Every March, the Son My site receives a number of international delegations, including many reporters who want to meet with victims of the massacre and record images of the revival of Son My.
As a routine, in early March, Son My receives more visitors than any other time of the year. Some visit the site for the first time while many others have been there for several times to gain a better understanding of the wars in Vietnam and the crimes of American imperialists. Many American veterans return to do penance.
Director of the management board of the Son My site, Pham Thanh Cong, who survived in the massacre, said that after the Ministry of Culture and Information decided to turn the place into a national site for historic relics in 2003, the Quang Ngai province’s Department of Culture and Information expanded the reliquary plot to more than 10,000sq.m, and built an exhibition house, a statue and roads at a cost of nearly VND12 billion. The war remnants memorial site was put into operation in 2005.
Many reporters from international press agencies and television stations have come to the site to make documentaries and reports, such as Kyodo, AFP, AP, BBC and the Los Angeles Times.
BBC correspondent in Hanoi, Bill Hayton says that soon after he came to Vietnam he visited Son My. “I cannot imagine how bloody the massacre was”, he said.
Journalist Greig Craft of the US Bommberg Agency says that the massacre was the US Government’s crime.
AP reporter Margie Mason wrote in a visitors’ book that during the war he was a school pupil and knew the war in Vietnam and the massacre through films and books. She felt horrible to see evidence of what had happened. This warns people not to let such massacres happen again, she said.
Brenton Speed from the Australian FOX Sports said this was the first time he came there and he wanted to express his sympathy for the victims of massacre.
Most foreign journalists condemned the US imperialists’ crimes and they expressed hope that the world would never again witness such a massacre.