Ba Cụt

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, the father of Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ.

This caused a lifelong and fanatical hatred towards landowners.

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.

Sổ's cult-like appeal greatly alarmed the French colonial authorities.

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.

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" 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."

American journalist Joseph Alsop described Ba Cụt as "war-drunk".

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.

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.

Meanwhile, in Saigon, the Bình Xuyên organised crime syndicate ruled much of the city through its gangster militia.

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.

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."

Thơ rose to become a leading politician in the 1950s and played a key role in Ba Cụt's eventual capture and execution.

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 religious 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.

Vietnam was a tumultuous place during Ba Cụt's youth, particularly in the Mekong Delta.

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.

Lê Quang Vinh (c. 1923 – 13 July 1956), popularly known as Ba Cụt, 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.