Editing Strategic Hamlet Program (section)

===Forced relocation===

In the best case scenario, restructuring peasant villages to create a defensible perimeter would require the forced relocation of some of the peasants on the outskirts of the existing villages. To ease the burden, those forced to move were supposed to be financially compensated, but they were not always paid by the GVN forces. Sometimes relocated villagers had their old homes burnt. This occurred during Operation Sunrise.<ref>[https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent4.htm ''Pentagon Papers''], "The Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961–1963," pp. 128–159.</ref> Some relocated people also had to build new homes with their own labor and at their own expense.<ref name=":0" /> There was also the compulsory labor the South Vietnamese government forced on relocated peasants, leading [[Noam Chomsky]] to compare the hamlets to "virtual concentration camps."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Who Rules the World?|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|publisher=Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company|year=2016|location=New York|pages=203}}</ref>

President Diem and his brother Nhu, who oversaw the program, decided{{snd}}contrary to Hilsman's and Thompson's theory{{snd}}that in most cases they would relocate entire villages rather than simply restructuring them. This decision led to large-scale forced relocation that was deeply unpopular among the peasantry. The mostly-Buddhist peasantry practiced ancestor worship, an important part of their religion that was disrupted by being forced out of their villages and away from their ancestors' graves and their ancestral homes. Some who resisted resettlement were summarily executed by GVN forces.<ref>Sheehan, Neil, ''A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam'', New York: Random House, 1988, pp. 309–310; Castan, Sam, "Vietnam’s Two Wars", ''Look'' (28 Jan. 1964), pp. 32–36; Kuno Knoebl, ''Victor Charlie'', New York: Frederick A. Praegar Publishers, 1967, p. 257.</ref>