VAORRC: Our Mission

Why

In support of justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims, a national coalition of veterans, Vietnamese-Americans and other community leaders announces the formation of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign on February 28, 2005.

The U.S. government used Agent Orange, from 1962 to 1971, as part of their war in Vietnam. Agent Orange contains dioxin, one of the deadliest substances known, and continues to cause death and sickness to millions of Vietnamese and to many U.S. veterans of the Vietnam war. Now even more than 50 years after the war, Agent Orange remains in the land and water of Vietnam, causing horrific birth defects to several generation of children.

From 2005 through 2009, we supported the Vietnamese Agent Orange survivors and their representative, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) in their lawsuit against the U.S. chemical companies. Their lawsuit was an historic first effort by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange to achieve compensation from the manufacturers who profited from this chemical warfare.

The lawsuit failed in 2009 when the Supreme Court crushed it, but in 2011 and every Congress since then VAORRC has gotten support from, first Congresswoman Barbara Lee and now Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to put forward a series of bills that would force the US government to step up to its responsibilities for the damage done to the health of Vietnamese, Vietnam War veterans, Vietnamese Americans, and to the environment in Vietnam.

We call upon our government to meet its responsibility to compensate the more than three million Vietnamese people suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. The U.S. government has a moral and legal obligation to heal the wounds of war.

Our Campaign will continue until justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims is achieved by winning significant U.S. government compensation.