The UN and all Human Rights Organizations
To: Mrs. Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
The Vietnamese people to bring on a debate at the United Nations to
prosecute the Vietnamese communist Party for its CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
This crime and its party leaders are guilty of a crime which has been
committed against the Vietnamese people . The criminals should be
prosecuted and punished by the international courts of justice.
Dear Mrs. Mary Robinson:
In the wake of brutal atrocities in the wars in Bosnia and Rwanda, the
United Nations, with the full support of your administration, has
convened the first international war crimes tribunal since World War II.
Representatives of your administration have said that supporting the
tribunal's prosecution of individuals responsible for the wide-scale
murder, rape and torture of civilians in both conflicts will deter
future abuses.
The communist leaders of Vietnam responsible for subjecting
anti-Communist Vietnamese and U.S. prisoners of war to concentration
camps, brutal guards, starvation rations, decapitation, killing fields
and mass graves. The facts needed to investigate and successfully
prosecute Vietnamese war criminals are clearly laid out in thousands of
pages of documentation and testimony on file with the U.S. government,
including statements and reports received from victims, witnesses, other
governments, UN agencies, international organizations and
non-governmental organizations.
The Vietnamese Communist Leaders, have a well-defined and recorded
history as a black-hearted war criminal. Vietnamese Communist Party
recruited young Vietnamese men and women (children included) and trained
them as terrorists for terrorism acts against the civilian population
of South Vietnam .
The communist leaders responsible for the Viet Cong's official policies
pertaining to the treatment of U.S. prisoners of war, policies which
resulted in the deaths of nearly 40 percent of all U.S. prisoners in
Viet Cong prisons.
In the name of justice and for the sake of all the victims of Vietnamese
Communist's war crimes, please ask that they (VCP) be investigated and
prosecuted by the newly formed United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.
For your information, here is a list by date of some of the war crimes members of the Vietnamese Communist Party are guilty of.
Viet Minh gained political power in 1954 , members of the Lao Dong
(Communist Party) invaded South Vietnam after the end of the
French-Indochina . Vietnamese communists conceal their involvement in
ordering brutal acts of terrorism.
1957-58: VCP used the application of violence, elimination of anyone who
might potentially support, or form the core of, opposition to their
communist ideologies deliberate policy of exterminating possible
opponents had been refined to an art, with South Vietnamese village
chiefs and their families serving as primary targets for wholesale
campaigns of assassination.
The following is a partial chronological list of terrorist acts which
were a part of VCP's campaign of terror against the civilian population
of South Vietnam.
Feb. 2, 1960: Terrorists sack and burn the Buddhist temple at Phuoc
Thanh, Tay Ninh province. They stab to death 17-year old Phan Van Ngoc,
who tries to stop them.
April 22, 1960: Some 30 armed communists raid Thoi Long, An Xuyen
province. They attempt to take away villager Cao Van Nanh, 45. Villagers
protest en masse. Farmer Pham Van Bai, 56, is particularly
argumentative. The communists, angered, seize him.
This arouses the villagers who swarm toward the Viet Cong and their
prisoner. The communists fire into the crowd. A 16-year old boy is shot
dead.
August 23, 1960: Two school teachers, Nguyen Khoa Ngon and Miss Nguyen
Thi Thiet, are preparing lessons at home when communists arrive and
force them at gun point to go to their school, Rau Ran, in Phong Dinh
province. There they find two men tied to the school veranda. The
communists read the death order of the two men, named Canh and Van. They
are executed, presumable to intimidate the school teachers.
September 24, 1960: An armed band sacks a school in An Lac. An Gian
province. It piles seats and desks together and fires them and the
school. All that remains is four bare walls.
September 28, 1960: Father Hoang Ngoc Minh, much beloved priest of
Kontum parish, is riding from Tan Canh to Kondela. A communist road
block halts his car. A bullet smashes into him. The guerrillas drive
bamboo spears into Father Minh's body, then one fires a submachine gun
point blank, killing him. The driver Huynh Huu, his nephew, is seriously
wounded.
September 30, 1960: A band of ten armed communists kidnap farmer Truong
Van Dang, 67, from Long Tri, Long An province. They take him before what
they call a "people's tribunal." He is condemned to death for
purchasing two hectares of rice land and ignoring communist orders to
turn the land over to another farmer. After the "trial" he is shot dead
in his rice field.
December 6, 1960: Terrorists dynamite the kitchen at the Saigon Golf
Club, killing a Vietnamese kitchen helper and injuring two Vietnamese
cooks.
December 1960: The GVN reports to the ICC that during the year the
communists destroyed or damaged 284 bridges, burned 60 medical aid
stations and, through destruction of schools, deprived some 25,000
children of schooling.
March 22, 1961: A truck carrying 20 girls is dynamited on the
Saigon-Vung Tau road. The girls are returning from Saigon where they
have taken part in a Trung Sisters Day celebration. After the explosion
terrorists open fire on survivors. Two of the girls are killed and ten
wounded. The girls are unarmed and traveling without escort.
