<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<document>
<title>Ba Cut</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>1923 births</category>
<section id="43120" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
Lê Quang Vinh (1923 - July 13, 1956), popularly known as Ba Cụt (Short Third in Vietnamese, referring to a shortened third finger), was a military commander of the Hoa Hao religious sect, which operated from the Mekong Delta and controlled various parts of southern Vietnam during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Ba Cut and his forces fought the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), the Vietminh, and the Cao Dai religious sect from 1943 until his capture in 1956. Known for his idiosyncrasies, he was regarded as an erratic and cruel leader who fought with little ideological purpose. His sobriquet came from the self-amputation of a finger as part of a vow during his teenage years to defeat the French colonial forces; he later swore not to cut his hair until the communist Vietminh were defeated. Ba Cut frequently made alliances with various Vietnamese factions and the French. He invariably accepted the material support offered in return for his cooperation, and then broke the agreement-nevertheless, the French made deals with him on five occasions. The French position was weak because their military forces had been depleted by World War II, and they had great difficulty in re-establishing control over French Indochina, which had been  with a power vacuum after the defeat of Japan.
In mid-1955, the tide turned against the various sects, as Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem of the State of Vietnam and his VNA began to consolidate their grip on the south. Ba Cut and his allies were driven into the jungle, and their position was threatened by government offensives. After almost a year of fighting, Ba Cut was captured. He was sentenced to death and publicly beheaded in Can Tho.

</section>
<section id="43121" fatherid="0" title="Early life and background" lv="" priority="2" level="1">
Ba Cut was born in 1923 in Long Xuyen, a regional town in the Mekong Delta, in the far south of Vietnam. He was orphaned at an early age and adopted by a local peasant family. Ba Cut was illiterate and was known from childhood as a temperamental and fiery person. The family's rice paddies were confiscated by a prominent landlord,Tai, p. 130. the father of Nguyen Ngoc Tho. Ba Cut's bitter personal experience imbued him with a permanent and fanatical hatred towards landowners. Tho rose to become a leading politician in the 1950s and played a key role in Ba Cut's eventual capture and execution.Tai, p. 196.
Vietnam was a tumultuous place during Ba Cut's youth, particularly in the Mekong Delta. In 1939, Huynh Phu So founded the Hoa Hao religious movement, and within a year had gained more than 100,000 followers. He drew adherents for two reasons: the prophecies he made about the outbreak of World War II and the conquest of South East Asia by Japan, which proved to be correct; and his work as a mystical healer-his patients claimed to have been miraculously cured from all manner of serious illnesses after seeing him, when Western medicine had failed.Buttinger, p. 255.Karnow, pp. 158-159. So's cult-like appeal greatly alarmed the French colonial authorities.Fall, pp. 151-152. During World War II, Imperial Japan invaded and seized control of Vietnam from France; its defeat and withdrawal at the end of the war in 1945  a power vacuum in the country.Karnow, pp. 155-159.
The Hoa Hao formed their own army and administration during the war, and started a de facto state in their Mekong Delta stronghold. They came into conflict with the Cao Dai, another new religious movement, which also boasted a private army and controlled a nearby region of southern Vietnam centred around Tay Ninh.Karnow, pp. 147, 158-159. Meanwhile in Saigon, the Binh Xuyen organised crime syndicate ruled much of the city through its gangster militia.Jacobs, pp. 54, 61. These three southern forces vied for control of southern Vietnam with the main protagonists: the French, who were attempting to reestablish colonial control across the entire nation; and the communist-dominated Vietminh, who sought Vietnamese independence.
At the time, the many groups vying for power-including their respective factions-engaged in alliances of convenience that were frequently broken. The historian David Elliott said that "the most important eventual cause of the French decline was the inherently unstable nature of the political alliances they had devised ... The history of the French relations with the Hoa Hao sect is a telling illustration of the pitfalls of short-term political deals between forces whose long-term interests conflict."Elliott, p. 73.
