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Chicago
FreeSpeechZone
The War Abroad
and the War at Home April 22, 2006
http://www.chicagofreespeechzone.com/html/blood_debt.html
Ho Si Hai began serving as a truck driver for the People’s Army
of Vietnam in 1965. He was 31 at the time, and he had no choice
in the matter; North Vietnam had imposed universal military conscription
five years earlier.
Hai spent most of his time driving along what Americans call
the Ho Chi Minh trail – a network of dirt paths and gravel roads
connecting North Vietnam to South Vietnam through the jungles
of neighboring Laos and Cambodia. “When I first came to the trail,
I was surprised to see trees with no leaves,” Hai said through
a translator. “I thought it was because of the dry season. Then
I saw planes spraying chemicals on the forest.
The U.S. military began using herbicides in Vietnam in 1961 and
expanded the practice in the year Hai was conscripted. The official
goal of the program was to deny cover to the enemy by getting
rid of foliage. By the time the operation ended in October 1971,
Vietnam had been doused with 19.4 million gallons of chemicals.
About 60 percent of that consisted of a colorless, dioxin-laden
compound that was transported in barrels bearing orange labels
and came to be known as Agent Orange.
Tran Thi Thao, age 7. Mother: "Thao only lies in bed. She
can see and hear but not hold anything in her hand. She can
speak a little, but with great difficulty."
Today that name inspires fear, but Hai was oblivious to the forces
bearing down from the sky as he worked and essentially lived along
the Ho Chi Minh trail until 1969. During that time, he and his
fellow conscripts drank water and ate fish from local streams.
“Many times while we were having our meals, planes came over us
dropping the chemical spray,” he said. “Many comrades had diarrhea
and respiratory problems.”
After the war, Hai returned to his home village and married a
woman who had worked as an army communication assistant along
the trail. Their first two attempts to have children ended in
miscarriages; the third time around they had a baby girl. “We
thought we’d finally be able to have some happiness,” Hai said.
The girl died of cancer at the age of five.
The couple managed to have three other children. Two of them
are deaf and blind, and one is mentally impaired. Hai said other
children of villagers who were exposed to dioxin were born deformed
or with missing limbs. At age 61, he has diabetes, chronic hepatitis,
ulcers, enterolitis and prostate cancer; his wife has diabetes
and blood cancer.
Dang Nhut had a similar story to tell, albeit from a female point
of view. Nhut said she gave birth to a healthy son before being
heavily exposed to Agent Orange while fighting in Southeast Vietnam
in May 1965. She developed a skin rash, but the extent of the
damage didn’t become apparent until 1973, when she suffered two
miscarriages. In 1977 she was able to carry a child for five months;
it was stillborn and seriously deformed. She made another attempt
in 1980, miscarried again, and was advised by doctors to stop
trying.
Dang Nhut (right), translator Vu Binh
Nhut said her husband was also exposed to Agent Orange and died
in 1999 from intestinal cancer that metastasized to the lung and
the liver. She had part of her intestine removed due to a tumor
in 2002 and underwent surgery for thyroid cancer the following
year. But having lived to be 69, Nhut considers herself lucky.
“My health still allows me to come here to speak about my situation,
and to represent other victims who are living in even worse situations,”
Nhut told a standing room audience at Roosevelt University three
weeks ago. “It is an honor to be here speaking to you about our
experiences and stories, and [asking you to] help us fight for
justice and fairness.”
Hai and Nhut stopped by Chicago during a short U.S. tour intended
to drum up support for a class action lawsuit filed by the Vietnam
Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) against
the manufacturers and suppliers of the chemicals sprayed on Vietnam.
The suit was dismissed earlier this year by the Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals in New York. VAVA filed an appeal and launched
the survivors tour in an attempt to take its fight to the court
of public opinion.
VAVA Vice President Dr. Nguyen Nhan spearheaded the delegation.
A former Minister of Health and president of the Vietnam National
Red Cross, Dr. Nhan has conducted or commissioned several studies
on the effects of Agent Orange on the local population. The studies
showed that the rate of birth defects in Vietnam is much higher
than in other countries, Dr. Nhan said; they also showed that
the overall rate of health problems is higher in the areas where
chemicals where sprayed. “We found no discrepancy between the
effects on soldiers and civilians,” he added. U.S. authorities
don’t consider these studies valid.
