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

Merle Ratner, a close friend of Vietnam (Photo: VNA)

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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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.

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

Joining hands to soothe the pain caused by Agent Orange (AO) is not only a charitable or humanitarian deed but firstly an activity to express gratitude to revolution contributors and the sense of responsibility of each Vietnamese people.

Vietnam marks 61 years since the AO disaster on August 10 this year.

Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Rinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Victims of AO/Dioxin (VAVA), said the Party, State, and people have made wholehearted efforts with the highest sense of responsibility to care for revolution contributors, including those suffering from toxic chemicals in the resistance war and AO victims.

Many policies on the settlement of AO consequences have been carried out, he said, noting that the State has spent tens of trillions of VND each year on providing monthly allowances, health care, and functional rehabilitation for AO victims and aiding the AO-hit areas.

More than 320,000 people engaging in the resistance war and their children infected with AO are currently entitled to preferential policies for revolution contributors. Families of the disabled, including AO victims, have also benefited from health insurance or free medical services.

Hundreds of thousands of people with serious disabilities, including AO victims, have received orthopedic surgeries and functional rehabilitation while tens of thousands of children, including those suffering from indirect AO impacts, have been assisted to attend specialised schools.

Those policies have created favourable conditions for AO-infected persons who performed duties in the resistance war and residents in affected areas to have a stable life, Rinh went on.

In addition, VAVA has raised hundreds of billions of VND from domestic and foreign sources each year for helping AO victims build and repair houses, recover corporal functions, seek health examination and treatment, undergo vocational training, pursue learning, and develop livelihoods.

Since the VAVA establishment in January 2004, more than 2.66 trillion VND (nearly 113.7 million USD) has been donated to the Fund for AO Victims, he noted.

There are now 12 peace and friendship villages along with a number of nursing centres for disabled children, most of whom suffer from deformities caused by AO. The reproductive genetic counselling centres in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have also been working actively to reduce the rate of babies with birth defects. Some localities have also conducted psychological trauma surveys and provided mental health assistance for AO victims, he added.

Besides, VAVA has brought into play its role as the core force in fighting for justice for AO victims.

Rinh said the struggle for justice for Vietnamese victims of AO has been carried out in various forms and obtained significant outcomes.

In particular, since 2007, the US Congress has approved an annual budget for its country’s Government to help with the environmental remediation of dioxin contamination in Vietnam. The remediation was completed at Da Nang Airport in 2018 and then moved on to the Bien Hoa airbase.

The US Government also carried out a programme to support AO victims during 2016 – 2020 at a total cost of 21 million USD. Another programme worth 65 million USD for the 2021 – 2025 period is being promoted in some provinces hit hard by toxic chemicals during the war, the VAVA leader noted.
He expressed his belief that with assistance from all-level authorities, sectors, localities, domestic organisations and individuals, as well as international friends, the AO pain will be gradually eased, and more AO victims and their families will surmount difficulties to move forwards.

According to VAVA, the US army sprayed 80 million litres of toxic chemicals on the south of Vietnam between 1961 and 1971, with 61% being AO containing 366kg of dioxin, on over nearly 3.06 million hectares (equivalent to nearly one quarter of the south’s total area).

Preliminary statistics showed that 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to AO/dioxin, and about 3 million people became victims. Tens of thousands of people have died while millions of others have suffered from cancer and other incurable diseases as a result. Many of their offspring also suffer from birth deformities.

Q.Hoa t.h / VNA

The post Agent Orange Day 2022 Statement by Viet Nam Union of Friendship Organizations appeared first on VAORRC.

This is also the time to acknowledge the contributions of Tim Rieser, the Democratic Clerk for the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations.  He has worked for Senator Leahy since 1985 and can be credited with drafting many of the Senate’s best laws during that time, including the 1992 law that banned the use of land mines.  He helped secure funds to mitigate Agent Orange’s human and environmental damage and to eliminate the dangers of unexploded ordnance in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

In April 2019 Senator Leahy wrote a column about reconciliation with Viet Nam that included taking responsibility for the devastation caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides.  We are pleased to include that column here.

