Vietnam: Remains of the victims of the massacre at Hue, 1968

In the aftermath of the recapture of Hue in 1968, the discovery of several mass graves (the last of which were uncovered in 1970) of South Vietnamese citizens of Hue sparked a controversy that has not diminished with time. The victims had either been clubbed or shot to death or simply buried alive. The official allied explanation was that during their initial occupation of the city, the communists had quickly begun to systematically round up (under the guise of re-education) and then execute as many as 2,800 South Vietnamese civilians that they believed to be potentially hostile to communist control.

Those taken into custody included South Vietnamese military personnel, present and former government officials, local civil servants, teachers, policemen, and religious figures. Historian Gunther Lewy claimed that a captured Viet Cong document stated that the communists had 'eliminated 1,892 administrative personnel, 38 policemen, 790 tyrants'.

This thesis achieved wide credence at the time, but the Massacre at Huế came under increasing press scrutiny later, when press reports exposed that South Vietnamese 'revenge squads' had also been at work in the aftermath of the battle, searching out and executing citizens that had supported the communist occupation. The North Vietnamese later further muddied the waters by stating that their forces had indeed rounded up 'reactionary' captives for transport to the North, but that local commanders, under battlefield exigencies, had executed them for expediency's sake.

The exact circumstances leading to the deaths of those citizens of Hue discovered in the mass graves may never be known, but it was probably the result of a combination of all of the above.

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INDOCHINA WARS