May 15, 1961: Twelve Catholic nuns from La Providence order are
traveling on Highway One toward Saigon. Their bus is stopped by
communists who ransack their luggage. Sister Theophile protests and is
shot dead on the spot. The vehicle is sprayed with bullets seriously
wounding Sister Phan Thi No. The ambush takes place near Tram Van, Tay
Ninh Province.
July 26, 1961: Two Vietnamese National Assemblymen Rmah Pok and Yet Nic
Bounrit, both Montagnards, are shot and killed by terrorists near Dalat.
A schoolteacher, traveling with them on their visit to a Montagnard
resettlement village, is also killed.
September 20, 1961: One thousand main force communist soldiers storm
Phuoc Vinh, capital of (then) Phuoc Thanh province, sac and burn
government buildings, behead virtually the entire administrative staff.
They hold the capital for 24 hours before withdrawing.
October, 1961: A U.S. State Department study estimates that the
communists are killing Vietnamese at rate of 1,500 per month. December
13, 1961: Father Bonnet, a French parish priest from Konkala, Kontum is
killed by a terrorist while visiting parishioners at Ngok Rongei.
December 20, 1961: S. Fuka, a Japanese engineer at the Da Nhim dam, a
Japanese government war reparations project to supply electric power to
Viet-Nam, is kidnaped after being stopped at a road block. His fate is
never learned.
January 1, 1962: A Vietnamese labor leader, Le Van Thieu, 63, is hacked
to death by terrorists wielding machetes near Bien Hoa, in the rubber
plantation on which he works.
January 2, 1962: Two Vietnamese technicians working in the government's
anti-malaria program, Pham Van Hai and Nguyen Van Thach, are killed by
communists with machetes, 12 miles south of Saigon.
February 20, 1962: Terrorists throw four hand grenades into a crowded
village theater near Can Tho, killing 24 women and children. In all, 108
persons are killed or injured.
April 8, 1962: Communists execute two wounded American prisoners of war
near the village of An Chau in Central Viet-Nam. Each, hands tied, is
shot in the face because he cannot keep up with the retreating captors.
May 19, 1962: A terrorist grenade is hurled into the Aterbea restaurant
in Saigon, wounding a Berlin circus manager and the cultural attache
from the German Embassy.
May 20, 1962: A bomb explodes in front of the Hung Dao Hotel, Saigon, a
billet for American servicemen, injuring eight Vietnamese and three
Americans who are in the street at the time.
June 12, 1962: Communists ambush a civilian passenger bus near Le Tri,
An Giang province, killing the passengers, the driver and the driver's
helper, a total of five men and women.
October 20, 1962: A teenage communist hurls a grenade into a holiday
crowd in downtown Saigon, killing six persons, including two children,
and injuring 38 persons.
November 4, 1962: A terrorist hurls a grenade into an alley in Can Tho,
killing one American serviceman and two Vietnamese children. A third
Vietnamese child is seriously injured.
January 25, 1963: Communists dynamite a passenger freight train near Qui
Nhon, killing eight passengers and injuring 15 others. The train is
carrying only rice as freight.
March 4, 1963: Two Protestant missionaries-Elwood Forreston, an
American, and Gaspart Makil, a Filipino, are shot dead at a road block
between Saigon and Dalat. The Makil twin babies are shot
and wounded.
March 16, 1963: Terrorists hurl a grenade into a Saigon home where and
American family is having dinner, killing a French businessman and
wounding four other persons, on of them a woman.
April 3, 1963: Terrorists throw two grenades into a private school near
Long Xuyen, An Gian province, Killing a teacher and two other adults.
Students are performing their annual variety show at the time.
April 4, 1963: Terrorists throw grenades into an audience attending an
outdoor motion picture showing in Cao Lanh village in the Mekong Delta,
killing four persons and wounding 11.
May 23, 1963: Two powerful explosions set off by terrorists on bicycles
kill two Vietnamese and wound ten others in Saigon. Police believe the
explosion was accidentally premature.
September 12, 1963: Miss Vo Thi Lo, 26, a schoolteacher in An Phuoc,
Kien Hoa province, is found near the village with her throat cut. She
had been kidnaped three days earlier.
October 16, 1963: Terrorists explode mines under two civilian buses in
Kien Hoa and Quang Tin provinces, killing 18 Vietnamese and wounding 23.
November 9, 1963: Three grenades are thrown in Saigon, injuring a total
of 16 persons, including four children; the first is thrown in a main
street, the second along the waterfront, and the third in the Chinese
residential area.
February 9, 1964: Two Americans are killed and 41 wounded, including
four women and five children, when a communist bomb is set off in a
sports stadium during a softball game. A second portion of the bomb
fails to explode. Officials estimate that if it had, fifty persons would
have died.
