Strategic Hamlet Program

The Strategic Hamlet Program (SHP; Vietnamese: Ấp Chiến lược) was implemented in 1962 by the government of South Vietnam, with advice and financing from the United States, during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency. The strategy was to isolate the rural population from contact with and influence by the National Liberation Front (NLF), more commonly known as the Viet Cong. The Strategic Hamlet Program, along with its predecessor, the Rural Community Development Program, attempted to create new communities of "protected hamlets". The rural peasants would be provided protection, economic support, and aid by the government, thereby strengthening ties with the South Vietnamese government (GVN) which was hoped would lead to increased loyalty by the peasantry towards the government. Most hamlets involved restructuring existing villages with a defensible perimeter. This led to the relocation of villagers living on the outskirts. In other instances, entire villages were relocated to new locations. Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, a communist sleeper agent of North Vietnam who had infiltrated the South Vietnamese army, was made overseer of the Strategic Hamlet Program. He sabotaged the program and had many hamlets built in areas with a strong NLF presence and forced the program forward at an unsustainable speed, causing the production of poorly equipped and poorly defended villages and the growth of rural resentment towards the government. The Strategic Hamlet Program was unsuccessful, failing to stop the insurgency or gain support for the government from rural Vietnamese, it alienated many and helped contribute to the growth in influence of the NLF. After President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown in a coup in November 1963, the program was cancelled. Many hamlets were abandoned, destroyed or had been taken over by the NLF, with villagers moving back into their old homes or escaping the war by moving to...