War Legacies and The Expanding U.S.-Vietnam Partnership

April 17, 2019

[Senator Leahy this week is heading an official bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation of nine senators to Vietnam and to the Korea DMZ, during the current Senate recess. On Wednesday Leahy and the delegation will take part in the official inauguration of a second Agent Orange remediation project in Vietnam. Leahy has led the congressional work in launching and funding the two remediation projects, which address one of the most difficult legacies of the Vietnam War. These Leahy-led projects have been key elements in helping to forge the strong new relationship between the United States and Vietnam.]

When I became a senator for Vermont in 1975, one of the first votes I cast was for a law to stop funding the war in Vietnam. That law passed by one vote. Many of us know people who served in the war. Some lost their lives. Others were grievously wounded. Words cannot adequately describe the magnitude of the catastrophe of that war for the people of both countries. Forty-four years later, we still struggle in our country with the remnants of the divisions in our society caused by the war, as do the people of Vietnam.

My involvement with post-war Vietnam began in 1989, when former President George H. W. Bush and I talked about the need for reconciliation with Vietnam – something that many Americans, including veterans, were calling for.  President Bush agreed to use what was later named the Leahy War Victims Fund to provide prosthetics and wheelchairs to Vietnamese who were disabled from landmines and other unexploded bombs. That assistance, which continues today, has enabled thousands of Vietnamese to regain their mobility, and their dignity.

Of course, others had been working on the MIA issue even earlier. That work helped bring closure to hundreds of American families. It was possible thanks to the help of the Government of Vietnam, at a time when Vietnam was struggling to recover from the war’s devastation.  For many years the United States has also helped locate and destroy the millions of landmines and other unexploded bombs that continue to maim and kill innocent Vietnamese. Fortunately, thanks to that effort, the number of casualties is far fewer today than it used to be. But more remains to be done.

Over the years I had many conversations with Vietnamese officials, before and after diplomatic relations were reestablished in 1995. No matter what the subject of those conversations was, the Vietnamese always brought up Agent Orange, and its effects on their people.

At the same time, American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and were suffering from cancers and other illnesses, were also seeking help from our government. In 1991 the Department of Veterans Affairs recognized those claims, but it wasn’t until another 15 years later that we began to address this issue in Vietnam.

We started at the Da Nang Airport, a former U.S. military base where Agent Orange, contaminated with dioxin, had been stockpiled. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) deserves great credit for undertaking and completing such a complex, difficult, and ultimately successful project to decontaminate 100,000 cubic meters of soil and sediment.   The Vietnamese Ministry of Defense worked closely with USAID to overcome many obstacles to complete the project, and in doing so they helped advance relations between our two countries to a higher level. Like the MIA and UXO issues before it, Agent Orange evolved from a subject of anger and resentment, to one of cooperation and appreciation.

For four decades, the Da Nang Airport was a health hazard to thousands of people living nearby. A little over a year ago, the APEC Summit was held there. Soon after that, a U.S. aircraft carrier docked at Da Nang, and sailors visited an orphanage for children who may have inherited their disabilities from parents or grandparents who were exposed to Agent Orange.

None of this would have happened were it not for the perseverance and cooperation of our two governments.  Throughout this period, USAID also expanded health and disability programs to seven Vietnamese provinces. They provide medical, rehabilitation, infrastructure, and social assistance to severely disabled Vietnamese in areas that were heavily sprayed with Agent Orange or contaminated with dioxin.

On April 17^th I will arrive in Vietnam for the third time, accompanied by 8 senators of both political parties. This time we will travel to the Bien Hoa Air Base near Ho Chi Minh City, which was the largest U.S. military base in Vietnam during the war.   Along with U.S. Embassy and Vietnamese officials, we will inaugurate the remediation project at Bien Hoa, the largest remaining hotspot of dioxin contamination. This will be one of the largest environmental remediation projects in the world.

