Lê Quang Vinh ( – 13 July 1956), popularly known as Ba CụtCụt in Vietnamese means "severed", referring to the finger he had partially severed; Ba, the number three in Vietnamese, refers to his being the family's second-born child. (), was a Vietnamese military commander of the Hòa Hảo religious sect, which operated from the Mekong Delta and controlled various parts of southern Vietnam during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Ba Cụt and his forces fought the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), the Việt Minh, and the Cao Đài religious movement from 1943 until his capture in 1956. Known for his idiosyncrasies, he was regarded as an erratic and cruel leader who fought with little ideological purpose. His sobriquet came from the self-amputation of his left index finger (although it was erroneously reported that it was his middle or "third cut finger"). He later swore not to cut his hair until the communist Việt Minh were defeated. Ba Cụt frequently made alliances with various Vietnamese factions and the French. He invariably accepted the material support offered in return for his cooperation, and then broke the agreement—nevertheless, the French made deals with him on five occasions. The French position was weak because their military forces had been depleted by World War II, and they had great difficulty in re-establishing control over French Indochina, which had been left with a power vacuum after the defeat of Japan.
In mid-1955, the tide turned against the various sects, as Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm of the State of Vietnam and his VNA began to consolidate their grip on the south. Ba Cụt and his allies were driven into the jungle, and their position was threatened by government offensives. After almost a year of fighting, Ba Cụt was captured. He was sentenced to death and publicly beheaded in Cần Thơ.
Early life and background
Ba Cụt was born circa 1923 in Long Xuyên, a regional town in the Mekong Delta, in the far south of Vietnam. He was orphaned at an early age and adopted by a local peasant family. Ba Cụt was illiterate and was known from childhood as a temperamental and fiery person. The family's rice paddy field were confiscated by a prominent landlord,Tai, p. 130. the father of Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ. This caused a lifelong and fanatical hatred towards landowners. Thơ rose to become a leading politician in the 1950s and played a key role in Ba Cụt's eventual capture and execution.Tai, p. 196. An aura of mystery surrounded Ba Cụt during his life, and foreign journalists incorrectly reported that he had severed his finger as part of a vow to defeat the French. As Ba Cụt became more fanatical in his religious beliefs and spent increasing time with local holy men, his father demanded that he work more in the family's rice fields. A defiant Ba Cụt severed his index finger, which was necessary for work in the rice paddies.Trần, Lê Quang Vinh
Vietnam was a tumultuous place during Ba Cụt's youth, particularly in the Mekong Delta. In 1939, Huỳnh Phú Sổ founded the Hòa Hảo religious movement, and within a year had gained more than 100,000 followers. He drew adherents for two reasons: the prophecies he made about the outbreak of World War II and the conquest of South-East Asia by Japan, which proved to be correct; and his work as a mystical healer—his patients claimed to have been miraculously cured from all manner of serious illnesses after seeing him, when Western medicine had failed.Buttinger, p. 255.Karnow, pp. 158–59. Sổ's cult-like appeal greatly alarmed the French colonial authorities.Fall, pp. 151–52. During World War II, Imperial Japan invaded and seized control of Vietnam from France; its defeat and withdrawal at the end of the war in 1945 left a power vacuum in the country.Karnow, pp. 155–59.
The Hòa Hảo formed their own army and administration during the war, and started a de facto state in their Mekong Delta stronghold. They came into conflict with the Cao Đài, another new religious movement, which also boasted a private army and controlled a nearby region of southern Vietnam around Tây Ninh.Karnow, pp. 147, 158–59. Meanwhile, in Saigon, the Bình Xuyên organised crime syndicate ruled much of the city through its gangster militia.Jacobs, pp. 54, 61. These three southern forces vied for control of southern Vietnam with the main protagonists: the French, who were attempting to re-establish colonial control across the entire nation; and the communist-dominated Việt Minh, who sought Vietnamese independence.
The Hòa Hảo initially engaged in large-scale clashes with the Việt Minh in 1945, but by mid-1946 the two groups had agreed to stop fighting each other and fight the French instead. However, in June 1946, Sổ became estranged from his military leaders and started the Dân Xã (Social Democratic Party). Because of his charisma, the Việt Minh saw Sổ as a threat and assassinated him, leaving the Hòa Hảo leaderless and causing Sổ's military leaders to go their separate ways. The split caused an increase in violence as the various Hòa Hảo factions engaged in conflicts among themselves.Elliott, p. 74.
At the time, the many groups vying for power—including their respective factions—engaged in alliances of convenience that were frequently broken. Historian David Elliott wrote: "[T]he most important eventual cause of the French decline was the inherently unstable nature of the political alliances they had devised ... [T]he history of the French relations with the Hoa Hao sect is a telling illustration of the pitfalls of short-term political deals between forces whose long-term interests conflict."Elliott, p. 73.
