4 ms·

Do you have a link for this type of village used in Vietnam? I've only heard of the Strategic Hamlet program, which was designed to protect rural villages from

by greedo 9y ago

Do you have a link for this type of village used in Vietnam? I've only heard of the Strategic Hamlet program, which was designed to protect rural villages from the VC, not to imprison any Vietnamese.

gumby 9y ago
"protect" indeed. Sort of how the militarized police, NSA surveillance, no fly lists and etc are designed to "protect" the American people? The Strategic Hamlet program built barbed wire fences and guild posts around existing or purpose-built villages, enforcing curfew, ID checks, etc supposedly by "villagers" but typically by the army. Collective punishment was administered to villages who "failed" to keep out either communists or "communists". If you don't consider that imprisonment, what is it? Basically they copied the British "Kampung Baru" (AKA "resettlement") program with even less success than the British. FWIW British ruthlessness in Malaya was more "effective" than the US in Viet Nam -- there were basically no people of Chinese origin left in northern Malaya. A classic "play one side off against another, using troops from yet another outside group" strategy that had been so effective for centuries.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  > there were basically no people of Chinese origin left in northern Malaya Citation needed. There are tons of Chinese people left in northern Malay(si)a, and cities like Ipoh and Georgetown are majority-Chinese.
  - gumby 9y ago
    The Malaysia of today is quite different from the Malaya of the 1950s. My mother grew up in Ipoh. Her brother was drafted by the British in the 1950s for this campaign (as was typical of British colonial practice, he is not malay, chinese or english). His and his buddys' description of the process was pretty clear: 1 - all bumiputrahs into kampongs. 2 - once that's done you are free to shoot anything that moved (which he said was a euphemism for ethnic chinese), with no consequences. Allegedly the British were fighting communist infiltration from maoist China, so the shape of your body was proof of your guilt. I have no idea if there really was infiltration and the cantonese/fujianese who spread through the British empire were typically hardly of the communist persuasion.
coldtea 9y ago
>which was designed to protect rural villages from the VC A foreign power from 10.000 miles away, no borders with a country, and no reason to be there, comes there with their army to "protect" the local population?
- greedo 9y ago
  >A foreign power from 10.000 miles away, no borders with a country, and no reason to be there, comes there with their army to "protect" the local population?< Trying to distill the 50 year old motives of a superpower can be a challenge in a thread, but consider it like this; if the intent of the US wasn't to protect the local population, wouldn't they have done more than this? To address each point of your argument, distance doesn't really matter in the 20th Century, or earlier. Global actions occur, well, globally. To imply that a country can't have interests outside of it's border isn't a strong argument.
- gumby 9y ago
  The Soviets and (Communist) Chinese were also operating in North Viet Nam so the idea was that the locals were being protected from those under the influence of an evil foreign power. You can make up your own mind as to the legitimacy of this (you can probably guess what I think) but my comment is intended as a normative response to your question.

by greedo 9y ago

Do you have a link for this type of village used in Vietnam? I've only heard of the Strategic Hamlet program, which was designed to protect rural villages from the VC, not to imprison any Vietnamese.

gumby 9y ago

"protect" indeed. Sort of how the militarized police, NSA surveillance, no fly lists and etc are designed to "protect" the American people? The Strategic Hamlet program built barbed wire fences and guild posts around existing or purpose-built villages, enforcing curfew, ID checks, etc supposedly by "villagers" but typically by the army. Collective punishment was administered to villages who "failed" to keep out either communists or "communists". If you don't consider that imprisonment, what is it? Basically they copied the British "Kampung Baru" (AKA "resettlement") program with even less success than the British. FWIW British ruthlessness in Malaya was more "effective" than the US in Viet Nam -- there were basically no people of Chinese origin left in northern Malaya. A classic "play one side off against another, using troops from yet another outside group" strategy that had been so effective for centuries.

jpatokal 9y ago
> there were basically no people of Chinese origin left in northern Malaya Citation needed. There are tons of Chinese people left in northern Malay(si)a, and cities like Ipoh and Georgetown are majority-Chinese.
- gumby 9y ago
  The Malaysia of today is quite different from the Malaya of the 1950s. My mother grew up in Ipoh. Her brother was drafted by the British in the 1950s for this campaign (as was typical of British colonial practice, he is not malay, chinese or english). His and his buddys' description of the process was pretty clear: 1 - all bumiputrahs into kampongs. 2 - once that's done you are free to shoot anything that moved (which he said was a euphemism for ethnic chinese), with no consequences. Allegedly the British were fighting communist infiltration from maoist China, so the shape of your body was proof of your guilt. I have no idea if there really was infiltration and the cantonese/fujianese who spread through the British empire were typically hardly of the communist persuasion.

coldtea 9y ago

>which was designed to protect rural villages from the VC A foreign power from 10.000 miles away, no borders with a country, and no reason to be there, comes there with their army to "protect" the local population?

greedo 9y ago
>A foreign power from 10.000 miles away, no borders with a country, and no reason to be there, comes there with their army to "protect" the local population?< Trying to distill the 50 year old motives of a superpower can be a challenge in a thread, but consider it like this; if the intent of the US wasn't to protect the local population, wouldn't they have done more than this? To address each point of your argument, distance doesn't really matter in the 20th Century, or earlier. Global actions occur, well, globally. To imply that a country can't have interests outside of it's border isn't a strong argument.
gumby 9y ago
The Soviets and (Communist) Chinese were also operating in North Viet Nam so the idea was that the locals were being protected from those under the influence of an evil foreign power. You can make up your own mind as to the legitimacy of this (you can probably guess what I think) but my comment is intended as a normative response to your question.