At the same time, we will witness the signing of an agreement between the United States and Vietnam, spelling out a new 5-year commitment to support health and disabilities programs for persons with disabilities in provinces that were heavily sprayed with Agent Orange.

The benefits of this humanitarian cooperation have been far-reaching:

• It has reunited the remains of U.S. soldiers with their loved ones;
• It has enabled many people in Vietnam who lost their mobility to become mobile again;
• It has helped Vietnamese families and communities to care for the disabled;
• We are getting rid of the dioxin; and
• We have begun to help Vietnam identify the remains of Vietnamese MIAs.

Just as important, this cooperation has been the foundation of a growing partnership. While our two governments have disagreements on important issues, we share many interests: from increasing student exchanges, to expanding trade relations, to combating climate change.  Our partnership with the Ministry of Defense, and the active support and engagement of the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State in these humanitarian efforts, have opened up new opportunities for cooperation on regional security issues, today and in the future.

We cannot escape the fact that the war was a disaster for generations of Vietnamese and Americans. Each of us who lived through that period has our own memories, our own emotions, our own opinions.  For me, there can be no excusing the folly of that war, nor diminishing of the immense destruction and suffering that it caused.  But we can all be proud of the way our two countries have worked to overcome that tragic legacy. We have come a long way, and we have further to go.

[Patrick Leahy (D) is Vermont’s senior U.S. senator and is heading the official bipartisan delegation of nine senators that this week is visiting Vietnam and the DMZ in South Korea. He has led congressional work in launching and funding the Agent Orange remediation projects in Vietnam, as well as de-mining programs and help for landmine victims and other victims of war.]

The post Senator Patrick Leahy to Retire appeared first on VAORRC.

Demand Aid to American Veterans and Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange and their Descendants

Write your letter now at: actionnetwork.org/letters/co-sponsor-hr3518

This May, Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced HR 3518, the “Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act,” to urge the U.S. government to address the ongoing legacy of the Vietnam War and provide assistance for victims exposed to Agent Orange.

During the Vietnam War era from 1961 to 1971, millions of gallons of toxic herbicides were sprayed over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, exposing millions of people to Agent Orange. The dioxins present in Agent Orange continue to leave a legacy of death, deformity, and disability for generations, impacting the lives of Cambodian, Lao, and Vietnamese people, U.S. military veterans, and their children. Today, there are still dozens of environmental hot spots in Vietnam that continue to contaminate the food, soil, livestock, and wildlife.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes over a dozen illnesses caused by Agent Orange exposure, including heart disease, Parkinson’s, and cancers. Many descendants of those exposed suffer from severe birth defects, developmental disabilities, and other diseases.

HR 3518 calls on the U.S. government to provide adequate compensation to cover the health care needs of Agent Orange victims and their affected descendants as well as to conduct environmental remediation for heavily sprayed areas in Vietnam.

actionnetwork.org/letters/co-sponsor-hr3518

Full text of the bill here

The post Take action: Help American Veterans and Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange appeared first on VAORRC.

Sixty years ago, the United States sprayed approximately 19 million gallons of 15 different herbicides, collectively known as Agent Orange, over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Between 2.1 and 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed during the spraying and many more continue to be exposed through the environment. Agent Orange exposure continues to negatively affect the lives of men and women in Vietnam and in the United States. Agent Orange exposure is associated with cancers, immune deficiencies, reproductive illnesses, and severe birth defects in Vietnamese, American, and Vietnamese Americans directly exposed as well as their children and grandchildren.

Featured presenter: Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong

Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong is a leading physician/researcher on the effects of Agent Orange/dioxin on women and children in Viet Nam.  Dr. Phuong is a gynecologist/obstetrician, past chairwoman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacology.  Dr. Phuong has studied, researched, and published extensively on the deleterious effects of Agent Orange on the people of Viet Nam. During the war she personally witnessed the births of babies born with severe birth defects to mothers sprayed by the chemicals. Dr. Phuong chaired the Vietnam-US Friendship Association in Ho Chi Minh City and was on the executive board of the HCMC Association of Agent Orange Victims.

