Proclamation
City and County of San Francisco

by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

October 30, 2008

Proclamation
City and County of San Francisco

Whereas, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange is a delegation of Vietnamese women touring ten major Cities in the United States who are coming to the City and County of San Francisco to seek support and justice for the Vietnamese and all victims of Agent Orange including three million Vietnamese people, their families and their nation as well as the more than 58,000 US soldiers killed in the Vietnam War; and

Whereas, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange delegation is headed by Dang Hong Nhut, who suffers from cancer and has experienced multiple miscarriages and Tran Thi Hoan, a 21 year old college student born without one hand and both legs due to her mother's exposure to Agent Orange and both have been diagnosed with life threatening and disabling conditions creating severe and life-long hardship for themselves and their families; and

Whereas, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange, on October 6, 2008, petitioned the US Supreme Court to reconsider a lawsuit against chemical manufacturers of Agent Orange, a defoliant used in Vietnam as a mechanism of war which was contaminated with highly toxic dioxin, a byproduct of the manufacturing of Agent Orange which Dow Chemical, Monsanto and 35 other chemical manufacturers were aware of as early as 1965;

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors honors and remembers the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange, acknowledges the human suffering of the victims and survivors; recognizes the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, a project supported locally by the Bob Basker Post 315 of the American Legion and the Veterans For Peace, San Francisco Chapter 69, commends them for supporting and promoting these efforts as they continue to implore all nations to use all diplomatic and preventive efforts to cease the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction, and hereby proclaims October 30, 2008 as the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange day in San Francisco.

[signed]
SUPERVISOR ROSS MIRKARIMI
October 30, 2008