Before April 1975, Ninh Xuan Tran, MD was Assistant professor of Surgery at the University of Saigon Medical School. Due to his time serving in the ARVN as medical officer after graduation and his postgraduate training in Pediatric Surgery in the US, Dr. Tran had to spend two-and-a-half year in various reeducation concentration camps set up by the SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) after the fall of South Vietnam. He was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. In late 1978 he escaped Vietnam by boat and settled in the US in 1979.

The experience with the Vietnamese Communist regime and its concentration camps turned this professional into an activist for human rights once settled in the United States. Dr. Tran joined singer Joan Baez in 1979 in a press conference in Los Angeles releasing an open letter to the SRV, denouncing the human rights violations in the concentration camps. He collaborated with the late Ginetta Sagan in her research on human rights violations in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This study led to the publication of Sagan's "Violations of Human Rights in the SRV" by the Aurora Foundation in 1983. He gave many speeches in various conferences on the subject of Human Rights Violations in Vietnam organized by Amnesty International in the US (University of Berkeley, Stanford University, California; University of Seattle, Washington; et al.), in Canada, and in England.

Dr. Tran is still practicing in Chicago. He also remains active in the cause for human rights and in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Vietnam.

The modern history of Vietnam can be summarized as both the fight for independence and the pursuit of renovation. These two tasks are inextricably linked, and have been prevalent from the period of French colonial rule, to the American-Vietnamese war, the Nationalist Communist struggle, and finally to the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Historical data will be reviewed to evoke discussion and to serve as lessons for the younger generations. Preserving national independence and pursuing renovation are still two parallel tasks we must carry out to solve the multitude of problems facing Vietnam in the globalized world.