Binh Xuyen

Binh Xuyen was a powerful Vietnamese criminal organization active from 1945 to 1975.

History

Pacific War

The Binh Xuyen river pirates first emerged in the early 1920s in the marshes and canals along the southern fringes of Saigon-Cholon. They were a loosely organized coalition of pirate gangs, about two hundred to three hundred strong and early history of the Binh Xuyen was an interminable cycle of kidnapping, piracy, pursuit, and occasionally imprisonment. In September 24, 1945, it organized the massacre of 150 French and Eurasian civilians, including children, in the suburb of Saigon.

While this decision would have been of little consequence in Tonkin or central Vietnam, where the Communist-dominated Viet Minh was strong enough to stand alone, in Cochin China the Binh Xuyen support was crucial. After launching an abortive revolt in 1940, the Cochin division of the Indochina Communist party had been weakened by mass arrests and executions

First Indochina War

Under the State of Vietnam era, the Binh Xuyen made arrangements with Chief of State Bao Dai giving them control of their own affairs in return for their nominal support of the regime.

Partition of Vietnam

Bay Vien, the leader of the organization, exiled to Paris after his unsuccessful attempt to take power from Ngo Dinh Diem, successor of Bao Dai as the head of the State of Vietnam, in May 1955.

Vietnam War

Many of the defeated fighters of the Binh Xuyen joined the Vietcong. Like many other South Vietnamese sectarian militant groups, the Binh Xuyen were mostly wiped out by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam under Dương Văn Minh in Operation Rung Sat.

Media links

• Indochina: Saigon after the combats (rushes) French news archives, ORTF, May 10, 1955

References

External links

• The Binh Xuyen: Order and Opium in Saigon