Execution in Vietnam

(Picture 1)

Kimmo Huosionmaa

Above the text is a famous picture, what is taken in the Vietnam war. In the picture, the police commander of Southern Vietnam shoots the bounded prisoner to head, and this picture shows how brutal the war really was.  The international law doesn't protect the non-uniformed combatants or guerilla fighters, but shooting the person in this way is also a war crime. The data of the shooter is behind the first link below the text, and his name was Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (1930-1998)and military rank of the paramilitary police of South-Vietnam was brigadier general.


Somebody believes that this photograph was taken to hide the more large-scale executions in the jungle. The purpose of this photograph was to confess, that the executions were made in this kind of situations, where somebody gets angry and shoot another person in the unstable condition. There were never mentioned the "Phoenix-program". The assassination project, where special forces and CIA:s CT (Counter Terror)- teams were eliminated what meant execution over 81 000 persons, who were Viet-Cong combatants, enemy money collectors, and sympathizers.



The last group, what was targeted for that type of executions were political activists and propagandists, who might sometimes be innocent about the things, what they were suspected. Executions were normally made with sniper-rifles because the headquarters of Saigon wanted to be sure, that the specific target has been eliminated. And there were rumors that sometimes the executions of the "Phoenix-operation" were targeted to American citizens. How many times and who made those killings are not found in any sources. Sometimes the "Phoenix teams" were kidnapped the suspects and took them to the interrogation centers or special bases for torture.

And actually, we cannot even say is the shooted man ever carried the gun, or did he just be a wrong place at the wrong place. Another interesting question about this picture is, did the shooter actually ordered the newspaperman take the picture of shooting. This shooter was moved to the USA, where he lived under the faked identity, but he was uncovered, and then his pizzeria lost the customers. He died in 1990's.


When we are talking about this particular photo, we must ask one question: why this particular prisoner was shot? Did he knew something, what might put this shooter in danger? When we are looking at the history of the Vietnam War, we must understand that in that time US-military supported the rebel fighters at the mountains of Laos and Cambodia in the operation "Air America". In that operation, the US-military along with the CIA gave supplies to those rebels, who sold drugs to worldwide drug marketing. The drug what is actually heroine is still grown in the area, what is known as the "golden triangle".


And at that time were rumors, that some members of the South-Vietnamese army were involved this business. And there are claims that CIA financed that weapon supply with the drug trade. The heroine-trade is very good business, and there are many rumors that this heroine was sold to the streets of Thailand and another far east country. But sometimes there was said that that heroine packages were carried by the United States military airplanes to the USA. In this story, some drug-cartel contact persons have put the heroine in the fuel tanks of attack airplanes. And then the aircraft was flown to the states. Nobody knows is that true, or were the US-officers involved in that business.


There were also plans to use heroin as the "booster" in the bombs and shells what was used in the jungle. Both the normal explosive ammunition and smoke ammunition were filled by the heroine. The tests were made by "Edgewood Arsenal", but did those devices given to the troops is the different story.  This chemical would be so-called "non-lethal agent" what will have great "stun effect" to its targets. Also, the gunpowder was planned to put opiates but did military used them in Vietnam is the different thing. And that would give change to take enemy fighters as the prisoners or kill them easily. The opiate-bomb is non-lethal in the normal situation, but if the person uses the blood veins injected drugs, could result be lethal, like in Nord-Ost movie theatre case happened, and this attack was caused over 150 hostage casualties when Alfa-team attacked in that house.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program


Picture 1

https://cherrieswriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/vietnam073-xl.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tMDrnbOSb4&t=8s