February 16, 1964: Three Americans are killed and 32 injured, most of
them U.S. dependents, when terrorists bomb the Kinh Do movie theater in
Saigon.
July 14, 1964: Pham Thao, chairman of the catholic Action Committee in
Quang Ngai, is executed when he returns to his native village of Pho
Loi, Quang Ngai province.
October, 1964: U.S. officials in Saigon report that from January to
October of 1964 the communists killed 429 Vietnamese local officials and
kidnapped 482 others.
December 24, 1964: A Christmas eve bomb explosion at the Brink officers'
billet kills two Americans and injures 50 Americans and 13 Vietnamese.
February 6, 1965: Radio Liberation announces that the communists have
shot two American prisoners of war as reprisals against the Vietnamese
government, which had sentenced two terrorists to death.
February 10, 1965: Terrorists blow up an enlisted men's barracks in Qui Nhon, killing 23 Americans.
March 30, 1965: A bomb explodes outside the American Embassy in Saigon,
killing 2 Americans, 18 Vietnamese and injuring 100 Vietnamese and 45
Americans.
June 24, 1965: Radio Liberation announces the execution of an American prisoner.
June 25, 1965: Terrorists dynamite the My Canh restaurant in Saigon,
killing 27 Vietnamese, 12 Americans, two Filipinos, one Frenchman, one
German; more than 80 persons are injured.
June 1965: Vietnamese officials report the rate of assassinations and
kidnappings of rural officials has double din June over May and April;
224 officials were either killed or kidnaped.
August 18, 1965: A bomb at the Police Directorate office in Saigon kills six and wounds 15.
October 4, 1965: One of two planted bombs explodes at the Cong Hoa
National Sports Stadium, killing eleven Vietnamese, including four
children, and wounding 42 persons.
October 5, 1965: A bomb goes off, apparently prematurely, in a taxi on a
main street in downtown Saigon, killing two Vietnamese and wounding ten
others.
December 4, 1965: In Saigon a terrorist bomb kills eight persons when it
explodes in front of a billet for U.S. enlisted men; 137 are injured,
including 72 Americans, three New Zealanders and 62
Vietnamese.
December 12, 1965: Two terrorist platoons kill 23 Vietnamese canal
construction workers asleep in a Buddhist Pagoda in Tan Huong, Dinh
Tuong province; wound seven others.
December 30, 1965: Saigon editor Tu Chung of the newspaper Chinh Luan is
gunned down in point blank fire as he arrives home at noon for lunch.
Earlier he had published the texts of threatening notes he had received
from the communists.
January 7, 1966: A Claymore mine explodes at Tan Son Nhut gate (entrance
to Saigon airport), killing two persons and injuring 12.
January 17,1966: Communists in Kien Tuong detonate a mine under a
highway bus, killing 26 civilians, seven of them children. Eight persons
are injured and three are listed as mission.
January 18, 1966: Communists mine a bus in Kien Tuong province, killing 26 civilians.
January 29, 1966: Terrorists kill a Catholic priest, Father Phan Khac
Dau, 74, at Thanh Tri, Kien tuong province. Five other civilians,
including a church officer, are also killed. The marauders desecrate the
church, destroying its statuary and religious artifacts.
February 2, 1966: A communist squad ambushes a jeep load of Vietnamese
information workers, killing six and wounding one: in Hau Nghia
province.
February 14, 1966: Two mines explode beneath a bus and a three- wheeled
taxi on a road near Tuy Hoa, killing 48 farm laborers and injuring seven
others.
March 18, 1966: Fifteen Vietnamese civilians are killed and four injured
by the explosion of a homemade mine on a country road eight kilometers
west of Tuy Hoa, Phu Yen province.
May 22, 1966: Terrorists kill 18 sleeping men, a woman and four children
during an attack on a housing center for canal workers in the Mekong
Delta province of An Giang. "We are doing this to teach you a lesson," a
communist cadre is reported to have said just before he pulled the
trigger.
September 10, 1966: On the eve of South Vietnam's Constituent assembly
elections, communists stage 166 separate incidents of intimidation,
abduction and assassination, Polling places also are destroyed.
September 11, 1966: On election day, communists kill 19 voters wound
120, in fire on polling places, mining of roads, and in individual
assassinations.
September 24, 1966: American troops free eleven persons from a communist
"jail" in Phu Yen province who report that 70 fellow prisoners were
deliberately starved to death and 20 others tortured until they died.
October 11, 1966: Acting on information from a 14-year old boy, allied
forces discover a prison complex in Binh Dinh province containing the
bodies of 12 Vietnamese who had been machine gunned and grenaded by
fleeing guards.
October 22, 1966: A youth worker in Binh Chanh, Gia Dinh province, is shot and killed by raiders while asleep in his home.
October 24, 1966: The Hue-Quang Tri bus runs over a mine in Phong Dien district, Thua Thien province;
15 passengers are injured.
