Word: tuong
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dispersal of the Viet Cong prepared the way for Phase 2 of Operation Sunrise-the rounding up of Ben Cat's peasants. In each hamlet, the assembled farmers were told that they were being moved to a nearby strategic village called Ben Tuong, to be equipped with a school, clinic, market, deep wells, and a defense force of soldiers. They were promised a down payment of $25 and a free daily ration of rice and dried fish to tide them over the first three months...
Seventy families agreed to the move, but 140 other families had to be convinced at gunpoint. Leading their cows and water buffaloes, with their belongings piled on ox carts, the 1,200 displaced peasants filed into the jungle clearing of Ben Tuong to be greeted by a banner bearing the somewhat ironical message: "We will root out all the Viet Cong who destroy our villages." A concrete administration building and clinic is already standing at Ben Tuong, but the peasants must erect their own thatch-roofed houses, dig a protective ditch around the site, and crown it with a dirt...
...gone into hiding or were serving with the Viet Cong. Said a Vietnamese officer: "We hope they'll rejoin their families when they see that life in the strategic village is good.'' TIME Correspondent Jerry Rose asked a peasant volunteer if he preferred Ben Tuong to his former hamlet. He answered: "I had a nice home with a garden before." Why had he come here? "We were told to come by the chief of the province." Why had he been moved? "I don't know." Had the Viet Cong harmed him? "No, no. I saw them...
...Tuong is unusual in that it is the first strategic village to be built in the heart of Communist-controlled territory...
...promised benefits, and if the standard of living is obviously higher, in all probability the peasant militiamen will fight to defend what they have. The Viet Cong last week gave clear indication of its own uneasiness at this new development by launching a night attack on Ben Tuong and wounding two soldiers before being driven back into the forest...