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Cartoonist:
Khalil Bendib |
Tran Anh Kiet's feet, hands and limbs are
twisted and deformed. He is 21 years old, but trapped
inside a body that appears to belong to a 15 year old
with a mental age of around six. He has to be spoon-fed
and writhes often in evident frustration. All his
attempts at speech are confined to plaintive and pitiful
grunts.
In Kiet's small community in Cu Chi
district, about 45 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh city,
south Vietnam, his story is all too common - indeed the
villagers have a name for young people like him: Agent
Orange babies.
Some 79 million liters of Agent
Orange herbicides were dropped on the jungles of Vietnam
from 1961-1971 in an attempt to defoliate the rainforest
and deny any cover for the VietCong guerilla forces
resisting the United States occupation of
Vietnam.
Today in Vietnam there are 150,000 other
children like Kiet, whose parents allege their birth
defects are the result of exposure to Agent Orange
during the war, or the consumption of
dioxin-contaminated food and water since
1975.
The Vietnamese government estimates that
three million Vietnamese were exposed to these chemicals
during the war, and that at least 800,000 suffer serious
health problems today as a result.
In February
2004, the newly -formed Vietnamese Association of
Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) filed a class action law
suit in a New York court, against Monsanto and 36 other
manufacturers of the poisonous chemical.
The
plaintiffs and their lawyers deliberately chose the very
same court that had previously presided over the only
previous lawsuit brought against Agent Orange
manufacturers, by US war veterans. Indeed, the same
judge - Jack Weinstein - is currently hearing pre-trail
arguments in the case.
The original lawsuit was
settled in 1984, when seven American chemical companies
paid out $180 million to 291,000 people over a period of
12 years. The settlement was reached after Weinstein
persuaded the companies to buy themselves out of
protracted litigation. But the chemical companies
refused to accept liability, as part of the settlement,
claiming the science still does not prove that Agent
Orange was responsible for any of the medical horrors
its name has long brought to mind.
Babies with
two heads
The first generation of victims
were the war veterans and farmers, who lived off land
exposed to the chemical clouds during the war. The
second generation of victims were their sons and
daughters, and today their children, the third
generation, are also suffering similar health problems
as their parents and grandparents.
Inside the Tu
Du hospital in Saigon, grotesque birth defects - babies
born with two heads, other with short stumps in place of
arms or legs - are a routine sight. Dr Nguyen Thi Phuong
Tan, the specialist in coping with the new-born victims
also keeps a padlocked room of well-preserved horrors -
jars of deformed fetuses that never made it as
evidence.
"You can't imagine the state of these
children in Can Gie district, they can't speak, they are
paralyzed, they have only the life of a vegetable," says
Nguyen Phuoc Hoang, a researcher who used to work for
the Environment Committee of Ho Chi Minh
city.
The third generation of casualties includes
those who live in the vicinity of former US military
bases such as Bien Hoa. Agent Orange was stored in large
quantities on these military bases.
Dr Arnold
Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in
the US, sampled the soil there in 2003,and found it to
contained dioxin levels that were 180 million times
above the safe level set by the US environmental
protection agency. It is known as one of some 30
hotspots an environmental disaster area in urgent need
of decontamination. Yet almost 30 years after the war
nothing has been done about it.
More compelling
scientific evidence was unearthed by a five year study
conducted in the late-1990s by a Canadian environmental
firm, Hatfield Consultants, working in collaboration
with Vietnamese scientists that focused international
attention on the extent of the
contamination.
Hatfield took extensive samples
from soil, water, animals, and people, and tested for
minute concentrations of the active poisons in Agent
Orange near the Ho Chi Minh Trail just south of Quang
Tri province, in the A Luoi valley.In 2002 the results
were made public. The researchers found "a consistent
pattern of food-chain contamination by Agent Orange
dioxin...in the air base area, which included soils,
fishpond sediment, cultured fish, ducks, and
humans."
Adding Insult to Injury
In June
2001 Monsanto was accused by farmers of Ninh Thuan
province of pressuring them to use genetically
modified seeds that resulted in corn and maize
crop failures and economic ruin.
Monsanto
representatives responded with demands and threats
urging the authorities to take action against by
the state-run Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper (The New
Worker) in Saigon, which printed a story about the
farmers complaints, based on research done by
social scientist Bui Dac Hai.
