Vietnam's Agent Orange survivors get support

In the midst of growing anger at the enormous human and social costs of the war in Iraq, it is important to remember the legacy and lessons of a past war. In Vietnam today the scars of war remain, along with a continuing struggle for justice and accountability, in particular a campaign to gain compensation for the damage done by the use of chemical defoliants like Agent Orange.

Such political campaigns can deepen the understanding that the destruction and havoc in Iraq are no accident. The Pentagon uses massive social displacement of the civilian population and environmental destruction in an effort to break popular resistance.

More than 3 million Vietnamese today suffer from the long-term effects of chemical defoliants the U.S. used during the Vietnam War, when the Pentagon deliberately sprayed the forest canopy, crops, soil and water with deadly chemicals in an attempt to deny food and ground cover to the resistance movement.

Identified by different color codes based on the compounds used, the barrels of toxic brews used were popularly called Agents Orange, Pink, Green and Purple. These herbicides contained trace amounts of TCDD Dioxin–the most toxic chemical known to science. Dioxin exposure causes reproductive illnesses and birth defects for two and three descendent generations, along with dramatically increased rates of certain cancers, immune deficiencies and diabetes.

In the U.S. people are more aware of the high rates of sickness and disability among U.S. veterans. Vietnam veterans have waged years of militant campaigns for recognition and compensation for the sicknesses that ricocheted back on them and impacted on their children.

These struggles forced the U.S. government to recognize the damage done. It now automatically awards service-connected disability to Vietnam veterans for over 13 different health conditions, totaling payments of over $1.5 billion a year. But many veterans are still unable to receive the care they need through the Veterans Health Administration. Their affected children rarely receive assistance from the government.

Other countries that the U.S. pressured into sending troops into the Vietnam War, including South Korea, New Zealand and England, have agreed to compensate their veterans.

But for the Vietnamese, whose country was laid waste in the war and whose population continues to cope with the toxic environment, there has been no compensation.

Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed more than 18 million gallons of herbicide on southern Vietnam, contaminating over 5.5 million acres.

The U.S. spent between $300 and $900 billion on the Vietnam War. By comparison, Washington never came through with even the mere pittance of $3 billion it formally pledged, in the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty, to pay for Vietnam’s recovery and reconstruction. The Pentagon spends this amount every three days continuing the war on Iraq, and just received another $100 billion from a U.S. Congress elected on promises to end this latest war.

Vietnamese doctors’ and scientists’ contributions

After Vietnam finally liberated itself in 1975, gaining full sovereignty after decades of French, Japanese and U.S. occupation and wars, it turned its attention to the arduous and sensitive task of rebuilding and knitting together what had been divided, healing the wounds of war in the population and the environment.

Vietnamese scientists made remarkable strides in understanding, measuring and trying to limit or isolate the impact of areas of high dioxin, known as toxic “hot spots” that still litter the Vietnamese landscape. Their studies have measured the types and rates of cancers and the specific forms of birth defects. They know which foods absorb toxins and must be avoided. They have organized and participated in international conferences and symposiums to share their information with scientists around the world grappling with environmental poisoning. Special hospitals have been established for the care of children born without limbs and with severe health problems. Training and counseling are provided to parents.

Much more could be done in every field to prevent illnesses and speed the clean-up if the chemical companies that profited enormously from the war were made to pay compensation for the destruction they helped to cause.

Vietnamese victims sue chemical companies

In 2003 the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) was formed. According to U.S. law, the U.S. government cannot be sued for any crime it commits, as it claims “sovereign immunity.” So VAVA collected funds and gathered over 8 million signatures to support a lawsuit in U.S. courts against Agent Orange manufacturers, such as Dow, Monsanto and 35 other chemical companies that manufactured the herbicides for U.S. military use.

A determined group of lawyers in U.S. have spent years working with Vietnamese survivors on the suit against the chemical companies.

The lawsuit against U.S. corporations, filed on Jan. 31, 2004, in U.S. Federal District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., was dismissed one year later by District Court Judge Jack Weinstein, who ruled there was no legal basis for the Vietnamese plaintiffs’ claims. Weinstein had defended the U.S. veteran victims of Agent Orange.

The Vietnamese victims’ lawyers filed an appeal in the Second District Court of Appeals on Sept. 30, 2005. Oral arguments to reinstate the case, continue the civil suit and go forward with a trial will be held in Manhattan on Monday, June 18, 2007, at 1:00 p.m. in the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at 500 Pearl St. off Foley Square. Supporters plan to fill the court.

Solidarity with survivors

A campaign to greet a Vietnamese delegation of five Agent Orange survivors and to mobilize people to be in court to support the appeal has gathered national support. Activities during the week of June 11 through June 18 will organize solidarity for this continuing struggle.

A special meeting to greet the Vietnamese delegation will be held on Saturday, June 16, at 6:30 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center, 1199 SEIU, at 310 West 43rd St. in Manhattan. The event is organized by the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign. After the June 18 oral arguments, the Vietnamese delegation will speak in several other U.S. cities.

As part of this campaign to build support for the appeal to reinstate the civil suit, a group of anti-war, solidarity and community organizations are organizing a special screening of a remarkable new documentary film, “The Last Ghost of War,” at the Cantor Film Center at 36 East 8th St. at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, June 11.

The film, shot in Vietnam, France and the U.S., documents the largest chemical warfare operation in history, its impact on children and parents, and the continuing lawsuit. New York Newsday described this “must-see documentary” as a “powerful tool for starting a much-needed national conversation on Agent Orange.” The film’s producers, Pham Quoc Thai and Janet Gardner, will join the evening’s special program along with Constantine Kokkoris, a member of the legal team representing the Vietnamese plaintiffs, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and actor/writer/activist Vinie Burrows.