October 27, 1966: A grenade is thrown into a home in Ban Me Thout,
Darlac province, killing a 63-year old man and a nine- month old child;
seven other persons , six of them women, are wounded.
October 28, 1966: An alert policeman arrests a female communist agent
who is about to place a time-bomb under the reviewing stand at a
festival in Khanh Hung (Soc Trang), Ba Xuyen province.
November 1, 1966: Communists direct long-range recoilless rifle fire
into downtown Saigon during National Day celebration killing or wounding
51 persons.
November 2, 1966: A grenade is thrown by a terrorist at Phu Tho
racetrack, Saigon, killing two persons and wounding eight others,
including two children.
November 2, 1966: A squad of armed guerrillas attacks a hamlet in Chau
Thanh district, Phong Dinh province, then withdraw after detonating a
10-kilogram charge which wrecks a steel bridge across the Dau Sau canal.
An aged woman and two children are wounded.
November 3, 1966: Communist squads infiltrate the outskirts of Saigon,
fire 24 recoilless rifle shells on the city. Among the buildings hit are
Saigon Central Market, Grall Hospital, Saigon Cathedral, a seminary
chapel and several private homes. Eight persons are killed and 37
seriously wounded.
November 4, 1966: Communists lob mortar shells into a village in Hau Nghia province, killing one civilian and wounding eight.
November 4, 1966: Communist attack an outpost in Tay Ninh province,
killing six civilians and wounding Revolutionary Development team
members.
November 7, 1966: A communist squad on Provincial Road 8, Quang Duc province, abducts a hamlet chief and deputy chief.
November 8, 1966: In Chau Doc province, a 53-year old woman is tortured
and shot to death; a note pinned to her body accuses her of supporting
the South Vietnamese government.
November 16, 1966: A terrorist bomb-laden bicycle on Nguyen Van Thoai
Street, Saigon, explodes; two South Vietnamese soldiers and a civilian
are wounded.
November 19, 1966: Eight mortar rounds on Can Giuoc, Long An province,
kill two children; 12 civilians are wounded some 20 mortar rounds drop
on Can Duoc, wounding five civilians.
November 20, 1966: Two policemen are wounded when they attempt to remove
several communist banners equipped with explosive devices.
November 23, 1966: Three terrorists dressed in South Vietnamese army
uniforms kill a policeman guarding a bridge at Khanh Hung (Soc Trang),
Ba Xuyen province. While escaping, they throw two
grenades, wounding seven civilians and two soldiers.
November 26, 1966: A Claymore-type mine is set off in the playground of
the Trinh Hoai Duc boys' school, An Thanh, Binh Duong province. Korean
troops are using adjacent area as a training site. Three Koreans are
killed and a Vietnamese student is wounded.
November 30, 1966: Communist shell Tan Uyen market, Bien Hoa province, killing three civilians and wounding seven.
December 4, 1966: A village chief in Gia Dinh province is abducted from
his home in Phu Lam by four men and assassinated by rifle fire.
December 7, 1966: Tran Van Van, Constituent Assemblyman, is assassinated
while en route to the National Assembly building; death weapon is a .32
caliber East German pistol; his killers are captured.
December 10, 1966: A terrorist throw a grenade into the Chieu Hoi
district playground, Binh Duong City, severely injuring three children.
December 10, 1966: A taxi on Highway 29, Phong Dinh province runs over a
mine. Five passengers, all women, are killed and the driver badly
wounded.
December 13, 1966: Revolutionary Development personnel attend a course
at the Ca Mau school, An Xuyen province; a charge explodes in the
classroom, killing three and wounding nine.
December 20, 1966: A squad infiltrates a hamlet in Quang Tin province,
kidnaps a former Viet Cong member who recently defected, carries him to
another location and shoots him.
December 27, 1966: National Constituent Assemblyman, Dr. Phan Quang Dan,
narrowly escapes death when his car explodes in Gia Dinh province. A
charge is concealed beneath the vehicle and detonates as Dr. Dan opens
the door. Dan escapes with minor wounds but a woman passerby is killed
and five civilians wounded. January 6, 1967: A South Vietnamese
policeman kin Tan Chu, Kien Phong province, is shot and killed while
members of his family look on.
January 7, 1967: An explosion destroys a school and health station in Hong Ngu district, Kien Phong province.
January 8, 1967: In An Xuyen province, terrorists throw a grenade into
the house of a hamlet chief. One of the children is killed and three
other civilians are wounded.
January 12, 1967: Three civilians are killed and three South Vietnamese
soldiers are wounded in an ambush of a truck on National Highway 14, two
kilometers south of Tan Canh village.
January 15, 1967: At Thanh Tho, Quang Tin province, communists shoot a merchant when he refuses to give them two oxen.
January 21, 1967: Several communists force their way into Buon Ho,
Darlac province, gather the people for a propaganda lecture; kidnap six
young men.
