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Part of U.S.-Trained Viet Tribe in Open Revolt

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u.

rained
Viet Tribe in
Open RevQlt~.
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent

SAIGON.
A company of mountain tribes:nen, trnined, equipped

and supervised by the elite Uniter'. States :,rmy Special
Forces, revolted yesterday iu,_d seized a go·,ernment radio
station in the provincial capital of Bani-nethuot. They
broadcast appeals for tribal ~utonomy for 11ine hours before withdrawing,
At the same time, anotlv,r tribal unit orr;anized to fight
the Communist Viet Cong took over the distric headquarters town of Due Lap, three miles from ihe Cambodian
border, in Quang Due Province.
The Saigon go~•ernment sent an airborne battalion Lo
recapture the town, bul it was reported stEl in the rebel
tribesmen's hands late yesterday,
The mountaineer uprisings, first of their kind reported
dunng the anti-Communist war in South V;et Nam, were
regarded with utmost i,criousness in Saigon. Reliable sources
said they indicated extensive penetration by the Viet Cong
. into the multi-million-doll . Amci·kan-backed program to
,,,in the loya1ty''of the> mounti:in tril:Jr.~ and t•·ain and arm
them to fight the Reds.
Viet Cong agents were presumed to have inspired at
least the revolt at Banmethuot, wh£.re the rebels waved a
red flag with three gold stars, reminiscent of the Viet Cong's
red-artd-blue banner with one gold star. The Viet Cong has
long tried to stir up the tribes against the ;1overnment by
promising them rational autonomy.

THE SCENE

U. S.-Trained Viet T1·ihe ·Revolts

:Sanmethuot, 180 miles northeast of Saigon, ls the
capital of Darlac Province in mountainous central South
Viet Nam. Quang Due, scene of the othe,.· ",nontagnard"
(mountaineer) uprising, borders Darlac on lhe south.
(Continued from page one)
These uplands are inhabited by roughly• one million
trained
ln
Special
Forces camps around the provincial
monta:;:nards, a conl'lomcration of primitive trfors of varycapital. While some :Seized the radio station, a platoon of
ing ethnic origin ~nd speaking different dialects. Some , the rebels took up positions on a bridge leading into Banlive under almost Stone Age conditions. Farmers and
methuot to prevent interference.
hunter:;, they live in huts or thatched longhouscs, and their
They then began broadcasting appeals to other tribesweapon is the crossbow. They are traditionally antagonistic
men to ignore the administration of the Sali;,on government,
to the lowland Vietnamese, who in turn look down on
charging that government officials had mistreated montagnards and taken away their lands to give to colonizers
them n.s savages.
from the lowlands.
Earl)' in 1962, however, crack American Special Forces
Premier Nguyen Khanh, who only a year ago was corps
teams began moving into the montagnards' "high plateau,"
comman<ler In the Banmethuot area, huniedly left his
where Viet Cong infiltration was already widespread, to
week~end residence and flew to the corp3 headquarters,
win th'l countaineers as allies and train them in the
where he broadcast appeals to the tribesmen to go back to
use of modern weapons and guerrilla war.
their camps. American officers in the area,, who have had
The program, known as Civilian Irregular Defense ' considerable success in winning the confidence of the monGroups. or CIDG, was designed to check Viet Cong intagnards, also urged the rebels to withdr11.w. After nine
hours, they did so.
filtration across tne Laotian and Cambodian borders and
American Special Forces officers have known for some
over the high plateau. It has had both signal successes
time that Viet Cong agents were planted among their tribal
and setbacks.
trainees. The Viet Cong have staged a number of heavy
The participants in yesterday's revolt at Banmethuot
attacks on the camps where the montagnards are trained,
were about 500 members of the Rhade tribe who were beinlf
sometimes helped by traitors inside the installations. In
More on VIET TRIBE, P 13
some cases, the camps have been overrun while in others
the 11,ttackers have been held otr in bloody :fighting.

'
The desertion rate from the
CIDG also has been high.
But yesterdas's was the first incident in which montagnard
troops openly rebelled 1n the cause of tribal autonomy, with
which the Reds have sought to woo them.
The montagnard training program is slated for expansion. Forty U. s. Special Forces teams of 12 men each are
now working with the minority groups, but the number is
expected to rise to 50 under the current 5,000-man buildup
of U.S. military advisers in South Viet Nam.