Agent Orange
activists were outraged that Monsanto had returned
to haunt Vietnam. Former wartime ambassador Madame
Nguyen Ngoc Dung, told CorpWatch: "We have
strongly criticized officials responsible for
granting a license" (to Monsanto).
The
activists say that Monsanto has been assiduously
cultivating technocrats inside the ministries of
trade, investment and planning, who prefer to put
the war totally behind them and believe that any
campaign over Agent Orange undermines good trading
relations with the US, and is therefore bad for
business.
Another faction of government
officials, which includes including prime minister
Pham Van Khai, backed by the war veterans argue
that economic concerns must be tempered with
humanitarian respect for the victims and that
Monsanto should be held accountable for their
suffering.
The success of the Agent Orange
victims campaign has caused major differences
between the two factions. One communist party
intellectual says he believes that "the
humanitarian faction in the party is gaining
momentum and the chances of driving Monsanto out
of Ho Chi Minh city are improving."
A
Monsanto spokesperson told CorpWatch that the
company has been selling four varieties of hybrid
corn seed since 1995 in addition to herbicides
including Roundup and Lasso brands but that
"Monsanto has no biotechnology crops on the market
there." | Campaign picks up
steam
The Agent Orange cause has been picking
up steam in the last few years. Vietnam Red Cross had
launched a humanitarian appeal in 1998 for special
support for its Agent Orange Fund. In January 2004 a
activist campaign was launched in Hanoi with the setting
up of Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange.
Another
recently-formed non-profit, the Peace and Development
Foundation, headed by former foreign minister of South
Vietnam, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, is part of a highly
successful campaign to mobilize people at home and
abroad in support of Vietnamese lawsuit and the victims
demand for justice and compensation.
Vietnam
Television has just broadcast a new documentary on the
subject. The government has set aside August 10th as an
official commemoration 'Agent Orange Day' in support of
the victims. (August 10th 1961 was the date that the
very first cargo of Agent Orange defoliant was dropped
on the forest around Kontum in the Central highlands).
On September 10th 2004, Thanh Nien newspaper reported
the foreign ministry had expressed support for the Agent
Orange plaintiffs.
No such gesture has been made
on the other side of the Pacific, despite pleas for
support. When President Bill Clinton visited Hanoi four
years ago, Vietnamese president Tran Duc Long made an
appeal to the US 'to acknowledge its responsibility to
de-mine, de-toxify former military bases and provide
assistance to Agent Orange victims." Almost 30 years
after the war no such acknowledgement has been made -
all Washington has offered is funding for scientific
conferences and further research.
Former director
of Vietnam Red Cross,Dr Nguyen Trong Nhan a tireless
campaigner and vice-president of the the Agent Orange
Victims Association) is sadly disappointed by the US
response to the humanitarian crisis that Vietnam is
facing. "Vietnam can't solve the problem on its own.
Hanoi helped the US military to track down remains of
MIAs (Missing in Action),and we asked them to
reciprocate with humanitarian aid for victims of Agent
Orange," he says.
Companies
respond
Jill Montgomery, a spokesperson for
Monsanto, responded to a request for comment from
CorpWatch by email: "There were seven manufacturers who
were required to make Agent Orange at the specific
request of the US government for military use.
Production ended more than 30 years ago. The government
of Vietnam resolved its claims as part of the treaties
that ended the war and normalized relations with the
United States."
"We are sympathetic with people
who believe they have been injured and understand their
concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific
evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of
serious long-term health effects."
Co-defendant
Dow Chemical, Monsanto's parent company, has also issued
a statement that reads: "We believe that it is the role
of the US government and the government of Vietnam to
resolve any issues related to wartime
activities."
But Tran Anh Loi ,the father of
Agent Orange victim Tran Anh Kiet, says: "Monsanto must
pay compensation for their crimes. They have caused this
tragedy. I think the government should raise their voice
and make the payment a condition before Monsanto can do
business in Vietnam.¨
"American victims of the
Agent Orange will get up to $1500 a month. However most
war veterans and Vietnamese families have only received
around 85,000 Dong a month (just over $5) in government
support for each disabled child. However in response to
the public campaign, Hanoi has increased compensation
benefits in July to 300,000 Dong a month (nearly $20 a
month)."
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