Career Ba Cụt joined the Hòa Hảo militia when it was formed in 1943–44, and became a commander within a year. He was feared by his enemies, and was described as "a sort of lean Rasputin"Buttinger, p. 654. who claimed to be immortal. According to historian and writer Bernard Fall, "the hapless farmers who were under the rule of the maniacal Ba Cut fared worse [than those under other military leaders], for the latter [Ba Cụt] was given to fits of incredible cruelty and had no sense of public duty."Fall, pp. 153–57. American journalist Joseph Alsop described Ba Cụt as "war-drunk".Hammer (1955), p. 348. Ba Cụt was famous for inventing a torture contraption that drilled a steel nail through the victim's ear,Moyar, p. 65 a device he used to extort villagers and wealthy landlords to fund his forces.Lansdale, p. 152. He was said to have arranged "temporary marriages" of his men with village girls. Ba Cụt raised a large amount of funds for the Hòa Hảo and himself personally by charging traders and landlords high prices to stop pirates in the local area. The severed heads of the pirates were subsequently impaled on stakes and put on public display.Blagov, p. 41.
In 1947, he led his own faction of the sect after its various military leaders pursued their own policies towards the French and Hồ Chí Minh's Việt Minh in the wake of Sổ's death. At the time, France was in a ruinous financial state following World War II and was experiencing great difficulty in its attempts to re-establish control over its colonies.Karnow, p. 203. Ba Cụt had only 1,000 men in five battalions at the time, fewer than 5% of Hòa Hảo forces, whereas Trần Văn Soái had 15,000 men. The French tried to maintain their hold with a divide and conquer strategy towards the Hòa Hảo.Blagov, p. 49. They coaxed Soái into joining with them and recognised him as the leader of the Hòa Hảo. In 1948, Ba Cụt rallied to the French and Soái, but broke away again soon after, relocating to Đồng Tháp Province and resuming his military activities against the French.
In 1950, Ba Cụt was involved in a battle with another Hòa Hảo leader, Nguyễn Giác Ngộ. He was defeated and driven from the district of Chợ Mới in February, provoking Soái to attack Ngo. Ba Cụt then moved to Thốt Nốt and began attacking the civilians and the French forces there. The French saw the disagreements as an opportunity to divide the Hòa Hảo and gain an anti-Việt Minh ally, and offered material aid, which Ba Cụt accepted. Ba Cụt repeatedly made treaties with the French colonial forces to fight the Việt Minh in return for arms and money, but he broke his end of the bargain and sometimes fought the Cao Đài instead of the communists. He made five such deals with the French, but he abandoned his military responsibilities each time.Buttinger, p. 1064. It was said that Ba Cụt sometimes broke away with the encouragement of Soái, who was still allied to the French, but nevertheless is believed to have given Ba Cụt weapons to fight the French.Blagov, p. 50. The French continued to furnish him with supplies despite his disloyalty and unreliability because they lacked the personnel to patrol all of Vietnam but had spare equipment. Some historians have claimed Ba Cụt's anti-French activities were not taken seriously as he was able to pass through French checkpoints without incident. There are also reports that he was accompanied by French intelligence agents during periods when he was nominally opposed to the French.Blagov, p. 51. The other Hòa Hảo commanders generally had the same general outlook as Ba Cụt; they were stridently opposed to the Việt Minh due to Sổ's assassination, and sometimes fought alongside and received supplies from the French, but at times they lapsed into apathy and refused to attack.Tai, p. 164.
The most notable instance of Ba Cụt's abandoning the fight against the Việt Minh came in mid-1953. At that time, his forces had been helping to defend the regional Mekong Delta town of Mỹ Tho, but the French decided to transfer more of the military power to their more mainstream allies, the Vietnamese National Army (VNA). As the French tried to undermine his position, tensions with Ba Cụt increased. On 25 June, the Hòa Hảo leader ordered his men to evacuate their French-supplied bases; they took their weapons with them and razed the camps. Ba Cụt then withdrew his forces from a string of military posts in the Plain of Reeds and retreated to Châu Đốc in the extreme south of the country.Elliott, p. 79. As a result, the French-aligned presence in the Mekong Delta was severely dented and the Việt Minh made substantial gains in the area.Elliott, p. 81. Eventually, the French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ in May 1954 signaled the end of French Indochina.Jacobs, pp. 38–43.
When the Geneva Conference in July 1954 ended the First Indochina War, it handed North Vietnam to Hồ Chí Minh's Việt Minh, and the south to the State of Vietnam. To reunify the country, national elections were scheduled for 1956, following which the French would withdraw from Indochina.Jacobs, p. 40. The partition of Vietnam angered Ba Cụt and he vowed not to cut his hair until the nation was reunified. Having fought against the Việt Minh since 1947, Ba Cụt's principal criticism of Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam government stemmed from his belief that Diệm had been too passive in rejecting the partition, and that half of the country should not have been yielded to the communists.Warner, pp. 105–07.