A personal biography of Hoang Minh Chinh, Nguyen Xuan Ngai, and the

 Democratic Party of Vietnam

 

by Jean Libby, editor, Viet Am Review: 

 

 While Dr. Ngai Nguyen is flying to Hanoi to be at the funeral of his famous patient Hoang Minh Chinh, here is a brief biography of the elder statesman and their relationship.  It is based on interview with Dr. Nguyen Xuan Ngai in his San Jose medical office in November 2007.  Additional research sources are Que Me (Penelope Faulkner, author and Vice-President of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights in Paris); from the BBC in London, February 8 2008 (Nga Pham, author); other Internet sources in English; and press releases from the Democratic Party of Vietnam in Hanoi on the death of Hoang Minh Chinh February 7, 2008.

 
Hoang Minh Chinh  (Tran Ngoc Nghiem) born 1922 in Nam Ha province, northern Vietnam. 

      1937  --  he is part of the nationalist revolutionary movement to resist colonialism

      1944  --  founds the People’s Action Party, a nationalist organization.  Became a member of the Communist Party after the August 1945 Revolution, keeping the PAP underground but always its General Secretary.     

    1957 –   Communist Party member; receives political training in the Soviet Union

    1960  - returns to North Vietnam, appointed director of the Marxist-Leninist Institute in Hanoi as well as vice-minister of education.  Hoang Minh Chinh advocates more democratic policies within the VN government and opposes the policy of military invasion of South Vietnam.  Merges the People’s Action Party with the Democratic Party of Vietnam

   1967 -  Writes “Dogmatism in Vietnam” which is critical of the Communist Party.  Removed from the Institute. 

   1967 to 1971, first period of imprisonment. 

   1980  Democratic Party of Vietnam is outlawed by the Socialist Government. 

  1981 --1987.  Second period of imprisonment.  During this period he is imprisoned at B-14 prison in the Thanh Liet Village (about eight miles from Hanoi), which is infamous for brutality and severe interrogation.  Dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien and South Vietnamese commander Vo Dai Ton were both imprisoned there in solitary confinement the same time periods.

   1995  After enduring house arrest in Hanoi for most of the intervening years of 1987 - 1993, Hoang Minh Chinh suffers the indignity of imprisonment for a year in 1995 at age 73. 

    1999 – meets Dr. Nguyen Xuan Ngai who is in Vietnam on a medical mission which starts the practice of angioplasty for heart blockage, saving thousands of lives.  Previous to Dr. Ngai’s medical mission, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Health of Vietnam, people who could afford to do so traveled to Singapore for the procedure.  Dr. Ngai Nguyen is part of a United States national board of cardiologists.

                     Dr. Ngai is seen on the state-run Hanoi Television Program, “Doctors Day” on 27 February 1999.  He speaks one phrase that Vietnam needs changes.  Three hours later Ngai Nguyen, a U.S. citizen, is jailed in Hanoi.  He is released after much protest from America, in Washington and in San Jose, his home.  These events are documented in the San Jose Mercury News archives. 

                        2005 --  Hoang Minh Chinh is afflicted with colon cancer and prostate cancer.  He receives permission to be treated by Dr. Nguyen Xuan Ngai in the U.S.  Mr. Hoang Minh Chinh has surgery from Dr. Ngai and is treated over several months at his home in San Jose.  During the period he flies with his doctor to Harvard University to deliver a speech.

                                   When he returns to Hanoi in December 2005 he and his family are attacked by a mob while police look on.  Professor Hoang Minh Chinh is struck several times with plastic water bottles used as clubs.        

                                    Begins communication with the Venerable Thich Quang Do, patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, in Saigon.  The UBCV was outlawed by the Communist government after the successful invasion of South Vietnam in 1975.  Seventeen monks self-immolated in an act of consecration, believing the Communist government  has no right to interfere or attempt to control any religion.  Professor Hoang Minh Chinh and Venerable Thich Quang Do, who is under continuous house arrest in the Saigon Pagoda and not allowed mail or telephone communication since 1975, exchange contacts.  Thich Quang Do sends a “New Year’s Letter” calling on Vietnamese intelligentsia in the North and South to rally together for pluralism and democratic change. This appeal, sent through the intermediary of IBIB and Quê Me to avoid government censorship, succeeds in forging unprecedented links of solidarity and understanding between Communist dissidents in the North and democrats in the South. 

                        2006   In April 2006, Hoang Minh Chinh and Thich Quang Do are jointly awarded the “Democracy Courage Tribute” by 600 democracy activists gathered at the Fourth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy (WMD) in Istanbul.  Hoang Minh Chinh reactivates the Democratic Party of Vietnam, asking  Nguyen Xuan Ngai of San Jose, California to be vice-president and to succeed him as president.  Their goal is to see a new Constitution to replace the 1992 instrument and to insure free and fair elections with candidates from more than one party on the ballot. 

                                    Hoang Minh Chinh is a Founding member of Bloc 8406, citizens within the Socialist Republic of Vietnam who seek a referendum to change the Constitution of 1992.  Many of Bloc 8406 are imprisoned, including another founder, Father Nguyen Van Ly.  The sham public trial of Father Ly becomes a rallying point of the Vietnamese Diaspora when the image of a Security Agent covering his mouth,  An accurate list of 100 political prisoners in Vietnam is secretly gathered by Thich Huyen Minh of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (also under close watch house arrest by the Communist government).  It is covertly sent to Dr. Ngai X. Nguyen, who gives it to United States Congressman Rohrabacher, who publishes it the Congressional Record in September 2007.   Subsequent published lists by other political parties and organizations use this list as the base, with additional entries.

                        DPV General Secretary Hoang Minh Chinh is hospitalized for much of the year 2007 in Hanoi.  He seeks conversion to Buddhism from the Venerable Thich Quang Do in November.  His remaining life and energy is spent writing messages to the Vietnamese people encouraging democracy.  These are published in Hanoi by the Democratic Party of Vietnam on December 31, 2007 and January 17, 2008.     

February 7, 2008  First Day of the New Year "Tet Mau Ty" Professor Hoang Minh Chinh dies in Hanoi, peaceful in the knowledge that he has contributed to a longed-for true reunification of his country and the Vietnamese people in their own land.   His funeral will be in Hanoi on February 16, 2008.                 

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Jean Libby is the editor of VietAm Review, a published blog that began as a volunteer community service about Vietnamese American Achievement in 2004.  The present focus of the blog is political imprisonment by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

She is the English translation manuscript editor and author of the preface of the English language publication of the prose stories of Nguyen Chi Thien on prison conditions in Communist Vietnam, the Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton Stories  (Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2007.  ISBN 978-0-938692-89-8)

A retired teacher of United States History and Ethnic Studies at community colleges in northern California, she is a member of Amnesty International USA Group 19 in Palo Alto.