As from June 1955, the south Viet Nam authorities passed from individual arrests and murders to a large-scale organized campaign of systematic terror.
Forming anti-communism into a ‘State policy’, they set out to organize so-called ‘Denounce communists’ campaigns.
Under the ‘anti-communist’ signboard, they planned to terrorize the people, to carry out reprisals against former resistance members, and to suppress by force any aspiration for peace and unity in south Viet Nam.
They adopted the principle: “Rather kill a man wrongly than miss a communist”.
A whole system of leadership ranging from the top to the lowest level was set up for the ‘denunciation of communists’. The highest body was the ‘Leading Council for the Denunciation of Communists’ which included all the ministers in the government with Ngo Dinh Diem as honorary chairman. This council appointed a body labelled ‘Central Committee for the Denunciation of Communists’, and entrusted it with the task of taking directly under its authority the denunciation of communists in government offices and in various localities. Each ministry, each province had its own leading committee for the denunciation of communists. At the communal level a councillor was specially entrusted with this task.
On March 1955, the Special Commissariat of the ‘Cong Dan Vu’ under the direct authority of the office of the President of the Republic — a secret security service specializing in the denunciation of communists — was set up to make preparations for, and to further the ‘Denounce communists’ campaigns.
In towns and cities, the denunciation of communists was organized in all government offices and enterprises. An atmosphere of suspicion and terror was thus created everywhere.
But especially in the countryside, the authorities mobilized the regular army, the militia, the civil guard, and the ‘Cong Dan Vu’, sometimes even the air force and the artillery, to launch numerous ‘Denounce communists’ campaigns. According to the document published in Saigon in late October 1959, and entitled ‘Achievements of the Government over five years of activities’, from mid October 1955 to the end of 1958, the south Viet Nam administration successively carried out:
The Dinh Tien Hoang campaign (from June 5 to December 29, 1955), in Can Tho, Long Xuyen, Chau Doc, Rach Gia, Ha Tien provinces.
The Hoang Dieu campaign (from September 21 to October 21, 1955) in the Sat forest (Baria province) near Vung Tau.
The Thoai Ngoc Hau campaign (from June 8 to October 30, 1956) in the provinces bordering on Cambodia.
The Truong Tan Buu campaign (from July 17, 1956, to December 15, 1957) in the eastern provinces of Nam Bo.
The ‘Hong Chau plan’ campaign (from July 10 to August 10, 1958) in the Chau Boi region, near the Cambodian frontier.
The Tho Lo campaign (from March 2 to October 20, 1958) in the two provinces of Binh Dinh and Phu Yen.
The ‘Nguyen Trai plan’ campaign (from April 20 to September 20, 1958) in East Nam Bo, in Binh Duong (Thu Dau Mot), Binh Long, Bien Hoa, and Tay Ninh provinces.
The ‘Nguyen Trai plan’ campaign (from September 20, 1958, to February 1, 1959) in West Nam Bo, in An Giang, An Xuyen, Ba Xuyen, Kien Giang, Phong Dinh and Vinh Long provinces.
As a matter of fact, this list is far from being complete since it does not mention all the campaigns, (for instance the Nguyen Hue campaign from early 1955 to June 1, 1956, under the command of a brigadier in the Ca Mau region; the Doan Duc Thoan campaign in Binh Dinh province; the campaigns “to agitate the people” in the High Plateaus in the western part of Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces...), or hides their true duration (for instance, the Thoai Ngoc Hau campaign lasted until February 24, 1957, and not October 30, 1956). Generally speaking, in the ‘Denounce communists’ campaigns the army, operating in coordination with the militia, the civil guard, and the ‘Cong Dan Vu’ mopped up again and again the regions where broad strata of the people had participated in the Resistance war. All inhabitants were forcibly concentrated in one place for two or three consecutive days, sometimes one week or ten days, to “study a document drawing a distinction between the ‘National Government’ and the ‘communists’. Afterwards, they were compelled to denounce former resistance members and their activities during the Resistance war. Such denunciations were generally started by specialized agents of the same type as MacCarthy’ ‘informers’. This was the so-called carrying out of the slogan:
“To make the people denounce one another”. The authors of positive declarations were accused of ‘entertaining relations with the communists’, while negative statements brought about charges of ‘lying to hide the latter’.
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