Uncategorized Archives - VAORRC

On the Passing of VAORRC Founder Merle Ratner

Paul Cox — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 19:20:39 +0000

This is a reprint of the article in Vietnam News Agency’s announcement of the tragic death of one of VAORRC’s founders, Merle Ratner, February 5 in New York City:

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Vietnam’s US friend Merle Ratner dies in traffic accident aged 67

New York (VNA) – Merle Ratner, a renowned left-wing and anti-war activist in the US and a close friend of Vietnam, passed away February 5 evening in New York in a traffic accident.

Her husband Ngo Thanh Nhan, who is a professor at New York University, said that she was killed by a tow truck in the East Village while crossing the street near her house in Brooklyn.

Merle Evelyn Ratner, born in 1956 in New York City, has a special love for Vietnam. She took to the streets to protest against the Vietnam War when she was 13 years old and became famous for hanging anti-war slogans on the Statue of Liberty. She is a co-founder and coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) in the New York area.

Ratner actively participated in protests against the US war in Vietnam since the late 1960s, the anti-imperialist movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and anti-racism campaigns in America today.

After 1975, with a deep love for Vietnam, Ratner campaigned for the normalisation of Vietnam-US relations, and supported Vietnam’s international activities. She visited Vietnam many times, and engaged in joint work with mass organisations, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.

Ratner was awarded the “For the Development of Vietnamese Women” insignia in 2010 and the “For Vietnam Agent Orange Victims” insignia in 2013.

In an interview with Vietnam News Agency on February 1 in New York on the occasion of the 94th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Ratner once again emphasized the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as a decisive factor behind every achievement and success of Vietnam. She affirmed that the CPV is steadfast on the path to socialism, fighting for the values of socialism worldwide and that Vietnam will certainly succeed on its chosen path. — VNA

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AO/dioxin Contamination Cleanup in A Luoi

Paul Cox — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 19:32:33 +0000

Dioxin cleanup underway at US-built airport in central Vietnam

By Vo Thanh at VN Express

Soldiers and officers from the Ministry of National Defense’s Chemical Command remove dioxin from A So airport in the central Thua Thien-Hue Province, August 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Van An

The defense ministry’s Chemical Command is cleaning up A So airport in Thua Thien Hue Province of dioxin contamination left from the Vietnam War.

Situated in A Luoi District, 100 km from the town of Hue, the country’s imperial capital, the airport was built by the U.S. in the 1960s.

Between August 1965 and December 1970 A Luoi District was among the places where the U.S. sprayed Agent Orange most intensively.

From 1961 to 1971 the U.S. army made 19,905 sorties and sprayed 80 million liters of deadly chemicals over farmlands and forests in Vietnam.

Of this, 61 percent was Agent Orange, containing 366 kg of dioxin, a highly toxic defoliant that stays in the soil and at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations.

According to government data, around 11kg of dioxin was sprayed on A So airport.

It is estimated that the chemical has percolated 0.7 m into the soil and a total of 35,000 cubic meters of land at the airport is contaminated.

In 2020 the Chemical Command received approval for work to remove dioxin from the airport until 2022 at a cost of VND70 billion ($3 million).

Lieutenant Nguyen Phuong Minh, deputy head of the biology unit under the command’s Military Institute of Environmental Chemistry, said the process of removing dioxin has faced problems since the airport lies in a valley with many groundwater veins.

Besides, Covid-19 interrupted the work and the team is now pushing ahead with the task to meet the year-end deadline, he said.

Around 200 soldiers and officers are working now on the cleanup. Every day they take contaminated soil from the airport and get it treated using advanced biotechnology before bringing the clean soil back.

Nguyen Manh Hung, chairman of A Luoi District, which has 4,200 Agent Orange victims, said once the airport is free of dioxin, it would boost local economic development, especially agriculture.

Studies have shown that dioxin enters the food chain through meat, fish and other animals, and has been found in alarmingly high levels in human breast milk.

Some 2.1-4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other chemicals that have been linked to cancers, birth defects and other chronic diseases before the war ended in April 1975, according to the Red Cross.

Reprinted from:

The post AO/dioxin Contamination Cleanup in A Luoi appeared first on VAORRC.

Uncategorized Archives - VAORRC

On the Passing of VAORRC Founder Merle Ratner

Merle Ratner, a renowned left-wing and anti-war activist in the US and a close friend of Vietnam, passed away February 5 evening in New York in a traffic accident.

VNA Wednesday, February 07, 2024

AO/dioxin Contamination Cleanup in A Luoi

Dioxin cleanup underway at US-built airport in central Vietnam