Phan Quang Dan

Phan Quang Đán (; 6 November 1918 – 26 March 2004) 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 President Ngô Đình Diệm and not allowed to take his seat. The most prominent dissident during the rule of Diệm, he is remembered more for his incarceration than his activities after Diệm's fall, when he became a cabinet minister.

Trained as a doctor, Đán first entered politics in 1945 when the Japanese occupation of Vietnam ended and several local groups challenged French attempts to re-establish colonial power. Đán briefly joined several political parties and started his newspaper account, turning down offers of a cabinet position from the communist-dominated Viet Minh to assist former Emperor Bảo Đại as an advisor and briefly as Minister of Information of the State of Vietnam before resigning, citing French reluctance to confer full autonomy. He then completed a PhD at Harvard University while continuing his activism from afar, writing several political treatises.

Upon returning to South Vietnam, Đán was involved in negotiations with Diệm, but did not join the government, and then became the center of open opposition to Diệm, starting the Democratic Opposition Bloc and the Thời Luận newspaper, which stridently criticized the government. Despite ransackings by a mob of regime supporters, the newspaper's closure by a government court, and his blacklisting from university employment, Đán continued his opposition activities and was elected to the National Assembly in 1959, but was prevented from taking his seat. He then joined the paratroopers' coup of 1960 as a spokesperson after it started and was then jailed in a labor camp when Diệm loyalists crushed the revolt. Đán was released in 1963 upon Diệm's overthrow and assassination, and went on to become foreign minister and deputy prime minister before escaping Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon.

Early years Phan Quang Đán was born as Phan Huy Đán in the north central province of Nghệ An, Annam, French Indochina. His father was Dr. Phan Huy Thịnh from Hà Đông. Đán studied for a period in a seminary, According to Cao Văn Luận, a Catholic priest and academic in South Vietnam and was a former seminary colleague of Đán, Diem and Đán were in contact while the pair were in political exile in the US in the 1950s. Luan believed that Diem, who was appointed prime minister by Bao Dai in 1954, assumed that Đán was receptive to him as a politician.

The reason for Đán's exclusion from further Bảo Đại and then Ngo Dinh Diem cabinets is disputed. Đán said that it was due to Diem being appointed by Bảo Đại. Still, the government maintained that it was because he was holding out for a more important ministry, having allegedly rejected an offer to become the Minister for Social Welfare.

Diem era career In October, Diem proclaimed himself the President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam after defeating Bao Dai in a fraudulent referendum and from then on, Đán 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. Đán 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 under secret government orders from his position at the University of Saigon Faculty of Medicine, At its launch, he stated 'Two fundamental weaknesses facing the southern regime today are the total absence of an independent press and an opposition camp both recognized and tolerated by the ruling authority', These announcements were timed to coincide with Diem's state visit to the US, provoking an angry reaction in private from the president.

Đán openly criticized the main platform of American economic development aid to South Vietnam, the Commercial Import Program. This allowed licensed importers to buy US dollars at rates far lower than the official exchange rate, and then buy American goods with it. Instead of importing capital goods to fuel industrialization, the money was mostly spent on consumer goods to create an urban upper-class loyal to the government. Đán said "The U.S. Commercial Import Program—which costs us nothing—brings in on a massive scale luxury goods of all kinds, which give us an artificial society—enhanced material conditions that don't amount to anything, and no sacrifice; it brings luxury to our ruling group and middle class, and luxury means corruption."

Election and disbarring

On 30 August 1959, Đán 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 8000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers being bused 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.

Despite strong protests from the US and UK embassies, Diem was adamant that Đán would not be able to take his seat. When the Assembly was inaugurated, Đán was confronted by police and put under arrest as he attempted to leave his medical clinic to attend the session.

Imprisonment

In November 1960, ARVN paratroopers attempted a coup against Diem. As the attempt unfolded, Đán agreed to become a spokesperson for the coup leaders. He cited political mismanagement of the war against the Vietcong and the government's refusal to broaden its political base as the reason for the revolt. Đán spoke on Radio Vietnam and staged a media conference during which a rebel paratrooper pulled a portrait of the president from the wall, ripped it and stamped on it.

However, the plot leaders stalled their coup when Diem falsely promised reform. Diem then crushed the rebels and Đán 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 Đán executed. As a result of the successful coup in 1963 in which Diem was deposed and assassinated, Đán was released from prison.

Later career In 1966 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and unsuccessfully contested the 1967 Presidential election. He then became foreign affairs minister and later the deputy prime minister 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, Đán left for the United States.

Books The Republic of Vietnam’s Environment & People. Saigon, 1975.

Honors