February 6, 1967: Communists raid Lieu Tri, Quang Tin province, and
abduct a teacher and a local officials. The teacher is killed.
February 6, 1967: A grenade is thrown onto the porch where Kontum deputy
province chief is entertaining a group of South Vietnamese officials.
The provincial Chief of Education is killed instantly; the Chief of
Montagnard Affairs and another official die of wounds the next day.
Eight other are seriously wounded.
March 4, 1967: Only two badly wounded prisoners survive as communist
prison guards near Can Tho tie 12 South Vietnamese captives together,
shoot and stab them before fleeing from advancing South Vietnamese
troops; both survivors live despite having their throats cut.
March 5, 1976: In an nocturnal raid, terrorists murder two young
Revolutionary Development workers in Vinh Phu, Phu Yen province. Seven
additional Revolutionary Development team members are killed in the
ensuing gunfight and four are wounded. The raid is the 113th attach on
Revolutionary Development workers since the first of the year.
March 30, 1967: Recoilless rifle fire directed at homes of families of
South Vietnamese troops demolishes 200 houses and kills 32 men, women
and children in the capital city of Bac Lieu province.
April 13, 1967: A South Vietnamese entertainment troupe is the target of
nocturnal raid in Lu Song hamlet, near Da Nang. The team chief and his
deputy are killed; two team members are wounded.
April 14, 1967: Terrorists kidnap Nguyen Van Son in Binh Chanh district,
Gia Dinh province; he is a candidate inthe elections for village
council.
April 16, 1967: A squad enters Cam Ha, Quang Nam province and murders an
election candidate. One child is killed and three civilians are
wounded.
April 18, 1967: Sui Chon hamlet northeast of Saigon is attacked by
assassins and arsonists who slay five Revolutionary Development team
members, wound three, abduct seven; three of those slain are young
girls, whose hands are tied behind their backs before they are shot in
the head. One-third of the hamlet's dwelling is destroyed by fire.
April 26, 1967: Nguyen Cam, chief of Ba Dan hamlet, Quang Nam province,
is shot and killed by a terrorist. Cam had been a candidate in recent
elections.
May 10, 1967: A bus loaded with South Vietnamese civilians runs over a
land mine near Than Bach Thach, Phu Bon province. One passenger is
killed; the driver and five passengers are wounded.
May 11, 1967: More than 200 doctors and medical workers of the Republic
of South Viet-Nam have been victims of the communists in the past 10
years, State Health Secretary Dr. Tran Van Lu-Y tells the World Health
Organization in Geneva. He says 211 members of his staff have been
killed or kidnaped; 174 dispensaries, maternity homes and hospitals
destroyed; 40 ambulance mined or machine-gunned.
May 16, 1967: In two separate attacks in Quang Tin and Quang Tri
provinces, communists kill eight Revolutionary Development team members
and injure five.
May 24, 1967: The information officer of Phu Thanh, Bien Hoa province,
and his two children are killed by grenades thrown into their home at 3
a.m.
May 29, 1967: Frogmen emerge from the Perfume River in Hue to blow up a
hotel housing members of the International Control Commission. No member
of the Indian-Canadian-Polish team is hurt, but five South Vietnamese
civilians are killed and 15 wounded. The hotel is 80 percent destroyed.
June 2, 1967: Armed with automatic weapons, two platoons make a
post-midnight raid on a Chieu Hoi camp in Long An. they injure five
South Vietnamese soldiers and five civilians.
June 27, 1967: Twenty-three civilians are killed when their bus strikes a mine in Binh Duong province, southeast of Lai Khe.
July 6, 1967: Several children walking on the road to a pagoda at Cam
Pho hamlet, Quang Nam province, are wounded when a passing truck
explodes a Viet-Cong antitank mine. One child dies of wounds.
July 13, 1967: An explosion in a Hue restaurant kills two Vietnamese.
Twelve Vietnamese, seven Americans and one Filipino are injured.
July 14, 1967: Terrorists dressed in Vietnamese Army uniforms capture a
prison in Quang Nam province, releasing about 1,000 of the 1,200
inmates; they execute 30 in the prison yard. Ten civilians are killed
and 29 wounded as the terrorists fight their way out of the area.
July 25, 1967: Communists appear at homes in Binh Trieu, Long An
province and kidnap four men, a woman and the woman's 16-year-old son.
All six are found the following morning along Highway 13, hands tied
behind their backs, a bullet in each head.
August 5, 1967: During a special devices class in a secondary school in
An Xuyen province, part of the September election "get out the vote"
campaign, a terrorist gives a small girl a hand grenade with the pin
extracted and tells her to carry it carefully to her teacher. At the
classroom door the child drops the grenade, killing herself and injuring
nine children.
August 24, 1967: Terrorists kill one and wound four when they detonate a
charge at the home of a Vietnamese policeman in Can Tho, Phong Dinh
province.
