From 1961 to 1971, the
U.S. military sprayed
Vietnam with Agent Orange, which
contained large quantities of Dioxin, in order to defoliate the trees for
military objectives. Dioxin is one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man.
It has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen (causes
cancer) and by the American Academy of Medicine as a teratogen (causes
birth defects).
Between 2.5 and 4.8 million
people were exposed to Agent Orange. 1.4 billion hectares of land and forest -
approximately 12 percent of the land area of Vietnam - were
sprayed.
The Vietnamese who were exposed
to the chemical have suffered from cancer, liver damage, pulmonary and heart
diseases, defects to reproductive capacity, and skin and nervous disorders.
Children and grandchildren of those exposed have severe physical deformities,
mental and physical disabilities, diseases, and shortened life spans. The
forests and jungles in large parts of southern Vietnam have
been devastated and denuded. They may never grow back and if they do, it will
take 50 to 200 years to regenerate. Animals that inhabited the forests and
jungles have become extinct, disrupting the communities that depended on them.
The rivers and underground water in some areas have also been contaminated.
Erosion and desertification will change the environment, contributing to the
warming of the planet and dislocation of crop and animal life.
The U.S. government
and the chemical companies knew that Agent Orange, when produced rapidly at high
temperatures, would contain large quantities of Dioxin. Nevertheless, the
chemical companies continued to produce it in this manner. The
U.S. government and the chemical
companies also knew that the Bionetics Study, commissioned by the government in
1963, showed that even low levels of Dioxin produced significant deformities in
unborn offspring of laboratory animals. But they suppressed that study and
continued to spray Vietnam with Agent Orange. It wasn't
until the study was leaked in 1969 that the spraying of Agent Orange was
discontinued.
U.S. soldiers who served in Vietnam have
experienced similar illnesses. After they sued the chemical companies, including
Dow and Monsanto, that manufactured and sold Agent Orange to the government, the
case settled out of court for $180 million which gave few plaintiffs more than a
few thousand dollars each. Later the U.S. veterans won a legislative
victory for compensation for exposure to Agent Orange. They receive $1.52
billion per year in benefits.
But when the Vietnamese victims
of Agent Orange sued the chemical companies in federal court, U.S. District
Judge Jack Weinstein dismissed the lawsuit, concluding that Agent Orange did not
constitute a poison weapon prohibited by the Hague Convention of 1907. Weinstein
had reportedly told the chemical companies when they settled the
U.S. veterans' suit that their
liability was over and he was making good on his promise. His dismissal was
affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court refused to
hear the case. The chemical companies admitted in their filing in the Supreme
Court that the harm alleged by the victims was foreseeable although not
intended. How can something that is foreseeable be unintended?
On May 15 and 16 of this year,
the International Peoples' Tribunal of Conscience in Support of the Vietnamese
Victims of Agent Orange convened in Paris and heard testimony from 27 victims,
witnesses and scientific experts. Seven people from three continents served as
judges of the Tribunal, which was sponsored by the International Association of
Democratic Lawyers (IADL).
Testimony given by the witnesses
showed the following:
Mai Giang Vu, a member of the
Army of South Vietnam, carried barrels of the chemicals on his back. His two
sons could not walk or function
normally, their limbs gradually "curled up" and they could only crawl. They died
at the ages of 23 and 25.
Pham The Minh, whose parents also
served in the South Vietnamese Army, showed the Tribunal his severely deformed,
crooked, skinny legs; he has great difficulty walking, as well as digestive and
pulmonary diseases.
To Nga Tran is a French
Vietnamese who worked as a journalist during the spraying. Her daughter weighed
6.6 pounds at the age of three months. Her skin began shredding and she could
not bear to have skin contact or simple demonstrations of love. She died at 17
months, weighing 6.6 pounds. Ms. To described a woman who gave birth to a "ball"
with no human form. Many children are born without brains; others make inhuman
sounds.
Rosemarie Hohn Mizo is the widow
of George Mizo, who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1967.
He slept on contaminated ground and consumed food and drink that were also
contaminated. George refused to serve after he was wounded for the third time;
he was court-martialed and sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison and a dishonorable
discharge. George helped found the Friendship Village where Vietnamese victims live in a
supportive environment. He died from conditions related to his exposure to Agent
Orange.
Georges Doussin, co-founder of
the Friendship
Village, visited a
dormitory where he saw 50 highly deformed "monsters," who produced inhuman
sounds. One man whose parent had been exposed to Agent Orange had four toes on
each foot. Doussin said Agent Orange creates "total anarchy in evolution."
Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, from
Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), sees many children born without arms and/or legs,
without heads or faces, and without a brain chamber. According to the World
Health Organization, only 1 - 4 parts per trillion (PPT) of Dioxin in breast
milk can cause severe deformities in fetuses and even death. But up to 1450 PPT
are found in maternal milk in Vietnam.
Dr. Jeanne Stellman, who wrote
the seminal article about Agent Orange in the magazine Nature, testified that "this is the
largest unstudied environmental disaster in the world (except for natural
disasters)."
Dr. Jean Grassman, from
Brooklyn
College at City University
of New York, testified that Dioxin is a potent cellular disregulator which
alters a variety of pathways to disrupt many systems. Children, she said, are
very sensitive to Dioxin; the intrauterine or post natal exposure to Dioxin may
result in altered immune, neurobehavioral, and hormonal functioning. Women pass
their exposure to their children both in utero and through the excretion of
Dioxin in breast milk.
Many ecosystems have been
destroyed and Dioxin continues to poison Vietnam, especially in the several
"hot spots."
Chemist Dr. Pierre Vermeulin
testified that it was estimated that $1 billion would be required to restore one
hectare of land in Vietnam. The cost of caring for the
victims, many of whom need 24-hour care, is enormous.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon
promised $3.25 billion in reconstruction aid to Vietnam
"without any preconditions." That aid was never granted.
There are only 11 Friendship
Villages in Vietnam; 1000 are needed to care for
the child victims of Agent Orange.
Last week, the Bureau of the
IADL, meeting in Hanoi, presented President Nguyen Minh
Triet
of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the final decision of the
Tribunal. The judges found the
U.S. government and the
chemical companies guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ecocide
during the illegal U.S. war
of aggression in Vietnam. We recommended that the
Agent Orange Commission be established in Vietnam to assess the damages suffered by the
people and destruction of the environment, and that the U.S. government
and the chemical companies provide compensation for the damage and
destruction.
I told the President that it
always struck me that even as U.S. bombs were dropping on the people of
Vietnam, they always distinguished
between the American government and the American people. The President responded, "We fought the
forces of aggression but we always reserved our love for the people of
America . . . because we knew they
always supported us."
An estimated 3 million Vietnamese
people were killed in the war, which also claimed 58,000 American lives. For
many other Vietnamese and U.S. veterans and their families, the
war continues to take its toll.
Several treaties the United
States has ratified require an effective remedy
for violations of human rights. It is time to make good on Nixon's promise and
remedy the terrible wrong the U.S. government perpetrated on the people of
Vietnam. Congress must pass
legislation to compensate the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange as it did for
the U.S. Vietnam veteran victims.
Our government must know that it
cannot continue to use weapons that target and harm civilians. Indeed, the
U.S. military is using
depleted uranium in Iraq and
Afghanistan, which will poison those
countries for incalculable decades.
