The Viet Nam Peace Commemoration Committee (VPCC) organised an array of activities in the US from 15-17 March to commemorate 504 victims of the Son My bloody massacre by US troops 50 years ago.

My Lai hamlet after the massacre. (Source: VNA)

About 70 people gathered at the Lafayette Square on 16 March  to read out names of the victims, sang songs for peace and chanted the slogan of “My Lai: Never Again”.

The same day, Professor Howard Jones, a VPCC member from Alabama University, hosted a programme to introduce his book titled “My Lai: Viet Nam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness” at George Washington University, Washington D.C. 

At the same time, the 475-page English book was also introduced by the VPCC at Columbia University in New York.

On 17  March afternoon, the VPCC screed a 95-minute film at George Washington University, featuring acceptance of more than 125 US soldiers of the cruelty they committed or witnessed at the massacre.

The killings that occurred on March 16, 1968 in My Lai hamlet (now Son My, Tinh Khe Commune), Quang Ngai Province, prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre is also credited with advancing the end of the American War because it significantly undermined public support in the United States for the war effort.          

Some 504 unarmed civilians in Tinh Khe commune were slaughtered, mostly elderly villagers, women and children. Hundreds of houses, along with thousands of heads of cattle and poultry, and all food, were burned and destroyed that day.

Founded in September 2014, the VPCC seeks to tell the truth and learn the lessons of the US war in Indochina, and of the broad, diverse protest movement that ended the war.

(Source: VNA)