The Hoa Hao initially engaged in large-scale clashes with the Vietminh in 1945, but by mid-1946 had agreed to stop fighting one another and to fight the French instead. However, in June 1946, So became estranged from his military leaders and started the Dan Xa (Social Democratic Party). Because of his charisma, the Vietminh saw So as a threat and assassinated him, leaving the Hoa Hao leaderless and causing So's military leaders to go their separate ways. The split caused an increase in violence as the various Hoa Hao factions engaged in conflicts among themselves.Elliott, p. 74.

</section>
<section id="43122" fatherid="0" title="Career" lv="" priority="-3" level="1">
Ba Cut joined the Hoa Hao militia when it was formed in 1943-44 and became a commander within a year. He was feared by his enemies, and was described as "a sort of lean Rasputin".Buttinger, p. 654. According to Bernard B. Fall, "The hapless farmers who were under the rule of the maniacal Ba Cut fared worse than those under other military leaders, for the latter Ba Cut was given to fits of incredible cruelty and had no sense of public duty."Fall, pp. 153-157. The American journalist Joseph Alsop described Ba Cut as "war-drunk".Hammer (1955), p. 348. Ba Cut was famous for inventing a torture contraption that drilled a steel nail through the victim's ear,Moyar, p. 65 a device he used to force villagers and wealthy landlords to fund his forces.Lansdale, p. 152.
In 1947, he led his own faction of the sect after its various military leaders pursued their own policies towards the French and Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh in the wake of So's death. At the time, France was in a ruinous financial state following World War II, and was experiencing great difficulty in its attempts to reestablish control over its colonies.Karnow, p. 203. In 1950, Ba Cut was involved in a battle with another Hoa Hao leader, Nguyen Giac Ngo. He was defeated and driven from the district of Cho Moi. The French saw the disagreements as an opportunity to divide the Hoa Hao and gain an anti-Vietminh ally, and offered material aid, which Ba Cut accepted. Ba Cut repeatedly made treaties with the French colonial forces to fight the Vietminh in return for arms and money, but he broke his end of the bargain and sometimes fought the Cao Dai instead of the communists. Ba Cut made five such deals with the French, but he abandoned his military responsibilities each time.Buttinger, p. 1064. The French continued to furnish him with supplies despite his disloyalty and unreliability because they lacked the personnel to patrol all of Vietnam, but had spare equipment. The other Hoa Hao commanders generally had the same general outlook as Ba Cut; they were stridently opposed to the Vietminh because of So's assassination, and sometimes fought alongside and received supplies from the French, but at times they lapsed into apathy and refused to attack. Although Ba Cut was infamous for his temper and cruelty, he was regarded as a moderate in outlook compared to the other Hoa Hao leaders.Tai, p. 164. The French continued to provide him with equipment despite the fact that when he was seventeen, Ba Cut had cut off the top of his third finger to remind himself to always fight the French.
The most notable instance of Ba Cut abandoning the fight against the Vietminh came in mid-1953. At that time, his forces had been helping to defend the regional Mekong Delta town of My Tho, but the French decided to transfer more of the military power to their more mainstream allies, the Vietnamese National Army (VNA). As the French tried to undermine his position, tensions with Ba Cut increased. On June 25, the Hoa Hao leader ordered his men to evacuate their French-supplied bases; they took their weapons with them and razed the camps.Elliott, p. 74. Ba Cut then withdrew his forces from a string of military posts in the Plain of Reeds and retreated to Chau Doc in the extreme south of the country.Elliott, p. 79. As a result, the French-aligned presence in the Mekong Delta was severely dented and the Vietminh made substantial gains in the area.Elliott, p. 81. Eventually, the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam in May 1954 signalled the end of French Indochina.Jacobs, pp. 38-43.
When the Geneva Conference in July 1954 ended the First Indochina War, it handed North Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh, and the south to the State of Vietnam. To reunify the country, national elections were scheduled for 1956, following which the French would withdraw from Indochina.Jacobs, p. 40. The partition of Vietnam angered Ba Cut and he vowed not to cut his hair until the nation was reunified. Having fought against the Vietminh since 1947, Ba Cut's principal criticism of Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's State of Vietnam government stemmed from his belief that Diem had been too passive in rejecting the partition, and that half of the country should not have been yielded to the communists.Warner, pp. 105-107.
