Republic of Vietnam National Police

The Republic of Vietnam National Police – RVNP (Cảnh sát Quốc gia Việt Nam Cộng hòa), Police Nationale de la République du Vietnam or Police Nationale for short (Cảnh sát Quốc gia – CSQG) in French, was the official South Vietnamese national police force from 1962 to 1975, operating closely with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) during the Vietnam War. TOC The Republic of Vietnam National Police was officially created by President Ngô Đình Diệm's national decree in June 1962, integrating all the existing internal security and paramilitary agencies raised by the French Union authorities during the First Indochina War between 1946 and 1954, into a single National Police Force who answered to the Directorate General of National Police (Vietnamese: Tổng cục cảnh sát quốc gia – TCCSQG). These included the Vietnamese Sûreté, the Saigon Municipal Police, elements of the colonial National Guard of South Vietnam (Garde Nationale du Viet Nam Sud – GNVS, or VBNV in Vietnamese), a rural Gendarmerie force or 'Civil Guard' (Garde Civile), the combat police (Police de Combat) and various provincial militia forces made of irregular auxiliaries (Supplétifs). Transferred to South Vietnamese control in 1955, all the aforementioned security units were integrated in the early 1960s into a new national police force with the exception of the Civil Guard, which was placed under the Ministry of Defence. The CSQG had an initial strength of only 16,000 uniformed and plainclothes agents, being essentially an urban constabulary with no rural Gendarmerie component to counter the threat posed by the increasing Viet Cong (VC) insurgency in the countryside. Battle of Saigon (1955) Even before the official creation of the National Police, President Diệm was quick to employ the security forces inherited from the French in repressing both internal political dissent and organized crime. Throughout the late 1950s and into 1960, they helped the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) in suppressing the Hòa Hảo and Cao Đài militant religious and political sects, with approximately 25,000 armed militiamen, and the smaller but better organized Bình Xuyên Saigon-based gangster group.