War Crimes

In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.The investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 incidents had factual basis.The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; one hundred and forty-one cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.Over 800 alleged atrocities were investigated but only 23 soldiers were ever convicted on charges and most served sentences of less than a year.A Los Angeles Times report on the archived files concluded that the war crimes were not confined to a few rogue units, having been uncovered in every army division that was active in Vietnam.

In 2003 a series of investigative reports by the Toledo Blade uncovered a large number of unreported American war crimes particularly from the Tiger Force unit.Some of the most violent war criminals included men such as Sam Ybarra[298] and Sergeant Roy E. "the Bummer" Bumgarner, a soldier who served with the 1st Cavalry Division and later the 173d Airborne Brigade.In 1971 the later U.S. presidential candidate, John Kerry, testified before the U.S. Senate and stated that over 150 U.S. veterans testified during the Winter Soldier Investigation and described war crimes committed in Southeast Asia.According to political scientist R.J. Rummel, U.S. troops murdered about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians during the war.From 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated 1,500 persons died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed by ARVN forces. 6,000 civilians died in the more extensive shellings. This totals, from a range of between 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding NLF/North Vietnamese forces killed by the ARVN in combatSouth Korean forces were also culpable of war crimes as well. One of the massacres was the Tây Vinh Massacre where ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army killed 1,200 unarmed citizens between February 12, 1966 and March 17, 1966 in Bình An village, today Tây Vinh village, Tây Sơn District of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam. Another example was the Gò Dài massacre where ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army killed 380 civilians on 26 February 1966 in Gò Dài hamlet, in Bình An commune, Tây Sơn District (today Tây Vinh District) of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam.

Vietnam "War"

War Crimes