Capture, classification and incarceration of Communist captives during Vietnam's American War

Abstract

The fate of captives designated as ‘communist’ prisoners during the Vietnam War has largely been overshadowed by that of US POWs detained north of the Seventeenth Parallel. This article, based on newly released archival sources in multiple languages, considers their classification and treatment in captivity. In particular, civilian captives and members of the National Liberation Front were often categorised as ‘civil defendants’ by South Vietnam and thus deprived of their rights as POWs, as codified in the Geneva Conventions. Yet, as representatives of a state dealing with both an insurgency and an invasion at the same time, South Vietnamese officials realised the significance of enemy captives. By illustrating the complex policies and practices of prisoner taking and incarceration, this article interprets and explains the gap between civilian and military law and informal and oftentimes self-serving practices on the ground. Thus, the Second Indochina War foreshadowed a global trend of excluding captured irregular combatants from the laws of war.