Take action today

On May 25, 2021 Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced H.R. 3518, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021, in the House of Representatives. “The United States has a moral responsibility to compensate the victims of the Agent Orange campaign. In the same way we are focused on beginning to repair the damage of systemic racism in the form of reparations, and the war on drugs with restorative justice, it is also our responsibility to try and atone for this disgraceful campaign during the Vietnam War.” We will discuss an overview of the use of Agent Orange/dioxin in southeast Asia, studies on the deleterious impact of the chemicals when sprayed directly on the Vietnamese and US troops, transgenerational harm on the children born to US soldiers and Vietnamese, including the VFP campaign on HR 3518.

The post VFP Workshop on Agent Orange: Lasting Legacy of The American War In Vietnam appeared first on VAORRC.

Merle Evelyn Ratner is an American activist born in New York city. She has been active in the anti-Vietnam War since she was 13 years old and is currently a founding Co-Coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign in the United States. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Agent Orange disaster in Vietnam (August 10, 1961 – August 10, 2021), she sent a message to those victims: “We are always with you”.

We had planned to continue all these activities but unfortunately the COVID pandemic has prevented us from bringing delegations to the US or attending activities that VAVA planned in Vietnam as well as gathering in public here. We continue to work for passage of the bill in Congress.

And we recently have been doing more educational work with the Lao and Cambodian communities to share experiences along meeting with Vietnamese Americans. We have very strong partners in the Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian communities because they understand the impact of Agent Orange both in their countries of origin and among their communities in the US.

Finally, while we are not mainly a fund-raising organization, we raise money and send it to VAVA for their projects to care for Agent Orange victims.

In your opinion, what do international communities need to do to support Vietnamese victims in the future?

Each country has a different relationship with Vietnam. The US government is the one responsible for the war, for the war crimes it committed including the use of chemical warfare, and for the harm this did to Vietnamese people and land. So, our movement in the US is particularly responsibility to force its government to meet its responsibility to heal the wounds of war, to provide comprehensive assistance to Vietnamese Agent Orange victims and to clean up the hot spots.

So, for us and for other countries that were allies of the US during the war, most important is political solidarity and political pressure on the US government and other Western governments to aid Agent Orange victims directly and to make sure the money gets to the victims in Vietnam.

This is connected to building people-to-people solidarity between each country and Vietnam including raising money to help the victims.

The other key area is to pressure the companies that manufactured and profited handsomely from Agent Orange. The biggest producers of Agent Orange are Dow Chemical and Monsanto. While the US government has been forced to give some amount of money, for cleaning up the hot spots and for the victims, Dow and Monsanto have given zero, nothing! They continue to deny their responsibility towards the victims and refuse to pay even a penny. An international corporate campaign against Dow and Monsanto is urgently needed to put economic pressure on them by use of boycotts and other means, to force them to meet their responsibility.

Could you please share your message for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims?

I would say to the Vietnamese Agent Orange victims that we are with you, we support you, we will never stop fighting for you and we will continue fighting for the US government to meet its responsibility to provide compensation to the victims and cleanup of the land of Vietnam!

I also want to say that many Vietnamese Agent Orange victims are strong, and they are fighting for justice! We really admire the Vietnamese Agent Orange victims who fight for themselves and their fellow victims, who came and testified in congress, who came and stood with us in the actions against Dow Chemical, who came and spoke to literally tens of thousands of American in our speaking tours. Many victims have in Vietnam have shown that victims can be students, teachers, writers, scientists, and they are overcoming obstacles and prejudice! The younger victims are becoming activists for justice and doing educational work with VAVA to end prejudice against people with Agent Orange and other disabilities.

