- Nguyễn Văn Lém
Nguyễn Văn Lém (referred to as Captain Bay Lop) (died
1 February 1968 inSaigon ) was a member of theViet Cong who was summarily executed inSaigon during theTet Offensive . The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the hostility of war. The execution was explained at the time as being the consequence of Lém's suspected guerrilla activity andwar crime s, and otherwise due to a general "wartime mentality."Biography
On the second day of Tet, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan , then Chief of theRepublic of Viet Nam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams andNBC television cameramanVo Suu . The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing theanti-war movement; Adams won a 1969Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Cong
assassin ation and revenge platoon, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families. Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.Though military lawyers have yet to definitively decide whether Loan's action violated the
Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Lém had not been wearing a uniform; nor was he, it is alleged, fighting enemy soldiers at the time), where POW status was granted independently of the laws of war it was limited to Viet Cong seized during military operations [cite book
url=http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/vietnam/law-war/law-04.htm
title=Vietnam Studies: Law at War: Vietnam 1964-1973
chapter=Prisoners of War and War Crimes
author=Major General George S. Prugh
publisher=US Army Center of Military History
year=1975
accessdate=2006-10-24] .See also
*
Phan Thị Kim Phúc References
External links
* [http://www.newseum.org/warstories/interviews/mp3/journalists/bio.asp?ID=22 Account of the execution and photograph spoken by the photographer Eddie Adams] .
* [http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/vcexec.htm General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's Obituary] from "The New York Times ", July 16, 1998.
* [http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0410/faas.html The Saigon Execution] , a thorough account by an AP photo editor including research after the war.
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