Bolsavik.com

The controversy over Ly Tong’s supposed attempt to drop leaflets over North Korea and subsequent arrest just refuses to abate.

The story was (read here for more details) that Ly Tong (pictured top) tried to leaflet the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony but couldn’t, so he went to the second floor of the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan and littered the sidewalk below. For good measure, when Ly Tong got back Stateside he emailed out the above image of the souvenir “certificate” that he’d been to the top of the world’s tallest building.

Then he allegedly rented a plane and instructor from a flight school in Seoul to leaflet the city during the Chinese-Korean summit, but when he attempted to retrieve his backpack with all the papers in it, the instructor thought he was getting a bomb, grabbed him and forced the plane to land in a military air field. Supposedly, Supposedly, MP’s detained Ly Tong and interrogated him, but then concluded that he’s a “great man” (Ly Tong’s words) and let him go.

That’s the story. When it first came out, the Bolsavik attempted to verify with the Korean Consulate General in L.A. They didn’t know anything about it. They said they’d get back, but didn’t, and the Bolsavik never called again either, having moved on to other things.

Apparently the San Jose Mercury News ran into the same problem. As the paper says here, “The South Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., hadn’t heard the story, and Tong’s recollection of the names of people involved was a bit spotty.”

Other people have noticed the lack of verification too.

One is Vo Van Sau, editor of the Gop Gio magazine in Seattle, himself a former South Vietnamese military officer who’d spent 6 years in communist prisons and reeducation camps.

As Sau spoke up, however, defenders of Ly Tong jumped up and accused Sau of being (what else?) a communist.

They recalled that last time during a controversy over fundraising for a litigation fund (long story; the Bolsavik may tell it some other time on a slow news day), Sau had criticized the fundraiser and that was proof he’s a traitor.

The defenders of Ly Tong published pictures from 2000 (right) showing a handful of protesters calling Sau a communist spy. Sounds familiar?

Anyway, so while publications who tried to verify Ly Tong’s arrest, including the Bolsavik, the SJ Mercury News, and a number of other newspapers, couldn’t get a yes-or-no from the Korean diplomatic missions here, someone else did.

Maybe what it took was a letter.

Or two. A Charlie Miller Ly in San Bruno, California (near SF airport) wrote to the Korean Consulate General in San Francisco twice, asking about Ly Tong’s arrest.

On September 4, Mr. Ly received a response. He promptly attached a scanned image of the alleged letter from the Korean Consulate General to an email sent ’round the world, in which Consul Jo Hong Ju states, quote:

“- there has been no report regarding airplane hijacking recently in the region;
- there was no foreign national taken in an act of crime on August 25, 2008;
- a vietnamese by the name of Ly Tong has never been booked by the local police.”

Click here to see the full image of the letter.

Now, Ly Tong is an American citizen, so of course people couldn’t find “a Vietnamese by the name of Ly Tong” being booked by the local police. And according to Ly Tong he was held by people in the military airfield, and that may not count as being “taken in an act of crime.” Besides, whatever Ly Tong did may not constitute “hijacking.”

So, maybe Ly Tong didn’t lie.

Maybe he is a hero after all.

Maybe he is raising funds to fight communism and not to spend on — oh, who knows what he’s not spending it on.

Either way, the war of words keeps going. By email only though. The Viet publications are all wary of touching this one with a ten-foot pole, being aware what happened to Vo Van Sau and his Gop Gio magazine.

Tags: Ly Tong

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 5:22 am and is filed under San Jose, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.