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Identification and Classification of Detainees

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It was the primary responsibility of the military intelligence personnel to classify all detainees. However since the military police were responsible for detaining, processing, and transporting they were also tasked with assisting the military intelligence personnel in all aspects wherever possible.

Detainees This category includes all persons detained until classification by military intelligence personnel. The detainees were then further classified as POWs, regroupees, returnees, civil defendants, innocent civilians, or doubtful cases.

Prisoners of War (POW) All persons who were captured while actually engaged in combat. Any captured member of the North Vietnamese Army or Viet Cong was automatically accorded POW status, whether captured in combat or not, excepting terrorist, saboteurs and spies

North Vietnamese Army (NVA) The NVA were normally easy to identify and classify. They were members of regular army units with standard uniforms and equipment.

Viet Cong (VC) The Viet Cong were broken down into two categories; main force and local force.

Main Force Viet Cong They were organized into conventional units and were usually equipped similarly to the NVA. They frequently operated some distance from their home area.

Local Force Viet Cong They were extremely difficult to identify because they were a paramilitary fighter, and usually never moved far from their home area. They were not uniformed, nor equipped, as a rule, except to perform specific duties.

Regroupees This category included all South Vietnamese who moved to North Vietnam at the time of the 1954 Geneva Accords.

Returnees (Chieu Hoi) This classification applied to all individual's who voluntarily surrendered themselves after having actively supported the Viet Cong in some manner.

Civil Defendants (CD) This classification encompassed a broad, and may times, unclear area. Specifically the tern applied to all detainees, who were identified as contributors to the communist effort who were not soldiers and did not bear arms. They were subject to the criminal code of the government of South Vietnam. The Civil Defendant might have been a common criminal such as a saboteur, assassin, kidnapper, or political criminal such as a member of the communist infrastructure.

Type A Civil Defendants were the hard core communist and were normally tried by the South Vietnamese Judiciary System and kept in government civil jails.

Type B Civil Defendants were the communist and pro-Communist that were deemed capable and willing to be rehabilitated. They were kept in district or province level confinement areas and rehabilitated then released into government controlled villages.

Type C Civil Defendants were the procommunist or communist sympathizers who were forced into a “cooperate or else” position by the Viet Cong, and had to comply for lack of government protection. They attended a rehabilitation program from two to six weeks, and then were released with the option of returning to their homes or resettlement into a government controlled area.

Doubtful Cases Detainees, whose classification as POWs is doubtful, were referred to a tribunal for final determination of status. Also, if a detainee had been classified as a Civil defendant and he believed he was entitled to POW status.

Innocent Civilians If a detainee failed to qualify as one of the foregoing classifications, he was then classified as an innocent civilian. This was, of course, the ultimate classification of the majority of the detainees in Vietnam. Cordon and Search operations were characterized by limited interrogation of all, or nearly all, of the persons in a given area. Most were released after on the spot interrogations. Some, however, were evacuated for further interrogation.

Article, “PW Operations in an Insurgency Environment,” MP Journal, by Captain Gary W. Lawhead, MPC, August 1968.

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