So, I would say, we admire you, we respect you, we are with you! We will continue the work we are doing, we will build a strong relationship between your organizations, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/ Dioxin. We will continue to work together hand in hand, we’ll never be separated and we will build the work stronger, deeper, and more active. We will continue to work in the international movement, to support the work that VAVA is doing, to build international solidarity and support the Agent Orange victims.

Thank you very much!

The post We Are Always With You – Victims of Agent Orange appeared first on VAORRC.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, but Vietnamese people today continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange, the deadly dioxin-containing chemical weapon that the U.S. sprayed over 12 percent of South Vietnam from 1961-1971, poisoning both the people and the land.

Descendants of the approximately 2 to 4 million Vietnamese people, hundreds of thousands of U.S. Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese-Americans who were exposed to the toxin continue to record disproportionate rates of congenital disabilities and higher rates of many diseases.

U.S. veterans receive some compensation from the U.S. government, but very little assistance has been given to the Vietnamese people, the intended victims of the defoliant Agent Orange.

Thus, on May 25, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) introduced H.R. 3518, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021, in the House of Representatives. The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign, for which I serve as co-coordinator, assisted Lee in drafting the bill.

“The United States has a moral responsibility to compensate the victims of the Agent Orange campaign,” Lee told Truthout. “In the same way we are focused on beginning to repair the damage of systemic racism in the form of reparations, and the war on drugs with restorative justice, it is also our responsibility to try and atone for this disgraceful campaign during the Vietnam War.”

Lee noted, “The United States has contributed more than $125 million over the last 30 years in assistance through USAID for persons with significant disabilities, regardless of cause, in areas heavily sprayed with Agent Orange. This project is part of the U.S. government’s efforts to address legacies from U.S.-Vietnam War.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) recognizes 15 diseases and illnesses as associated with the spraying and use of Agent Orange by the U.S. Armed Forces during the Vietnam era. These maladies are AL amyloidosis, chronic B-cell leukemias, chloracne, diabetes mellitus type 2, Hodgkin’s disease, ischemic heart disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, acute and subacute peripheral neuropathy, porphyria cutanea tarda, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers and soft-tissue sarcomas.

Although the DVA provides some (albeit insufficient) compensation for 20 severe congenital disabilities in children of female U.S. veterans who served in Vietnam, the only congenital condition recognized for children of male U.S. veterans is spina bifida.

But no assistance has been provided to the children of Vietnamese or Vietnamese Americans associated with their exposure, or their parents’ or grandparents’ exposure, to Agent Orange.

Lee said H.R. 3518 “would expand benefits to children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange; expand research on Agent Orange and its effects on the health of exposed individuals; and provide medical, housing and poverty reduction assistance to Vietnamese individuals affected by exposure as well as their children,” adding, “It would also provide environmental remediation for areas in Vietnam exposed to Agent Orange and conduct a needs assessment on the Vietnamese American community.”

In addition, Lee observed, the bill would “provide grants that fund a broad health assessment for Vietnamese Americans who may have been exposed to Agent Orange as well as their children and descendants.” H.R. 3518 requires the establishment of “centers that provide ‘assessment, counseling, and treatment for conditions related to exposure to Agent Orange’ in areas with large Vietnamese-American populations,” Lee said.

In the current moment, advocates for Lee’s bill are urging those who support it to contact their congressional representatives and ask them to sign on to H.R. 3518 as a co-sponsor.

French Court Dismisses Agent Orange Lawsuit

Two weeks before the introduction of Lee’s bill, a French court dismissed a lawsuit that Tran To Nga, a French-Vietnamese victim of Agent Orange, filed in 2015 against 14 chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, that produced and sold Agent Orange. The court in Evry, France, ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because the companies acted “on the orders” of the U.S. government which was involved in a “sovereign act.”

