Refugee Has Hope His Daughter Is Still Alive

The last time Tang Bao Can saw his daughter was during the family’s painful escape from Vietnam five years ago when she was snatched from his arms by pirates.

But Tang, 44, who now lives in Santa Ana with his wife, Thai Thi Loan, 45, remains optimistic that his daughter, Tang Bich Hang, is still alive.

The couple placed an advertisement in Sunday’s Bangkok Post, offering a $7,500 reward for information leading to her return. Tang also offered $2,500 just for proof that his daughter is still alive.

“I have a good feeling that my daughter is still alive somewhere in Thailand,” Tang said in a telephone interview from his home Sunday. “I am under the impression that the pirates that kidnaped her are not too bad, that they are better than others.”

Tang said he “has worked hard to make and save money” and has friends in Bangkok ready to offer the reward on a moment’s notice.

“I must wait to become American (U.S.) citizen to visit Bangkok myself. But I have friends there who are ready to reward anyone who can bring my daughter safely to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok,” Tang said.

Might Have Been Sold

“She might have been sold to someone, she might be a wife in Bangkok.”

Tang said his daughter was taken by Thai pirates who boarded their drifting boat loaded with refugees on Oct. 26, 1984, in the Gulf of Thailand off southern Thailand.

“They robbed everything and were throwing young men in the sea,” Tang said.

When Tang tried to stop the rape of one of three women attacked by the pirates, they seized his daughter, then only 13, and took her away with the three women.

“I tried to stop them, but they beat me very badly,” Tang said.

The pirates were apparently scared away when a helicopter flew overhead. The boat, which originally carried 110 people, drifted to Malaysia. Tang, his wife and their son, now 22, eventually reached the United States.

Tang, who is a manager of an auto parts store, said he reported the abduction to the United Nations and the Red Cross.

“I reported it in Bangkok, in America, everywhere,” he said. “They did send me reports that they were still looking for my daughter, but no results. The last report I got was two years ago. Since then I have heard nothing.”

Orange County and other Southern California Vietnamese community leaders have claimed that about 3,500 women have been abducted by pirates and sold into prostitution or as slave labor.

Embassy Advice

During a 1987 visit to Orange County by Steven J. Kraus, coordinator of the Boat Rescue Program at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Kraus suggested that Vietnamese community leaders request that U.S. dollars be earmarked to help find missing women.

While Kraus advised families to do all they could to gain information about kidnaped relatives, he warned against Vietnamese families spending great sums of money to hire investigators to search for missing relatives, especially women.

At the time, Kraus said that he had heard of Vietnamese families spending thousands of dollars but that “not one woman” was found.

Tang’s daughter was abducted at a time when fierce attacks by Thai fishing vessels often ended in rape, torture and murder. In 1981, for example, 80% of all refugee boats arriving in southern Thailand reported being stopped by pirates. In the same year, 455 deaths were reported from such attacks, and 360 people were reported missing and presumed dead, according to the U.S. State Department.

In 1982, the United States joined 11 other countries to fund an anti-piracy effort. The percentage of refugee boats that were attacked by pirates dropped from 69% that year to 44% in 1986.

Tang said he believes his daughter may have survived because the pirates who boarded their boat that day seemed “more human” than others who had tried to waylay the refugee boat three times before.

“The young man who took my daughter, he treated her very nice,” he said. “If they were going to kill us, they could have done it right away, but they just threw some men out to sea. They only beat me because I tried to hold on to her. They seemed more human than the other pirates.”

Tang said he worked for U.S. Army intelligence during the Vietnam War and spent five years in “re-education camp” after the Communist takeover in 1975.

“We came here with nothing, with zero,” Tang said. “My friends and relatives in America and Thailand are helping me with this. Whoever brings her to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok or can confirm to me that she is alive, they will be paid immediately.”