Major General
Le V?n Vi?n
(
Vietnamese:
[le
vaŋ
v??ŋ?]
; 1904?1972), also known as
B?y Vi?n
("Vi?n the Seventh"), was the leader of the
Binh Xuyen
, a powerful
Vietnamese
criminal enterprise decreed by the Head of State,
B?o đ?i
, as an independent army within the
Vietnamese National Army
(
Quan đ?i Qu?c gia Vi?t Nam
). Vi?n's career trajectory was quite unique in coming from a criminal background to become a (non-Communist) leader of the
Vi?t Minh
's Zone 7, then later named a General, in charge of an auxiliary military force within the
French Union
, and, finally, named a General in the
VNA
. From 1951?55, he made arrangements with B?o đ?i, by which the Binh Xuyen was given control of their own affairs in return for their financial support of the government. In 1955, Vi?n flew to Paris with the help of Antoine-Marie Savani and the
Deuxieme Bureau
/
SDECE
after his unsuccessful attempt to oust the American-backed Premier,
Ngo đinh Di?m
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Early life
[
edit
]
Le V?n Vi?n was born in
Cholon
in 1904 to a
Chinese
(
Chaozhou
) father and a
Vietnamese
mother. His father, Le V?n D?u, joined the Vietnamese branch of the
Tiandihui
when he migrated to Vietnam.
[1]
Vi?n was head of the
Binh Xuyen
and was hunted by the French in the 1930s and 1940s until he and a number of his cohorts were eventually captured and sentenced to confinement in the
penal colony
on
Con S?n Island
. Ba D??ng, meanwhile, had become a labor broker for the Japanese and entered into a relationship with the Japanese secret service's southern Vietnamese agent, Matsushita Mitsuhiro, a pivotal clandestine operator who was undercover as the director of Dainan Koosi, and was controlled by the Japanese
Consul General
in
Hanoi
, Yoshio Minoda.
Matsushita arranged for the
kempeitai
to free disparate Binh Xuyen personalities and component gangs from Con S?n in 1941. Thereafter, under Japanese patronage, the Binh Xuyen grew rapidly, both in organization and influence. B?y Vi?n escaped Con S?n in early 1945 and returned to
Saigon
, where he engaged in insurgent politics in collusion with Ba D??ng and the Japanese. On 9 March 1945, the Japanese staged a
coup d'etat
against the
Vichy French
administration, jailing all French police. The Binh Xuyen were given amnesty and B?y Vi?n was installed as a police official by the newly established government.
[
citation needed
]
From brigand to revolutionary
[
edit
]
In August 1945, the Vi?t Minh chief of
Cochinchina
,
Tr?n V?n Giau
, formed an alliance with B?y Vi?n and Ba D??ng against the French. When the Vi?t Minh called a mass demonstration on 25 August 1945:
"... fifteen well armed, bare chested bandits carrying a large banner declaring 'Binh Xuyen Assassination Committee' joined the tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched jubilantly through downtown Saigon for over nine hours."
[
citation needed
]
Following the
British-supported French counter-coup
in September 1945, the Vi?t Minh withdrew from Saigon, leaving B?y Vi?n as military commander of
Cholon
with a force of 100 men. Vi?n promptly formed an alliance with Lai Van Sang's two-thousand-man student group, the Avant-Garde Youth. Together with a number of Japanese
deserters
, they engaged the French. By the end of October, they were pushed back to the Rung Sat in a waterborne retrograde action which displayed as a key element the deployment of some 250 stay-behind agents. The Binh Xuyen stay-behind agents promptly engaged in a ruthless campaign of terror and extortion. A constant influx of men, money and materiel quickly established the Binh Xuyen as a well-armed, disciplined force of approximately 10,000 men. A dispute arose between Ba D??ng and the Vi?t Minh in January 1946. In February 1946, Ba D??ng was killed in a strafing raid by French aircraft.
