Vietnam War

The Vietnam War also known as the Resistance Wars or Indochina Wars refers to a conflict between Vietnam, France and the USA in their efforts to recolonise Vietnam and turn it into an area for extracting raw resources. The Vietnamese were successful thanks to fierce anti-colonial resistance by the Vietnamese and mutinous US soldiers and the peace movement.

War Crimes

War crimes were committed by both sides of the conflict.

US and South Korean War Crimes

• The Pentagon studied 320 war crimes committed by US military forces throughout the war. Including seven massacres and numerous murders, rapes and incidents of torture (employing fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.) The report was declassified in 1994, before being reclassified in 2002.

North Vietnamese War Crimes

There has been 11 major documented war crimes committed by North Vietnam and/or the Vietcong.

• 1965: US Embassy Bombing, killing two Americans, 19 Vietnamese and one Filipino and injuring 183 others.
• 1965: Saigon Bombing, Viet Cong detonated a bomb on a floating restaurant "My Canh Café" on the banks of the Saigon River. 31–32 people were killed, and 42 were wounded. Of the casualties, 13 were American and most others were Vietnamese citizens. Another bomb exploded next to a tobacco stall on the riverbank near the restaurant, killing at least one American.
• 1967: Two battalions of Viet Cong were reported to have killed 252 civilians in a "vengeance" attack on the hamlet of Đắk Sơn.
• 1968: During the Battle of Hue, North Vietnamese troops executed between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war.
• 1968: Viet Cong attacked Sơn Trà, a fishing village located approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southeast of Chu Lai Base Area. It had a population of approximately 4,000 people including many resettled refugees. After a mortar attack which forced many of the civilians to take shelter in their defensive bunkers, between 75 and 300 VC then moved through the village throwing satchel charges into bunkers killing their occupants and starting fires killing 73 civilians and 15 pacification workers; a further 103 civilians were wounded. 570 homes were destroyed in the attack and the resulting fires leaving almost 2,800 people homeless.
• 1970: Two groups of sappers entered a village, armed with grenades and satchel charges, most began burning houses and hurling their grenades and satchel charges into family bomb shelters filled with civilians who had fled to them for protection from the shelling. Civilian casualties totaled 74 dead, many of them women and children; 60 severely injured; and over 100 lightly wounded with 156 houses destroyed and 35 damaged.
• 1971: Vietcong in Duc Duc in Quảng Nam Province were systematically destroying the civilian hamlets with satchel charges and by setting fires. 103 civilians died in the blazing hamlets; 96 were injured and 37 kidnapped. At least 1,500 homes were destroyed.
• 1972: Indiscriminate shooting of refugees fleeing on a highway killed 2,000 people.
• 1973: Viet Cong attack on South Vietnamese positions mortar fire hit a schoolyard killing approximately 20 civilians.
• 1975: Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were alleged to have been killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975.

Reasons for US pullout

In 1969 and 1970 alone, there had been 174 bombings against military, government and corporate buildings that had supported the war across the US. 241 incidents of violent confrontations with police at university campus protests, and 410 incidents of property destruction during university campus protests.