Working in Vietnam as a war correspondent in 1966, Tran and others with her were enveloped by the U.S. government’s spraying of the chemicals. “I saw a plane pass with a cloud behind it. And then my whole body was drenched in a sticky powder, and I started coughing and coughing. I didn’t know that this powder that had just covered me was a poison,” Tran says in the new documentary, The People vs. Agent Orange, directed by Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna and scheduled to air on PBS on June 28.

Tran’s first daughter weighed 6.6 pounds at the age of three months. Shortly after birth, her daughter’s skin began shedding. The baby could not bear to have any skin contact or simple demonstrations of affection, Tran testified in 2009 before the International People’s Tribunal of Conscience in Support of the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange. The child still weighed 6.6 pounds when she died at 17 months. Tran’s second daughter still suffers from alpha thalassima, a genetic blood disease rarely found in Asia. Tran herself has type 2 diabetes, tuberculosis and cancer.

“For forty years, I carried within me this guilt of being a bad mother who did not know how to protect her children, or worse, who sowed misfortune to her offspring,” Tran told Truthout in an email. It wasn’t until 2008 when Tran visited Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange that she made the connection between her toxic exposure and the illnesses she and her daughters have endured.

Tran decided to sue the U.S. companies “because all the other victims no longer have the opportunity to do so. If I don’t,” she added, “the [Agent Orange] drama would be unknown for a long time to come and the crime of the greatest chemical war against humanity still goes unpunished. Above all, millions of dioxin victims would never have any assistance to be able to live with dignity during their already too miserable and painful lives.”

Tran’s lawyer, William Bourdon, who is appealing the judge’s ruling, said the court applied an obsolete definition of sovereign immunity that did not comply with international and French law. “I am disappointed, I am angry, but I am not sad,” Tran said at a news conference. “We are going to carry on because our cause is just. Truth is on our side.”

U.S. Chemical Companies Committed “Ecocide”

Tran’s lawsuit alleges that the U.S. chemical companies committed “ecocide” because Agent Orange destroyed the environment of Vietnam. The 2009 Paris tribunal, which heard testimony from 27 victims, witnesses and scientific experts, made a finding of “ecocide.” The seven judges from three continents, including me, concluded, “The damages caused to the land and forests, water supply, and communities and the ecosystems can be legitimately be called an ecocide, as the forests and jungles in large parts of southern Vietnam have been devastated and denuded, and may either never grow back or take 50 to 200 years to regenerate.”

Today, dozens of environmental hotspots continue to contaminate the soil, food, sediment, wildlife and livestock in Vietnam with dioxin. In 2017, the United States assisted in cleaning up the Agent Orange contamination at the largest hotspot at the Da Nang Airport. In addition, the United States has pledged $30 million a year for 10 years toward the cleanup of the hotspot at Bien Hoa, but the total cost may exceed $1 billion. And there are several other smaller hotspots throughout Vietnam that must also be cleaned up as they continue to expose the people there to dioxin and arsenic.

Lee told Truthout she is “proud that, at the request of the Vietnam government, the U.S. cleaned up Danang Airport and reduced the risk of dioxin exposure to the surrounding community. Now, we are working together on dioxin remediation at Bien Hoa Airbase, which is the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam.” Lee noted, “USAID has agreed to provide an initial five-year, $183 million contribution to this project. The bill provides for additional cleanup in areas that were heavily sprayed, such as areas that served as military bases and sites of aircraft crashes, and I will continue to ensure that U.S. assistance is provided for the Bien Hoa Airbase clean up.”

But the Chemical Companies Get Off Scot-Free

In 1979, U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War sued the U.S. government and the chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, for compensation resulting from their exposure to Agent Orange. The case settled out of court in 1984 for $180 million which gave a few of the plaintiffs a few thousand dollars each. Later, U.S. veterans won a legislative victory for compensation and they receive several billion dollars per year in benefits.