[
citation needed
]
Revolutionary turned collaborator
[
edit
]
Sensing a shift in the political tide, B?y Vi?n seized the opportunity to consolidate his hold on the Binh Xuyen and achieve dominance. In the wake of Ba D??ng's death, Vi?n began secret negotiations with the French
Deuxieme Bureau
for exclusive rights to territory in Saigon, ultimately leading to a March 1948 agreement with Savani, which was formalized on 16 June 1948. The French government announced that it
"… had decided to confide the police and maintenance of order to the Binh Xuyen troops in a zone where they are used to operating."
[2]
[3]
Thereafter, the French turned over Saigon, block-by-block, and by April 1954, Lai Van Sang was director-general of police and the Binh Xuyen controlled not only the Saigon-
Cholon
capital region but a sixty-mile strip between Saigon and
V?ng Tau
, exercising full political and economic control. United States observers of the process laconically refer to the Binh Xuyen in this era as a:
"... political and racketeering organization which had agreed to carry out police functions [for the Government of Viet-Nam] in return for a monopoly on gambling, opium traffic and prostitution in the metropolitan areas."
[
citation needed
]
General Vi?n and the defeat of the Binh Xuyen
[
edit
]
The United States backed Premier
Ngo đinh Di?m
in his fight to control South Vietnam. In the
Battle of Saigon
from 28 April to 3 May 1955, B?y Vi?n and his loyal troops were forced back to the
R?ng Sac
jungle where they were defeated by the regular army. Vien stated that he was critical of the United States for having imposed on Vietnam the dictature of Ngo đinh Di?m
[4]
(Le Monde, Sept. 30, 1972).
Vi?n fled to exile in France with the assistance of French authorities, and the Binh Xuyen organization fragmented, later resuming its clandestine form.
[
citation needed
]
. Vien stayed in France where he passed away, in Paris, on September 27, 1972.
Quotes
[
edit
]
- "Give me the arms and I will take care of the Communists."
[
citation needed
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Nguyen Hung (2005), pp. 11, 12
- ^
Nguyen Cong Luan Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars 2012 "The regiment was sponsored by General Le V?n Vi?n, leader of the Binh Xuyen forces, once a powerful gang that had joined the Resistance before returning to Sai Gon to collaborate with the French. "
- ^
Naissance d'un Etat-parti: le Viet Nam depuis 1945
Christopher E. Goscha, Benoit de Treglode, Universite de Paris. Institut d'etudes politiques 2004 Page 345 Le V?n Vi?n balked . But the latter certainly had his share of troubles with the DRV's strongman. In July 1947, Le V?n Vi?n explained to a fellow nationalist under fire from Binh: "Be careful not to take things lightly, because the Nguy?n Binh ..."
- ^
L'ANCIEN GENERAL LE VAN VIEN EST DECEDE A PARIS (lemonde.fr)
External links
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- AFRVN Military History Section, J-5, Strategic Planning and Policy (1966).
Quan S? 4: Quan l?c Vi?t Nam C?ng Hoa trong giai-đo?n hinh-thanh: 1946-1955 (reprinted from the 1972 edition in Taiwan, DaiNam Publishing, 1977)
[
Military History Volume 4:AFRVN, the formation period, 1946-1955
] (in Vietnamese). pp. 408?428.
CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- H? S?n đai (2008).
B? đ?i Binh Xuyen
[
Binh Xuyen Force
] (in Vietnamese). HCM City.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- Lucien Bodard (1977).
La guerre d'Indochine
[
The Indochina War
] (in French). Hachette.
ISBN
978-2-246-55291-8
.
- Darcourt, Pierre (1977).
Bay Vien, le maitre de Cholon
[
Bay Vien, Cholon's Master
] (in French). Hachette.
ISBN
978-2-01-003449-7
.
- Alfred W. McCoy (2003-05-01).
The Politics of Heroin
. Lawrence Hill Books.
ISBN
978-1-55652-483-7
.
- Nguyen Hung (2005).
B?y Vi?n Th? L?nh Binh Xuyen
[
Bay Vien, Binh Xuyen's Leader
] (in Vietnamese). Cong an nhan dan Vi?t Nam - Vietnamese People's Public Security.