Vietnam
| Author | George Kurian |
| Pages | 1084-1088 |
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Official country name: Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Capital: Hanoi
Geographic description: Easternmost country in continental Southeast Asia, bordering the South China Sea
Population: 83,535,576 (est. 2005)
During French colonial rule public-order functions and institutions were patterned after those of metropolitan France. For police purposes, the region was divided into three areas: Tonkin (north), Annam (central), and Cochin China (south). Control was exercised by a French director general of police and public security stationed in Hanoi.
Overall responsibility for public order and safety in each region was in the hands of the Sûreté, which was directed by a regional chief of police responsible to the director general for technical and operational matters and to the regional governor for the disposition of the police forces. Ordinary police duties, such as patrol work, were performed by local policemen. All important command and administrative positions were held by French nationals. The French Sûreté Nationale supervised recruitment and training.
At the beginning of World War II large cities, such as Saigon, had municipal police departments administered by the mayor. After the Japanese occupied Vietnam in 1941 they permitted the old French police establishment to continue to function under the Vichy French administration. After the fall of Vichy France in 1945 a short-lived nationalist government was formed under the former playboy emperor Bao Dai, who retained the French connection. This regime was tolerated by the Japanese, but as Japan's position in the area deteriorated, Communist Viet Minh forces in the north, led by Ho Chi Minh, increasingly took control. In 1945 Bao Dai abdicated in favor a Viet Minh government. Meanwhile, the British, who at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 had been designated to accept the Japanese surrender of Vietnam, exercised police powers until the French Expeditionary Force arrived. During this interregnum, the country experienced much disorder. Communists infiltrated key positions in the military and the police. Most criminal files were lost and destroyed.
French efforts to reestablish police control over their colony were unsuccessful and were constantly thwarted by the Viet Minh. By June 1954, when the Indochina War ended with the partition of the country along the demarcation line, the police had ceased to be effective
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even in the cities. Bao Dai, who had been restored to power in the south, had turned over control of both the Security Police and the Municipal Police to the Binh Xuyen, a racketeering organization. It was given a monopoly of police functions, along with the right to run gambling, opium traffic, and prostitution in the metropolitan areas. The group also collected fees for visas and licenses and controlled the sale of rice, fish, and pork. Two large politico-religious sects, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, controlled large areas of the countryside, maintaining their own police and security forces.
With the election of Ngo Dinh Diem as president, the state of near-anarchy began to mend. By April 1956 the armed forces of Binh Xuyen, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao had been defeated and scattered. Americans began to be actively involved in rebuilding the police forces of the south. At first a police advisory group from Michigan State University replaced the French law enforcement personnel and later the U.S. Agency for International Development took over many of the operational functions.
In 1962 President Diem signed a decree integrating all the existing police forces into a single police agency, called the Directorate General of National Police, under the command of the director general of the National Police within the Department of the Interior. The Directorate General was composed of the headquarters proper, six regional directorates, and a municipal directorate, which included the Saigon Metropolitan Police and the surrounding province of Gia Dinh. The regional directorate headquarters were at Hue, Nha Trang, Ban Me Thuot, Bien Hoa, My Tho, and Can Tho. They were charged with...
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