In mid-1954, General Nguyen Van Hinh, the head of the State of Vietnam's VNA, announced that he did not respect the leadership of Prime Minister Diem, and vowed to overthrow him. The coup never materialised and Hinh was forced into exile,Jacobs, p. 62. but not before appointing Ba Cut to the rank of colonel in the VNA in an attempt to undermine Diem, as the Hoa Hao warlord was openly contemptuous of the prime minister.Lansdale, p. 148. In August, Ba Cut and his 3,000 men broke from the VNA, and fought against it; this put him at odds with most Hoa Hao leaders, who accepted government payments to integrate their forces into the VNA.Buttinger, p. 1104. The initial military offensive by the VNA against Ba Cut was a failure, possibly because the details of the planned attack on his forces were leaked to him by a Hoa Hao member of the National Defence Committee.Jacobs, p. 84.
During the transition period between the signing of the Geneva Accords and the planned reunification elections, South Vietnam remained in chaos as the VNA tried to subdue the remaining autonomous factions of the Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, and Binh Xuyen militias. In early-1955, during a battle with the Cao Dai forces of Trinh Minh The, Ba Cut was severely wounded by a bullet that penetrated his chest. It seemed that he would die, but a French Air Force helicopter flew in and airlifted him to a colonial hospital. Ba Cut eventually recovered, and in the meantime, the fighting stopped.Lansdale, p. 199. By this time, with France preparing to withdraw from Indochina, senior French officers had begun to undermine Diem's leadership and his attempts to stabilise South Vietnam.Jacobs, pp. 70-78. The VNA later implicated the French in the organisation of weapons air drops to Ba Cut, prompting a protest from Diem's government.Lansdale, p. 222. Diem complained to a French general, alleging that Ba Cut's men were using French equipment that was of higher quality than that given to the VNA.Lansdale, pp. 313-315.

</section>
<section id="43123" fatherid="0" title="Last stand against Diem" lv="" priority="4" level="1">
In 1955, Diem tried to integrate the remaining Hoa Hao armies into the VNA. Ba Cut was one of four Hoa Hao military leaders who refused the government offer on April 23,Buttinger, pp. 888-889. and continued to operate autonomously.Moyar, p. 49. At one stage, the Cao Dai, Hoa Hao and Binh Xuyen formed an alliance called the United Front, in an attempt to pressure Diem into handing over power,Jacobs, p. 70. and Ba Cut was named as their senior military commander.Lansdale, pp. 246-247. Initially, American and French representatives in Vietnam hoped that Diem would take up a ceremonial role and allow the sect leaders-including Ba Cut-to hold government positions.Lansdale, p. 252. However, Diem refused to share power and launched a sudden offensive against the Binh Xuyen's Saigon headquarters in late April, quickly crushing them.Jacobs, pp. 72-77.
During the fighting, the Hoa Hao attempted to help the Binh Xuyen by attacking towns and government forces in their Mekong Delta heartland. Ba Cut's men blockaded the Mekong and Bassac Rivers and laid siege to various towns, stifling the regional economy. Soon after, they retreated to a Hoa Hao citadel on the banks of the Bassac. After reinforcing their base, the Hoa Hoa proceeded to fire mortars across the water into the city of Can Tho, which stood on the opposite side of the river.
With the Binh Xuyen vanquished, Diem turned his attention to conquering the Hoa Hao. As a result, a battle between government troops led by General Duong Van Minh and Ba Cut's men commenced in Can Tho on June 5. Five Hoa Hao battalions surrendered immediately; Ba Cut and three remaining leaders had fled to the Cambodian border by the end of the month. The soldiers of the three other leaders eventually surrendered, but Ba Cut's fanatical men continued to the end, claiming loyalty to the Emperor Bao Dai. Diem responded by replacing the officers of Bao Dai's personal regiments with his own and men and used the royal units to attack Ba Cut's rebels. Knowing that they could not defeat the government in open conventional warfare, Ba Cut's forces destroyed their own bases so that the VNA could not use their abandoned resources, and retreated into the jungle.Moyar, pp. 53-54. Ba Cut's 3,000 men spent the rest of 1955 evading the 20,000 VNA troops who had been deployed to quell them, and a reward of one million piasters was put on their leader's head. Ba Cut scattered trails of money in the jungles, hoping to distract his pursuers, but to no avail.
