Nguyễn Thị Bình

Nguyễn Thị Bình was born in 1928 in Châu Thành, Sa Đéc Province and is a granddaughter of the Nationalist leader Phan Chu Trinh.[1] She studied French at Lycée Sisowath in Cambodia and worked as a teacher during the French colonisation of Vietnam. She joined Vietnam's Communist Party in 1948. From 1945 to 1951, she took part in various intellectual movements against the French colonists. Subsequently, she was arrested and jailed between 1951 and 1953 in Chí Hòa Prison (Saigon) by the French colonial authority in Vietnam.[2]

Photo of Nguyễn Thị Bình (centre-left) with Nguyễn Thị Định alongside other "Long-Haired Army" leaders.

During the Vietnam War, she became a member of the Vietcong's Central Committee and a vice-chairperson of the South Vietnamese Women's Liberation Association. In 1969 she was appointed foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. A fluent French speaker, Bình played a major role in the Paris Peace Accords on Vietnam, an agreement that was supposed to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam, which was signed in Paris and which entered into force 17 January 1973.[3] She was expected to be replaced by a male Vietcong representative after preliminary talks, but quickly became one of the group's most visible international public figures.[4] During that time, she was very famous in representing Vietnamese women with her elegant and gracious style, and was named by the media as "Madame Binh". She was one of those who signed the Paris Peace Accords.[5]

After the Vietnam War, she was appointed Minister of Education of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam[3] and from 1982 to 1986, which she was the first female minister ever in the history of Viet Nam. Nguyen Thi Binh was a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam's Communist Party, since 1987 to 1992, was Vice Head of the Central External Relations Department of Party. The National Assembly elected her twice to the position of Vice President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for the terms 1992–1997 and 1997–2002.[6]