- Phan Quang Dan
Phan Quang Dan was a Vietnamese political opposition figure who was one of only two non-government politicians who won a seat in the
1959 South Vietnamese election for the National Assembly. Subsequently, he was arrested by the forces of PresidentNgo Dinh Diem and not allowed to take his seat. The most prominent dissident during the rule of Diem, he is remembered more for his incarceration than his activities after Diem's fall, when he became a cabinet minister.Early years
Diem era career
Dan returned to Vietnam in September 1955 when Diem was provisionally Prime Minister of the
State of Vietnam . In October, Diem proclaimed himself the President of the newly proclaimedRepublic of Vietnam and from then on, Dan was the centre of much of the open opposition to Diem's regime. First he headed a coalition of opposition groups which fought the government's arrangements for the 1956 election of a Constituent Assembly. The coalition had three component groups with government approval: The National Restoration League, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Three months after the elections for the Constituent Assembly, the coalition collapsed when the leaders of the first two parties were jailed and the third party threatened into dissolution. Dan was briefly arrested on the eve of the 1956 elections, and accused by government controlled media of involvement in communist and colonialist activities. He had penned a letter to Diem in which he accused the regime of using dictatorial methods. He was then sacked by the government from his position atSaigon University 's Medical School. Undeterred, he continued his political activities and in May 1957 formed another opposition coalition called the Democratic Bloc. The group had their own newspaper, the "Thoi Luan". Its office was ransacked by a government organised mob in September 1957, and was closed down in March 1958 by a court order. Dan withdrew from the Democratic Bloc in April 1958 and the group collapsed as Dan sought to set up the Free Democratic Party and permission to publish a newspaper. Neither applications were approved, and various members of Dan's party were arrested for their political activities. In 1959, two newspapers were shut down after they published Dan's articles.Scigliano, p. 83.]Election and disbarring
In August 1959, Dan ran for the National Assembly in a constituency in
Saigon and was elected by a 6-1 ratio over Diem's government candidate. This came despite 8000Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers being bussed from out of district to stuff ballot boxes to support the government candidate. He was regarded as a nationalist anti-communist who was one of the most able political figures in the country.cite book| title=The Last Confucian| first=Denis |last=Warner| year=1963 |publisher=Macmillan| pages=pp. 112–114]Despite strong protests from the US and UK embassies, Diem was adamant that Dan would not be able to take his seat. When the Assembly was inaugurated, Dan was confronted by police and put under arrest as he attempted to leave his medical clinic to attend the session. Dan was charged with electoral fraud, on the grounds that he supposedly offered free medical care to induce voters to support him. He also pointed out that if this were the case, then he would have run for election in the district in which his practice was located, to maximise the number of patients who were in his voting district.Scigliano, p. 95.]
Imprisonment
In November 1960, a coup attempt by ARVN paratroopers was launched against Diem. As the attempt unfolded, Dan agreed to become a spokesperson for the coup leaders. However, the plot leaders stalled their coup when Diem falsely promised reform. Diem then crushed the rebels and Dan was arrested, tortured and sentenced to eight years of hard labour in the penal colony on
Poulo Condore where the French had once imprisoned Vietnamese nationalists. Were it not for western protests, Diem would have had Dan executed. As a result of the successful coup in 1963 in which Diem was deposed and assassinated, Dan was released from prison.Later career
In 1966 he was elected to the National Assembly and unsuccessfully contested the 1967 Presidential election. He then became foreign affairs minister and later as deputy Prime Minster for social welfare and refugees. His most prominent role was to resettle thousands of displaced war victims and refugees. When South Vietnam fell in 1975, Dan left for the
United States . [cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War| first= Spencer C. |last=Tucker |year=2000 |publisher=ABC-CLIO | pages =p. 327| isbn=1-57607-040-0]Notes
References
*cite book|first=Robert |last=Scigliano| title=South Vietnam: nation under stress |year=1964| publisher =
Houghton Mifflin
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