VAVA has compiled a registry of about three million suspected
Agent Orange victims in Vietnam but may never be able to come
up with a definitive figure. “Thousands have died, and thousands
are still being born with defects,” Dr. Nhan said. The environmental
damage is also difficult to quantify. The chemicals destroyed
an estimated 3 million hectares of forest, according to Dr. Nhan.
Dioxin doesn’t dissolve in water and remains in the environment
longer than most toxics. “In many areas only grass grows,” Dr.
Nhan said. “Scientists estimate that reforestation in some areas
may take 100 years.”
Dr. Nguyen Nhan
Many Americans may find it difficult to empathize with former
enemy fighters, but Dr. Nhan pointed out that part of the tragedy
of dioxin is that the compound couldn’t distinguish between friend
or foe. The delegation was meant to include a third victim whose
visa was denied by immigration authorities: 22-year-old Nguyen
Muoi, who has spina bifida. His father was exposed to Agent Orange
while fighting in the South Vietnamese Army.
* * * * *
Dioxin, a catch-all term for hundreds of different chemicals,
became a household name in America during the 1970s. Many Vietnam
veterans who came down with cancers, neurological disorders and
other conditions were quick to place the blame on exposure to
defoliants during wartime.
But it wasn’t until 1991 that Congress passed the Agent Orange
Act, and the legislation only provided compensation for veterans
who were diagnosed with three conditions, including a type of
bone cancer and a rare form of blood cancer.
“As a nation at war, the U.S. government compelled a number of
companies to produce Agent Orange under the Defense Production
Act,” according to an Agent Orange background page on Dow’s Web
site. The page goes on to say, “War damages people, lives, and
the environment. Nations, and the militaries of nations, are responsible
for war. The U.S. government and the Vietnamese government are
responsible for military acts in Vietnam and the use of Agent
Orange as a defoliant.”
Kids’ ages: 12, 15, 17 and 22. Mother: “They can't speak and
can't walk, only Lam (left) a little bit. They can understand
what people say, crawl and they can see, but not clearly. They
can eat by themselves.”
In 1984, Dow and the other Agent Orange manufacturers reached
a $180 million settlement to end a class action lawsuit on behalf
of the 2.5 million Americans who served in Vietnam and their families.
“The manufacturers feel that in 1984 they took part in a good-faith
settlement aimed at healing and bringing closure to this issue,”
according to Dow’s Web site. “Any future issues involving Agent
Orange should be the responsibility of the respective governments
as a matter of political and social policy.” The page makes no
mention of the Vietnamese victims.
According to Dr. Nhan, the Vietnamese government tried to discuss
the effects of Agent Orange during the 1973 peace talks with the
Nixon administration and got nowhere. “We have tried to address
the issue through humanitarian channels,” he said, adding that
he personally brought up the issue with President Bill Clinton
during a visit to Hanoi in 2000 but failed to secure a commitment
to action.
After three decades of frustration, VAVA decided to try a new
tack, approaching American attorneys about the possibility of
a class action. A National Lawyer’s Guild team took up the cause
and filed suit on January 30, 2004, against the companies that
manufactured Agent Orange for the military between 1961 and 1971,
as well as their subsidiaries.
The suit was designed around the Alien Tort Claims Act and stated
that use of defoliants during the conflict in Vietnam violated
international law and constituted a war crime. The complaint sought
“many damages for personal injuries, wrongful death and birth
defects and … injunctive relief for environmental contamination
and disgorgement of profits” arising from “products liability-negligent
and intentional torts, civil conspiracy, public nuisance and unjust
enrichment.”
The unusual nature of the suit generated a significant amount
of publicity. The companies fought the litigation vigorously;
they argued, among other things, that the case violated the separation
of powers of the state, and that a victory by the plaintiffs would
infringe of the nation’s ability to wage war. The U.S. Department
of Justice submitted a brief supporting those claims.
Dao Duy Thanh, age 12. His father, who was in the People’s Army
of Vietnam for 5 years, died of blood cancer in 1998. Mother:
"Thanh can't speak and walk, only sit and lie down. He
can't eat by himself, can't understand people and has difficulty
in breathing. He can hear and see a little."
