Strategic Hamlet Program - Background and Precursor Program

Background and Precursor Program

Starting around 1954, Viet Minh sympathizers in the South were subject to escalating repression by the RVN. In December 1960 the National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam was formed and rapidly achieved de facto control over large sections of the South Vietnamese countryside. At the time, it is believed that there were approximately 10,000 Communist insurgents throughout South Vietnam. Recognizing the danger that the guerrillas posed if they had the support of the peasants, President Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu implemented the Rural Community Development Program (later known as "Agroville") in 1959. Based partly on the success of a similar program in Malaya used by the British to suppress a communist uprising beginning in 1948, the Agroville Plan endeavored to remove the "neutral" population from guerrilla contact. Through direct force and/or incentives, peasants in rural communities were separated and relocated into large communities called "Agrovilles". By 1960, there were twenty-three of these Agrovilles, each consisting of many thousands of people.

This mass resettlement created a strong backlash from peasants and forced the central government to rethink its strategy. A report put out by the Caravelle group, consisting of among others, Bishop Thuc (a brother of Diem) described the situation as follows:

Tens of thousands of people are being mobilized… to take up a life in collectivity, to construct beautiful but useless agrovilles which tire the people, lose their affection, increase their resentment and most of all give an additional terrain for propaganda to the enemy.