Vietnamese victims filed a lawsuit in 2004 against the chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange. In 2008, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, who had also presided over the U.S. veterans’ lawsuit, dismissed the case brought by the Vietnamese people, concluding that Agent Orange did not constitute a poison weapon prohibited by the Hague Convention of 1907. Weinstein had reportedly told the chemical companies when they settled the U.S. veterans’ suit that their liability was over and he apparently made good on his promise. His 2008 dismissal was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In the film The People vs. Agent Orange, Weinstein says that the veterans’ case “was not settled on any scientific basis. It was settled on a political basis … The moment it was settled, [the chemical companies’] stock went up.”

U.S. veterans who continue to suffer Agent Orange related diseases were exposed to, but were not the intended victims of, the deadly chemicals. Nonetheless, the U.S. government is paying for their compensation when private companies that manufactured the chemicals, which they knew to contain deadly dioxin, have not paid the price for allowing the United States to use those chemicals in the first place. Moreover, those companies profited from their sales of Agent Orange to the government.

The post Barbara Lee Introduces Bill to Help Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange appeared first on VAORRC.

Hosted by World Beyond War and presented by VAORRC, this webinar, Agent Orange: Lasting Legacy of the Vietnam War, informs us about ongoing effects of herbicide used in Vietnam. The damage to to the environment in Vietnam is still widespread. In addition, the damage to the health of those exposed is an ongoing public-health disaster for Vietnamese, US veterans and their children and for Vietnamese Americans. Please take the time to learn about this legacy of war.

The post VAORRC Agent Orange Webinar hosted by World Beyond War appeared first on VAORRC.

Whereas it is estimated that between 1961 and 1971, approximately 77 million litres of herbicides, including 49.3 million litres of Agent Orange containing more than 360 kilograms of dioxin‐contaminated defoliants, were sprayed multiple times over 5.5 million acres in South Vietnam;

Whereas, the United States government, in violation of international law, waged this massive chemical warfare on Vietnam;

Whereas, chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, knew of the terrible dangers to humans related to dioxin and could have eliminated it from Agent Orange, but did not do so because it would have required additional costs; and maximizing profits came before human suffering and lives;

Whereas, dioxins are known to be risk factors for cancer, immune deficiency, reproductive and developmental disorders, and central nervous system and peripheral nervous system effects;

Whereas studies conducted by the international scientific community have shown the association between exposure to herbicides and health outcomes, including cancer, reproductive illnesses, immune deficiency, endocrine deficiencies, nervous system damage and other ill effects and developmental disabilities in children;

Whereas several generations of children who were born after the Vietnam war to parents exposed to Agent Orange during that war are now suffering from serious physical and mental disabilities that require medical, vocational, educational and other social services;

Whereas residues from herbicides that were transported, loaded, and stored at or near U.S. Air Force bases in Vietnam, and the spraying of Agent Orange by helicopters, backpacks, and Naval spraying in other locations have led to the contamination of the environment and food in the surrounding areas, resulting in exposure to herbicides by civilians that continues today;

Whereas the Vietnam Agent Relief and Responsibility Campaign is leading a national and international campaign to hold the U.S. government and those involved chemical companies accountable for the death and destruction of both humans and environment and to secure justice for Agent Orange victims;

Therefore Be It Resolved That, in support of the Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, we (name of organization) demand that:

• U.S. Congress appropriate funds to provide health care services, education, social services, chronic care, home care, medical equipment, support for family and other services as they may arise to the more than 3 million Vietnamese people hurt by Agent Orange, including second and third generations as well as to American veterans and their children and grandchildren and to Vietnamese Americans;

• Those involved chemical companies assume their responsibility and allocate a significant amount of money from the profit of Agent Orange/dioxin to make a significant contribution to meet the needs of the victims of Agent Orange;

• Both the U.S. government and involved chemical companies be responsible to remediate and or attempt to clean up those areas in Vietnam that continue to contain high levels of dioxin.

Submitted by ________ on _____ (date) ______. Approved by ___________ on ____ (date) ____
Name, address and contacts of the organization.

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