A bit off topic, but I was curious about the 3000 number and went to read about the Hue massacre on Wikipedia. Then I switched to the Vietnamese version of the article and the event was portrayed in a completely different light. Both versions are well sourced and well cited, yet they offer two completely different versions of the events as well as the overall conclusions of who was responsible and what happened.
It's interesting to say the least to see how a supposedly neutral source like Wikipedia can be manipulated to drive different view points.
Interesting! I actually found the article (about the battle) pretty balanced all things considering.
The massacre is where things go sideways:
The so-called "massacre" was just a psychological blow.that the US erected, in fact American bombs caused many civilians to die mixed with soldiers on both sides. The Liberation Army buried the civilians who died from American fire, so the United States discovered civilian corpses in mass graves.
Considering many of the bodies had their hands bound behind their back and gunshot wounds to their heads, this is a pretty fantastical explanation.
I have read both versions. My personal interpretation is the killings definitely happened, however there are a lot of grey areas and unknowns around what exactly happened there: who did it (the VCs/the armed civilians/the South Vietnam army/the US), who died in those graves (militants/civilians), the circumstances of the killings (military executions/mob justice/lynching/casualty from fighting/bombing), etc. Perhaps the truth is a bit of everything.
This will unfortunately remain as one of the tragedies of war that we will never know the full picture of.
It's interesting to say the least to see how a supposedly neutral source like Wikipedia can be manipulated to drive different view points.