Do Hoang Diem
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Do Hoang Diem is the current chairman of Vietnam Reform Party. He was elected in September 2006 at the 6th Party Congress.
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[edit] History
Do Hoang Diem was born in 1963 and escaped from Vietnam on April 30, 1975, during the Fall of Saigon. He arrived in the United States as a refugee in June 1975. In 1984 he received his B.S. degree from the University of California, Irvine and in 1987 he graduated from the University of Houston with an MBA degree. With his degree, he worked as a manager in various industries including banking, entertainment, health care and electronics business.
Diem became very active in the Vietnamese community. He served as the Vietnamese Professionals Society's first Board of Director from 1991-1992, was a radio and TV talk show host for Little Saigon Broadcasting and also a member of the Executive Board of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California. Most notably, as a member of the Vietnamese Public Affairs Committee since 1994, a grass root organization aiming to empower Vietnamese Americans, he testified numerous times in the US Congress about human rights violations in Vietnam, US-Vietnam relations, and other political issues.
As the current chairman of Viet Tan, Do Hoang Diem, frequently visits lawmakers in Washington, D.C. On May 29, 2007, he was invited by US president George W. Bush among with three other Vietnamese-American activist to the White House on a meeting about Vietnam's increasingly harsh treatment of anti-government activisits and an upcoming visit by Vietnam's prime minister Nguyen Minh Triet to the United States. During the 45-minute meeting, Do Hoang Diem urged the president to increase pressure on Vietnam to respect human rights and asked for the United States to support openly democractic forces to bring change to Hanoi.[1] During Nguyen Minh Triet's visit to the US, Do Hoang Diem also met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shortly before her meeting with the Vietnamese prime minister to stress the importance of raising the issue of Vietnam's poor human rights record.[2]
On March 12, 2008, he appeared before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs to appeal to lawmakers to confront the issue of Viet Tan members being detained in Vietnam.[3]
[edit] Viet Tan membership
Diem joined Viet Tan in 1982 while he was still in college [1]. After being a member for almost ten years, he became the Southern California Regional Director from 1991-1995, afterwards he became the External Affairs Director from 1996 - 2004, briefly held the position as the Policy Director in 2005-2006.
In September 2006 at the 6th Party Congress, he was elected to be the new chairman of Viet Tan, replacing the previous chairman Kim Nguyen. His current term will expire in 2011.
