parent of Daewoosa is Daewoo. For the past six months, the vietnamese workers did not get pay. when they were promised to get $700-$1000 a month in Vietnam, but when they came here, they got $408 a month. Most of them paid betweeen $4-8K to get a job here for 3 years.

 How can you help?

 1. Stop buying Daewoo's products.
2. Help me to compose a letter to our congressmen/women
3. Create a website. Iwill provide you with all the contexts.
4. Let more people know about this situation
5. Be more responsible to what we buy

 For more information on this, please read the Samoa News on November 28, 2000 at http://www.samoanews.com

 I talked to the bishop Quinn here at Samoa. He really supports us. He will write a letter to the governor of this island and protect the vietnamese. The problem between Daesoosa and Vietnamese has been more than a year and half.

 Thank you for your help. Stay tune as I have more time to update you with more information. You can also check out RADIO BOLSA and NGAY NAY NEWS. I will try to call the station everyday to update them.

 Keep us in our prayers.
Please prayers for strength and wisdom and courage to stand up for justice.
Your brother in Christ,

 HUY LE
 
 


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