August 26, 1967: Twenty-two civilians die and six are injured when their bus strikes a mine in Kien Hoa province.
August 27, 1967: A week before presidential and senate elections,
terrorists step up their activities. A recoilless rifle and mortar
attack on Can Tho kills 46 and injures 227. Ten die and ten are injured
in an attack on a Revolutionary Development team in Phuoc Long province.
Fourteen civilians, including five children, are wounded by mortar fire
southeast of Ban Me Thuot, Darlac province. Two civilians die and one
is wounded in an attack on a hamlet in Binh Long province. Six civilians
are kidnaped from Phuoc Hung village in Thua Thien province.
August 29, 1967: Groups of communists infiltrate four hamlets in Thanh
Binh district, Quang Nam province, kill two civilians and abduct six,
including an inter-family chief.
September 1, 1967: Terrorist explosives blast six craters in National
Route 4 in Dinh Tuong province, stopping all vehicular traffic except a
South Vietnamese army ambulance bus which runs over a pressure mine,
killing 13 passengers, injuring 23.
September 3, 1967: Shortly after polls open in Tuy Hoa, Phu Yen
province, communists detonate a bomb hidden in a polling place. Three
voters are killed and 42 are wounded. Election morning attacks,
including long-range shellings, claim 48 lives.
November 8, 1967: The Ky Chanh refugee center in Quang Tin province is
infiltrated by terrorists who kill four persons, wound nine others and
kidnap nine more; they also fire the camp's school.
December 5, 1967: A name that should be remembered as long as Lidice is
Dak Son, a Montagnard village of some 2,000 in Phuoc Long province, the
scene of what in some ways remains the worst atrocity in the entire
atrocity-ridden war. Some 300 communists stage a reprisal raid on Dak
Son. The chief weapon: the flame thrower, 60 of them. The purpose:
purely to terrorize. The result: a Carhaginian solution, all but sowing
of the salt. After breaking through the flimsy hamlet militia defense,
the communists set about systematically to destroy the village and the
people in it. Families are incinerated alive in their grass-roofed huts
or in the shelters dug beneath their beds. Everything combustible is put
to the torch: houses, recently harvested grain on the ground,
livestock, fences, trees, people. One of the first Americans to approach
the scene the following day: "As we approached the place I thought I
saw charred cordwood piled up the way you pile up logs neatly beside the
road. When we got closer I could see it was burned bodies of several
dozen babies. The odor of burned flesh, which really is an unforgettable
smell, reached us outside the village and of course got stronger at the
center. People were trying to breath through cabbage leaves . . . I saw
a small boy a smaller girl, probably his sister, sort of melted
together in a charred embrace. I saw a mother burned black still hiding
two children, also burned black. Everything was burned and black. The
worst was the wail of the survivors who were picking through the
smoldering ruins. One man kept screaming and screaming at the top of his
lungs. For an hour he kept it up. He wasn't hurt that I could tell. He
just kept screaming until a doctor gave him a shot of morphine or
something . . . Fire bloats bodies I learned, and after a few hours the
skin splits and peels and curls . . . The far end of the village wasn't
burned; the communists ran out of flamethrower fuel before they got to
it . .
." Estimated toll: 252 dead, about two-thirds of them women and children; 200 abducted, never to return.
Dec. 14, 1967: Bui Quang San, member of South Viet-Nam's lower house, is
gunned down in his home near Saigon. Two days before his murder, San
told friends of receiving a letter from the communists threatening his
life. His mother, first wife and six children were killed in an earlier
Vietnamese Communist raid the city of Hoi An.
December 14, 1967: Saigon reports a total of 232 civilians killed by acts of terrorism in one week.
December 16, 1967: During the intermission at a classical drama at the
University of Saigon, a communist appears on stage and begins a
propaganda speech about the NLF. A student attempts to climb to the
stage and is shot in the stomach. Two other students are shot in the
melee that follows.
January 20, 1968: An armed propaganda team enters Tam Quan, Binh Dinh
province, gathers 100 people for a propaganda session; one prominent
village elder objects and is shot to death.
January 30, 1968: On the night of the new moon marking the new lunar
year during a negotiated truce, a Vietnamese communist force of
approximately 12,000 invaded Hue quickly turned it into one of the
saddest cities on Earth.
The communists stayed for 26 days, during which time they executed
nearly 6,000 Hue civilians who the National Liberation Front Central
Committee had blacklisted as enemies of Communism.
After being forced to withdraw from Hue, South Vietnamese officials
found the bodies of over 3,000 men and women buried in a river bed with
their hands tied behind them. Many had been buried alive.
April 6, 1968: A band of communists enters That Vinh Dong, Tay Ninh
province; they sell several thousand piasters worth of "war bonds" and
then depart, taking with them a school teacher, the hamlet chief's two
daughters and nephew and six other males age 15 or 16.
