Word: kienhoa
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Dates: during 1961-1961
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Election Toll. Diem responded by handing Colonel Thao command of vital, rice-growing Kienhoa province in the Mekong River delta, where previous commanders had failed. There Thao has cut the guerrillas down to size with skill and daring at their own nighttime jungle tactics. "When there is too much light, you can see nothing," says Thao. "The truth is in the night...
Quick Action. In Kienhoa, Thao found the local security chief had been extorting money from the villagers by threatening them with prison. Thao arrested him. He also freed 1,200 political prisoners held in the local jail without evidence. Said Thao: "If a peasant sabotages a road, he's obviously under Communist pressure, and if he's under Communist pressure, that means he's not getting government protection. Why should he go to prison?" Dismayed to learn that Kien-hoa's 1,500 crack troops waited days for orders before going to the help of besieged...
...just four months, Thao has recaptured about half of the 75 villages once controlled by the Communists in Kienhoa. He has driven the surviving 800 guerrillas into a 130-sq.-mi. pocket and hopes to have them cleaned out within a year. He has torn down most of the jails in the province, built hospitals and schools, and he is now training 370 schoolteachers to replace corrupt village officials. Says Thao: "It is a long, slow process. We cannot win unless the people are on our side...
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