Party leaders, now in the Việt Cộng, which had a tremendous military strength throughout the country, in order to exert more effective control over the revolutionary struggle in the Mekong Delta, their strongest position, and to prevent the revolutionary vanguard from being ceded to Hòa Hảo. Despite their military setbacks, the Hòa Hảo maintained their political and religious control over the western portion of the Bassac River and Cần Thơ, the Mekong Delta's regional capital. They also preserved their arms and formed paramilitaries to defend the movement's geographical stronghold. The Hòa Hảo were too powerful for the Saigon government to continue fighting. Starting from Nguyễn Cao Kỳ's government in the mid-1960s, the Hòa Hảo were left alone in the Miền Tây and gained tacit permission to establish a form of sovereignty in exchange for acknowledging South Vietnam's authority. They resumed their conflict with the Communists as they were no longer forced to commit their military to the campaign against the central authority. The tacit agreement with the South Vietnamese government removed the necessity for keeping a reserve force. The Hòa Hảo used their new independence to launch a total war on the Việt Cộng. The ARVN aided the Hòa Hảo militia in their fight against the Communists by tying down the Việt Cộng's main force in nearby locations, allowing the militia to focus on fighting Communist guerrillas and infrastructure cadres. The anti-Communist campaign of the Hòa Hảo was accompanied by ruthless butchery, and the Communists retaliated in kind. The significance of Hòa Hảo was recognized by every post-Diệm administration of South Vietnam. As a cohesive force in the Mekong Delta, the religious movement was now extremely valued; Hòa Hảo's military might and political influence were welcomed by the South Vietnamese government, and the Hòa Hảo provided tacit support to every post-Diệm regime in Saigon. Members of the religion gradually rose to positions of authority at all levels of government, from hamlet and village chiefs to national parliamentary representatives. By now, the Hòa Hảo had achieved their principal goal of religious independence. The orthodox Buddhist authority no longer discriminated against the Hòa Hảo on a religious basis. It was the Hòa Hảo's military might, which was organized along religious lines, and capacity to ensure a high level of local security in the provinces it controlled that provided the group with its most powerful influencing lever. It was a religious force in