Show j Student From Viet Nam Speaks Hamlets Provide a Better Life i For the Vietnamese Peasants i By HEEM even in we did not know western our children did not go to school and their future was as dull as ours when we were The strategic hamlet has brought better life and hope for a better tomorrow to said a villager from An-Giang The Viet Cong too realize In Vinh Binh the Viet Cong used to stir up racial conflicts between the pure Vietnamese and the Vietnamese of Cambodian Op-I Dong launched in Sep- has banded the people erased suspicions and and united their efforts at resisting the AT the peasants had to be shown the advantages of living in strategic shown that it was easier and better to fight back than to submit to the Viet Today even white collar are doing their bits on vacations or on their days On the Quan Dan battlefield the guerillas was hard on March i It was astounded by the resistance of the defenders of the Me i Lang strategic hamlet which accounted for 40 of the 60 Viet Cong slain on the Soon the Viet Cong were leaving their hideouts and turning themselves in to the local authorities in greater and greater of them for the first four months of this One can have similar figures with other provinces where strategic hamlets have been built Or take the example of the strategic hamlet in the province in the A handful of defenders held off a battalion size attack of the Viet Cong and directed by radio the firing of the mm cannons from the provincial headquarters until the Viet Cong BOTH CONSCIOUS of the great potential of this new approach in the war against the the Vietnamese and American governments have been coordinating their efforts from the is clear that Sai and Washington believe that the concept of the strategic hamlet is one of the major solutions to the guerilla warfare in South Viet in spite of these TO BE effective the system will have to spread in much the same way ivy creeps up a There should be no But as General chief of the Military Advisory Command in Southeast the whole country cannot be put into strategic If too many strategic hamlets are particularly in areas where they cannot be they would merely serve as convenient targets for the Reds strategic hamlets have already been 2679 others are being bringing the number of people inhabiting them to With the rate of strategic hamlets built each this number can rise to at the year's i.e. 23 of the The regular army would be tied down around the strategic hamlets and its offensive power would be or at least unused for some Viet Cong command has given orders to their troops to concentrate on attacks on strategic To cut completely the supply lines of the Viet the mile border with Laos and Cambodia must be effectively guarded to prevent any aid from the And that is not an easy |