Nguyễn Quyền (1869–1941) was a #Vietnamese #scholar & #AntiColonial #revolutionary #activist who advocated independence from #French #colonial rule. He was a contemporary of Phan Bội Châu & Phan Chu Trinh & one of Tonkin Free School's founders.

"The more I read the more I become aware that the things we studied, our examination system, were wrong – indeed the real reasons for our having lost our country. From that point on I was determined to seize upon our country's literature and on modern learning to awaken our citizenry."

Quyen advocated the modernisation of Vietnam's #education system. Around 1903 or 1904, Quyen met Tang Bat Ho, who had returned from his travels abroad & talked extensively about the modernisation of Japan. In 1904 he met with Phan Bội Châu, but Quyen had little in common with Chau's ideology of using violence to achieve independence. Quyen went on the work with Lương Văn Can & Le Dai in setting up the Dong Kinh Thuc Nghia, which sought to strengthen the Vietnamese people & thereby the likelihood of independence through the training of a new, more modern generation of scholars.

In 1908, Quyen was arrested in a general crackdown by French authorities and sent to jail on Côn Lôn island. He died in the prison which was infamous for torturing political prisoners.

Ref: Marr, David G. (1970). Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California. ISBN 0-520-01813-3.

Nguyen Huu Tho (July 10, 1910 - Dec. 24, 1996) was the chairman of the National Liberation Front #NLF - the South Vietnamese political organization formed in 1960 in opposition to the U.S. backed Saigon government.

He was born in the same Chinatown district (Cho Lon in Saigon) that my patriarch family lived & where we had our large incense factory.

The son of a rubber-plantation manager who was later killed during the First #Indochina War (1946–54), Nguyen Huu Tho studied law in Paris in the 1930s. Returning to #Saigon, he set up practice, remaining politically inactive until 1949, when he led student demonstrations against the French; he also organized protests in 1950 against the patrolling of the southern Vietnamese coast by U.S. warships. He was imprisoned & won popular acclaim for his prolonged hunger strike in protest of the war.

After the Geneva Agreements divided Vietnam into northern & southern zones in 1954, Tho cooperated with the southern regime of Ngo Dinh Diem until he was arrested for advocating nationwide elections on reunification. Except for a short period in 1958, Tho remained in prison from 1954-1961, when he escaped with aid of some of his anti-Diem followers. These men, who had recently formed the NLF, made Tho, a noncommunist, provisional & then full-time chairman of the NLF.

In 1965, he delivered an anti-imperialist speech, a booklet was later published in English, entitled SPEECH. His title was given as: President of the Presidium of the Consultative Council of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation on the 5th founding anniversary of the NFL.

Tho served as a figurehead leader. Real power in the NLF was held by its military arm, the #VietCong & by veteran communists who reported directly to the North Vietnamese leadership. Tho helped attract a wide spectrum of South Vietnamese supporters to the NLF. In June 1969, the NLF established a Provisional Revolutionary Government with Huynh Tan Phat as president & Nguyen Huu Tho as chairman of its advisory council. The PRG became the government of South Vietnam in April 1975, when Saigon government’s troops surrendered to the North Vietnamese & PRG forces. Tho was made a vice president of Vietnam in 1976, a post he held until 1980, when he became acting president. In 1981, Tho was made vice president of the Council of State & chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly.

Thọ was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1983–84).

Between 1988 & 1994, he was chairman of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front (Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam), an umbrella organization for mass organizations in the country.

Ref: Jacques Dalloz : Dictionnaire de la Guerre d'Indochine, Paris, 2006, S. 171
Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954), Kopenhagen, 2011, S. 323

Ref: Kiernan, Ben. How Pol Pot Came to Power. London: Verso, 1985. pp. 170-71.

Ref: Nghia M. Vo - Saigon: A History (2011)

Nguyễn Văn Trỗi (1 February 1940 – 15 October 1964) was a #Vietnamese #revolutionary & member of the NLF (National Liberation Front). He gained notoriety after being captured by ARVN forces while trying to assassinate US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara & Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. who were visiting South Vietnam in May 1964.

Trỗi became the first publicly executed member of the NLF. His execution was filmed, and he remained defiant to the end. His last words before his execution in #Saigon :

"You are journalists and so you must be well informed about what is happening. It is the Americans who have committed aggression on our country, it is they who have been killing our people with planes and bombs ... I have never acted against the will of my people. It is against the Americans that I have taken action."

When a priest offered Trỗi absolution, he refused, saying: "I have committed no sin. It is the Americans who have sinned." As the first shots were fired, he called out: "Long live Vietnam!"

His wife wrote a biography book on his short but brave life. Phan Thi Quyen (c. 1965) Nguyen van troi tel qu'il etait (Nguyễn Văn Trỗi As He Was).

Võ Thị Sáu (1933 – 23 January 1952) was a #Vietnamese schoolgirl who fought as a #guerrilla against the #FrenchOccupiers of #Vietnam, then part of French #Indochina. She was captured, tried, convicted & executed by the French #colonialists in 1952. She was the first woman to be executed at Côn Sơn Prison.

Vo Thi Sau was no ordinary schoolgirl. She was just 14 when she tossed a grenade at a group of French soldiers, killing one & injuring 12 before escaping into a crowded market. A few years later, in 1952 aged just 19, she was executed by a French firing squad.

Minutes before her death, a priest asked if she wanted to confess & she simply replied: “I only regret not finishing destroying all the colonists and people who betrayed this nation.” She then demanded her captors take off her blindfold: “No need to cover my eyes, I want to look at this beloved country for the last time and I have the courage to look directly at your muzzle.” She refused to kneel & calmly sang “Tien Quan Ca,” the then national anthem of North Vietnam, before she was shot dead. Her last words were reportedly “Down with the French Colonialists, long-lasting independence Vietnam, long-live President Ho.” Bold & fearless, Sau has been seen as a #heroine & #martyr, beloved by her country ever since.

https://chaohanoi.com/2020/04/21/vietnamese-schoolgirl-revolutionary-fighter/

Lê Đức Thọ (14 October 1911 – 13 October 1990), was a #Vietnamese #revolutionary general, diplomat & politician. Tho was the first #Asian to be awarded the #NobelPeacePrize, jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, for their work on Paris Peace Accords, but refused the award.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1973/tho/facts

"However, since the signing of the Paris agreement, the United States and the Saigon administration continue in grave violation of a number of key clauses of this agreement. The Saigon administration, aided and encouraged by the United States, continues its acts of war. Peace has not yet really been established in South Vietnam. In these circumstances it is impossible for me to accept the 1973 Nobel Prize for Peace which the committee has bestowed on me. Once the Paris accord on Vietnam is respected, the arms are silenced and a real peace is established in South Vietnam, I will be able to consider accepting this prize. With my thanks to the Nobel Prize Committee please accept, madame, my sincere respects."
https://web.archive.org/web/20110403165243/http://www.blackandwhitecat.org/2010/12/11/why-le-duc-tho-refused-his-nobel-peace-prize/

"Unfortunately, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee put the aggressor and the victim of aggression on the same par. ... That was a blunder. The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the greatest prizes in the world. But the United States conducted a war of aggression against Vietnam. It is we, the Vietnamese people, who made peace by defeating the American war of aggression against us, by regaining our independence and freedom."
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/17/Personality-Spotlight-Le-Duc-Tho-Vietnams-poet-revolutionary/1693535179600/