Nguyễn Văn Thinh

Nguyễn Văn Thinh (* 1888 in Cochinchina ; † November 10, 1946 in Saigon , Cochinchina) was a French - Vietnamese doctor and politician . He became the first leader of the 1946 Autonomous Republic of Cochin appointed, but committed at the end of suicide in protest against his political marginalization.

Life

Nguyễn Văn Thinh was born in 1888 to a local aristocratic family in Cochinchina . He studied medicine in Indochina and France and was one of the first Vietnamese to complete his studies in Paris . He specialized as an ophthalmologist. During the First World War he volunteered for service in the French army . In 1926 he joined the Constitutionalist Party . By the late 1930s he had established himself as one of the leading politicians in the Cochinchina colony. In 1937, thanks to his financial means as a large landowner , he founded his own party, the Parti démocrate . Their political program primarily aimed to give Indochina an autonomous status (similar to the British Dominions ).

Văn Thinh was one of the few indigenous residents of the colony who could acquire French citizenship. As a large landowner and thus rice producer on a large scale, Nguyen Van Thinh tried to organize emergency aid for the farmers in the northern part of the country during the famine in Vietnam in 1945 .

Văn Thinh emerged as the president of the Democratic Party as a supporter of the French colonial system against the revolutionary independence movements of his country. In June 1946, the French High Commissioner Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu set up the provisional government of a République Autonome de Cochinchine , which he himself had proclaimed, consisting of 14 French and 28 Vietnamese, and appointed Văn Thinh as its president. The aim of the French administration was to tackle Vietnamese self-government, a task that had been neglected under French colonial rule. The Vit Minh's claim to sole representation for Vietnam should be countered in this way. The state structure had little support from the local population because they had no influence over this government, which continued to represent the interests of the old French colonial rulers. According to estimates by the then US ambassador, around three quarters of the population would have opted for the unification of the country under Ho Chi Minh in a free election .

Nguyen Van Thinh committed suicide on November 20, 1946 suicide in protest against the negotiations of the French authorities with the Việt Minh, which has been a political loss of face for him.

Web links

Saigon's hidden presidential palace and forgotten president: the Republic of Cochinchina and Nguyễn Văn Thinh

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jacques Dalloz: Dictionnaire de la Guerre d'Indochine 1945 - 1954 , Paris, 2006, p. 175
2. ↑ Bruce M. Lockhart, William J. Duiker : The A to Z of Vietnam , Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2010, p. 284 (entry Nguyễn Văn Thinh )
3. ↑ Nguyen Van Thinh. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Last accessed on October 26, 2014
4. ↑ Christopher Goscha: Vietnam - A New History. New York, 2016 p. 218
5. ↑ Stein Tonnesson: Vietnam 1946 - How the War Began , Berkeley, 2010, p. 37, p. 72f
6. ↑ Stein Tonnesson: Vietnam 1946 - How the War Began , Berkeley, 2010, p. 104