May 5 - June 22, 1968: Some 417 rockets are fired indiscriminately into
Saigon, chiefly in the densely-populated Fourth District. The rockets
are 107mm Chinese-made and 122mm Soviet-made. Result: 115 dead, 528
hospitalized.
May 29, 1968: A band of communists stops all traffic on Route 155 in
Vinh Binh province; 50 civilians are kidnaped, including a Protestant
minister; 2 buses and 28 three-wheeled taxis are burned.
June 28, 1968: A major attack is made against the refugee center and
fishing village of Son Tra, south of Da Nang. In all, 88 persons are
killed and 103 are wounded by mortar and machine gun fire, grenades and
explosive charges. Some 450 homes are destroyed leaving 3,000 of the
5,000 persons there homeless.
Later, villagers gathering bamboo to rebuild the center are fired on from ambush.
July 28, 1968: Four gun-wielding terrorists, two of them women, detonate
a 60-pound plastique charge in city room of Cholon Daily News, most
prominent of city's seven Chinese-language newspapers, after ordering
workers out of building; the four escape before police arrive.
September 1, 1968: Doctors at the American Division's 27th Surgical
Hospital report two Montagnard women have been brought in for treatment
for advanced anemia. It is determined that the North Vietnamese had been
systematically draining them of blood for treating their own wounded.
September 12, 1968: A communist report (captured in Binh Duong province)
from the Chau Thanh district Security Section to the provincial party
Central Committee says that seven prisoners in the district's custody
were shot prior to an expected enemy sweep operation: "we killed them to
make possible our safe escape," the report says.
September 26, 1968: A grenade is thrown into the crowded Saigon central market, killing one person and wounding 11.
December 11, 1968: A band of terrorists appears at the home of the
provincial People's Self-Defense Force chief in Tri Ton, Chau Doc
province; they bind his arms with rope and lead him 50 yards from his
home where they fire a burst from a submachine gun into his body.
January 6, 1969: The Vietnamese Minister of Education, Dr. Le Minh Tri,
is killed when two terrorists on a motorcycle hurl a hand grenade
through the window of the car in which he is riding.
February 7, 1969: A satchel charge is exploded in the Can Tho market place, killing one and wounding three.
February 16, 1969: Communists invade and occupy Phuoc My village, Quang
Tin province, for several days. Later, survivors describe a series of
brutal acts: a 78-year old villager shot for refusing to cut down a tree
for a fortification; a 73-year old man killed when he could not or
would not leave his home, pleading that infirmities prevented him from
walking; an 11-year old boy stabbed; several families grenaded in their
homes.
January 19, 1969: A bicycle bomb explodes in a shop in Kien Hoa province (Truc Giang), killing six civilians and wounding 16.
February 24, 1969: Terrorists enter the Catholic Church in Quang Ngai province, assassinate the priest and an altar boy.
February 26, 1969: A bicycle bomb explodes in a shop in Kien Hoa province, killing a child and wounding three other persons.
March 4, 1969: Rector of saigon University, Professor Tran Anh, is shot
by motorcycle-riding terrorists; previously he had been notified that he
was on the "death list" of something called the "Suicide Regiment of
the Saigon Youth Guard."
March 5, 1969: An attempt is made to assassinate Prime Minister Tran Van
Huong by hurling a satchel charge against the automobile in which he is
riding. The attempt fails and most of the terrorists are captured.
March 6, 1969: An explosive charge explodes next to a wall at Quang Ngai
city hospital, killing a maternity patient and destroying two
ambulances.
March 9, 1969: Terrorists enter Xom Lang, Go Cong province, take Mrs.
Phan Thi Tri from her home to a nearby rice field where they behead her,
explaining that her husband had defected from the communists.
March 9, 1969: A band of communists attack Loc An, Loc My and Loc Hung
villages in Quang Nam province, killing two adults and kidnaping ten
teenage boys.
March 13, 1969: Kon Sitiu and Kon Bobanh, two Montagnard villages in
Kontum province, are raided by terrorists; 15 persons killed; 23
kidnaped, two of whom are later executed; three long-houses, a church
and a school burned. A hamlet chief is beaten to death. Survivors say
the communists' explanation is: "We are teaching you not to cooperate
with the government."
March 21, 1969: A Kontum province refugee center is attacked for the
second time by a PAVN battalion using mortars and B-40 rockets.
Seventeen civilians are killed and 36 wounded, many of
them women and children. A third of the center is destroyed.
April 4, 1969: A pagoda in Quang Nam province is dynamited, killing four persons, wounding 14.
April 9, 1969: Terrorists attack the Phu Binh refugee center, Quang Ngai
province and fire 70 houses, leaving 200 homeless. Four persons are
kidnaped.
April 11, 1969: A satchel charge explodes in the Dinh Thanh temple, Long
Thanh village, Phong Dinh province, wounding four children.
April 15, 1969: An armed propaganda team invades An Ky refugee center,
Quang Ngai province, and attempts to force out the people living there;
nine are killed and ten others wounded.