The case was tried by Judge Jack Weinstein, who oversaw the 1984
settlement on behalf of the American servicemen exposed to dioxin.
On March 10, 2005, he dismissed the VAVA lawsuit on the grounds
that although the chemicals sprayed on Vietnam were toxic, their
use didn’t qualify as chemical warfare and was thus not in violation
of international law.
VAVA quickly filed an appeal, and oral arguments are scheduled
to be heard in the week of April 10, 2006. “The decision by the
Brooklyn judge is irrational and prejudiced,” Dr. Nhan said. “The
corporations are rich, and Vietnam is poor. We continue our case
because we have confidence that there are people who believe in
justice and are fighting for justice in America.”
A national coalition of veterans, Vietnamese-Americans leaders
and activists of every stripe came together as the lawsuit was
underway. The coalition was formally launched on February 28,
2005, under the moniker Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility
Campaign. After the suit was dismissed, the coalition came up
with the idea of bringing dioxin survivors to the U.S. to share
their stories.
Merle Ratner, the campaign’s coordinator and a paralegal with
the New York Coalition for Peace and Justice, was the first speaker
on the Chicago leg of the tour. “This campaign started when Vietnam
veterans, veterans from other wars and people fighting for social
justice said, enough is enough,’” she said. “People my age and
older paid for that Agent Orange, and we are saying, ‘no, you
can’t do this with our money.’” She vowed that the campaign will
continue regardless of the outcome of the appeal. “It may take
street action, community organizing … this is not a symbolic campaign.
We intend to win it.”
Chicago is the home base of Vietnam Veterans Against the War
(VVAW), and during the rest of the event local veterans and the
Vietnamese delegation took turns sharing their thoughts and experiences.
“The real human cost has yet to be established on the country
the U.S. dumped all this crap on and walked away from,” said Bill
Davis, one of the national coordinators for VVAW. The use of defoliants
in Vietnam was “as bad as the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo,”
he went on, “and the fallout may be worse than Hiroshima.”
Davis, who served in Southeast Asia from 1968 to 1970 and is
also a chief steward for the International Association of Machinists,
let his labor colors fly as he criticized the nation’s leaders
for failing to acknowledge responsibility toward Vietnamese dioxin
victims. “The government’s idea of helping [Vietnam] is, ‘we’ll
bring our factories in, pollute some more, and exploit your people
for cheap labor,’” he said.
Vietnam veteran and GI counselor Ray Parrish presents Dr. Nhan
and Ho Si Hai (right) with VVAW tchotchkes.
Barry Romo, another VVAW national coordinator, took a more conciliatory
tone. He served as a platoon leader from 1967 to 1968 and labeled
this face-to-face meeting among people who once fought each other
as an opportunity for healing. “If more than 30 years after the
last shot was fired [Vietnam] still has babies born with birth
defects, women who can’t have children … what kind of war was
it?” Romo asked, trembling and struggling to control his emotions.
The four million Vietnamese who are believed to have died during
the war represent a “blood debt” America has yet to come to terms
with, Romo said. “This blood debt means that we owe the survivors
some time, some action,” he added, asking the audience to contribute
to the cash-strapped VAVA campaign and vowing to hold more events
to raise awareness of the issue.
Recalling a phone call he received a few days earlier from a
sobbing new widow, Romo pointed out that American Agent Orange
victims have yet to get their due. The woman said her husband
had been on full disability due to dioxin poisoning. “She asked
how to get [her] husband’s name on the wall in Washington. I told
her you can’t. Then she really started crying. I told her they
won’t recognize Agent Orange victims as casualties of war.”
Nick Egnatz, a VVAW member who wasn’t scheduled to speak, asked
for some time on the mike to share a recent startling realization.
“I never considered myself a [dioxin] victim in any way at all
until I got a call about this event,” he said. But after taking
some time to research the effects of the chemical, he began to
question whether there is a link between his service in Vietnam
and the fact that his wife had three miscarriages.
Nick Egnatz at the 2005 Bud Billiken parade
Egnatz managed to have nine children, so if he was touched by
Agent Orange the consequences were fairly minimal. But that won’t
keep him from taking up the Vietnamese victim’s cause. “We have
to pay all our debts,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot since this
summer to stop this insanity going on in Iraq, and now I’m going
to do a lot to stop this other insanity.”
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