Freed Political Prisoner Reunited With His Family : Activists: Orange County man was a captive in Vietnam for almost two years. His biggest worry was when he would see his son.

For almost two years, Liem Quang Tran slept on a cold concrete floor in a prison cell in Vietnam, with another concrete slab as his pillow.

Daytime was almost as dark as night; the light from a single yellow bulb and a tiny opening in the cell door was so dim that Tran’s eyesight was permanently damaged. Twice-daily meals consisted of a fist-sized bowl of rice with broth.

“I didn’t feel sadness and I wasn’t scared,” Tran said Wednesday in his first full account of the ordeal since returning home to Orange County the night before. “I worried about when I would see my son again.”

The 45-year-old Tran said he was never physically abused, but the isolation and the uncertainty of his fate were nearly intolerable. Imprisoned and convicted on charges that he tried to overthrow the government, the Santa Ana resident did not know when he would see his son and older sister again, if ever.

Tran, an electronics technician, was arrested Nov. 12, 1993, for his involvement in planning a pro-democracy symposium in Ho Chi Minh City. The conference was never held.

Tran’s ordeal ended Nov. 2 when the Vietnamese government, under pressure from the U.S. State Department and tireless lobbying by Tran’s friends and relatives, released and deported him and a fellow activist, Tri Tan Nguyen of Houston. Tran arrived Tuesday afternoon at Los Angeles International Airport and rushed into the arms of his son, 16-year-old Vu Tran, and his sister, Nguyet Tran.

Wednesday, smoking a cigarette and sitting comfortably on a leather sofa in his Santa Ana home, an exhausted and relieved Tran expressed thanks for the effort that won him his freedom.

“The greatest thing I’ve been able to enjoy [since my return] is my freedom. My freedom,” Tran said.

The pro-democracy symposium was sponsored by the Santa Ana-based Alliance for Democracy in Vietnam, an international organization headed by expatriate Vietnamese intellectuals and former military officers who work for human rights in the Communist-led country.

Tran, who has been a member of the alliance for more than a decade, was in Vietnam to visit his elderly mother and volunteered to help with the conference. Two weeks before the scheduled event, nine participants, including Tran and Nguyen, were arrested.

Both men were imprisoned for 21 months before they were tried and convicted in August. Tran was sentenced to four years in prison.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher took up their cause during meetings with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi in August and again last month in Washington.

Rubbing his temples and wincing at his painful memories, Tran recalled Wednesday that he “struggled through days trying to forget that I was in prison.”

“What drove me forward was thinking about my family in the U.S. and my fellow countrymen, who were also imprisoned for trying to improve the economic and political circumstances in Vietnam.”

As for himself, he said, “I was mainly concerned about justice, whether the government would abide by their laws. They told me I would serve a four-year sentence; I knew that four years was indefinite. In Vietnam, the law and what is practiced are two very different things.”

For all his suffering--Tran’s hearing was also damaged and he lost a considerable amount of weight from his already small frame--Tran said his ordeal could not be compared to those of other political prisoners. Unlike him, Tran said, they did not have the protection of U.S. citizenship.

“I have only suffered one one-hundredth of what the people in Vietnam have endured,” he said.