April 16, 1969: The Hoa Dai refugee center in Binh Dinh province is
invaded by an armed propaganda team. The refugees are urged to return to
their former (communist dominated) village, but refuse;
the communists burn 146 houses.
April 19, 1969: Hieu Duc district refugee center, Quang Nam province, is invaded and ten persons kidnaped.
April 23, 1969: Son Tinh district refugee center, Quang Ngai province, is invaded; two women are shot and 10 persons kidnaped.
May 6, 1969: Le Van Gio, 37, is kidnaped and later shot for refusing to
pay "taxes" to a communist agent who entered his village of Vinh Phu, An
Giang province.
May 8, 1969: Communist sappers detonate a charge outside the
Postal-Telephone Building in Saigon's Kennedy Square, killing four
civilians and wounding 19.
May 10, 1969: Sappers explode a charge of plastique in Duong Hong, Quang
Nam province, killing eight civilians and wounding four.
May 12, 1969: A communist sapper squad attacks Phu My, Binh Dinh
province, with satchel charges, rockets and grenades; 10 civilians ar
killed, 19 wounded; 87 homes are destroyed.
May 14, 1969: Five communist 122mm rockets land in the residential area of Da Nang, killing five civilians and wounding 18.
June 18, 1969: Three children are wounded when they step on a communist
mine while playing near their home in Quan Long (Ca Mau) city, An Xuyen
province.
June 19, 1969: In Phu My, Thua Thien province, communists assassinate a 54-year old man and his 70-year old mother.
June 24, 1969: A 122mm communists rocket strikes the Thanh Tam hospital in Ho Nai, Bien Hoa province, killing one patient.
June 30, 1969: Communist mortar shells destroy the Phuoc Long pagoda in
Chanh Hiep, Binh Duong province; one Buddhist monk is killed and ten
persons wounded.
June 30, 1969: Three members of the People's Self-Defense Force are kidnaped from Phu My, Bien Hoa province.
July 2, 1969: Two communist assassins enter a hamlet office in Thai Phu,
Tay Ninh province, shoot and wound the hamlet chief and his deputy.
July 17, 1969: A grenade is thrown into Cho Con market, Da Nang, wounding 13 civilians, most of them women.
April 22, 1960: A communist unit attacks the chieu Hoi center in Vinh
Binh province killing five persons, including two women and a youth, and
wounding 11 civilians.
July 18, 1979: Police report two incidents of B-40 rockets being fired
into trucks on the highway, one in Quang Duc province in which three
civilians were wounded and one in Darlac province which killed the
driver.
July 19, 1969: Communist seize and shoot Luong Van Thanh, a People's
Self-Defense Force member, Tan Hoi Dong, Dinh Tuong province.
July 30, 1969: Communists rocket the refugee center of Hung My, Binh Duong, wounding 76 persons.
August 5, 1969: Two grenades are thrown into the elementary school in
Vinh Chau, Quang Nam province, where a school board meeting is taking
place. Five persons re killed and 21 are wounded.
August 7, 1969: Communist sappers set off some 30 separate plastique
charges in the U.S. Sixth Evacuation Hospital compound, Cam Ranh Bay,
killing two and wounding 57 patients.
August 13, 1969: Officials in Saigon report a total of 17 communist
terror attacks on refugee centers in Quang Nam and Thua Thien provinces,
leaving 23 persons dead, 75 injured and a large number of homes
destroyed or damaged.
August 26, 1969: A nine-month-old baby in his mother's arms is shot in
the head by terrorists outside Hoa Phat, Quang Nam province; also found
dead are three children between ages six and ten, an elderly man, a
middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman, a total of seven, all shot at
least once in the back of the head.
September 6, 1969: Communists rocket and mortar the trainingcenter of
the National Police Field Force in Dalat, Killing fivetrainees and
wounding 26.
September 9, 1969: South Vietnamese officials report that nearly 5,000
South Vietnamese civilians have been killed by communist terror during
1969.
September 20, 1969: Communists attack Tu Van refugee center in Quang
Ngai province, killing 8 persons and wounding two, all families of local
People's Self-Defense Force members. In nearby Binh Son, eight members
of a police official's family are killed.
September 24, 1969: A bus hits a mine on Highway 1, north of Duc Tho, Quang Ngai province; 12 passengers are killed.
October 13, 1969: A grenade is thrown in the Vi Thanh City Chieu Hoi
center, killing three civilians and wounding 46; about half those
wounded are dependents.
October 13, 1969: Communists kidnap a Catholic priest and a lay assistant from the church at Phu Hoi, Bien Hoa province.
October 27, 1969: Communists booby trap the body of a People's
Self-Defense Force member whom they have killed. When relatives come to
retrieve the body the subsequent explosion kills for of them.
These are just a few of the war crimes committed against the civilian
population of South Vietnam--more than enough to indict and convict
Vietnamese Communist Party.