Despite his weak military situation, Ba Cut sought to disrupt the staging of a fraudulent referendum that Diem had scheduled in order to depose Bao Dai as head of state.Jacobs, p. 95. Ba Cut distributed a pamphlet condemning Diem as an American puppet, asserting that the prime minister was going to "Catholicize" the country-Chapman, p. 701.the referendum was partly funded by the US government and various Catholic organisations.Chapman, p. 700. Diem had strong support from American Catholic politicians and Cardinal Francis Spellman, and his brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was a bishop.Jacobs, pp. 20-35. Ba Cut said that the referendum was a means "for Diem to gather the people from all towns and force them to demonstrate one goal: to depose Bao Dai and proclaim the puppet Diem as the chief-of-state of Vietnam." On the day of the poll, Ba Cut's men prevented voting in the border regions that they controlled,Buttinger, pp. 890-892. and ventured out of the jungles to attack polling stations in Can Tho.Chapman, p. 698. Despite that disruption, Diem was fraudulently credited with more than 90% of support in Hoa Hao-controlled territory, and a near unanimous turnout was recorded in the area.Moyar, p. 55.Fall, p. 257. These results were replicated across the nation, and Diem deposed Bao Dai.
Eventually, Ba Cut was surrounded, and sought to make a peace deal with the Diem government to avoid being taken prisoner. Ba Cut sent a message to Nguyen Ngoc Tho, the public official who oversaw the civilian side of the campaign against the Hoa Hao, asking for negotiations so that his men could be integrated into mainstream society and the nation's armed forces. Tho agreed to meet Ba Cut alone in the jungle, and despite fears that the meeting was a Hoa Hao trap, he was not ambushed. However, Ba Cut began asking for additional concessions and the meeting ended in a stalemate.Lansdale, p. 322. According to the historian Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Ba Cut's lifelong antipathy towards Tho's family influenced his behaviour during his last stand. Ba Cut was arrested by a patrol on April 13, 1956, and his remaining forces were defeated in battle.Doyle, p. 131.

</section>
<section id="43124" fatherid="0" title="Trial and execution" lv="" priority="5" level="1">
Diem's government put Ba Cut on trial. During the proceedings, Ba Cut theatrically removed his shirt so that the public gallery could see how many scars he had suffered while fighting the communists. This, according to him, demonstrated his devotion to Vietnamese nationalism. He challenged any other man to show as many scars. However, Diem's judge was unimpressed; Ba Cut was found guilty of committing multiple murders, and sentenced to death. Diem's adviser, Colonel Edward Lansdale from the CIA, was one of many who protested the decision. Lansdale felt that the execution would tarnish Diem-who had proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam (commonly known as South Vietnam) and declared himself President-and antagonise Ba Cut's followers. Ngo Dinh Nhu-Diem's younger brother and chief adviser-said that a reprieve was not possible, as the army, particularly Minh, was opposed to clemency. Some sections of the southern public were sympathetic to Ba Cut, who was compared to a character from the Wild West.Hammer, p. 74.
Ba Cut was publicly guillotinedPham, p. 85. on July 13, 1956 in Can Tho. Some followers, led by a hardcore deputy named Bay Dom, retreated to a small area beside the Cambodian border, where they vowed not to rest until Ba Cut was avenged. Many of his followers later joined the Vietcong-the movement that succeeded the Vietminh their leader had fought-and took up arms against Diem.

</section>
<section id="43125" fatherid="0" title="Notes" lv="" priority="-6" level="1">
</section>
<section id="43126" fatherid="0" title="References" lv="" priority="-7" level="1">
Category:1923 births
Category:1956 deaths
Category:Executed Vietnamese people
Category:Hoa Hao
Category:Vietnamese military personnel

</section>
</document>
