Agent Orange Deforming a Third Generation in Vietnam

Long after the last bullet has been fired in a war, unexploded bombs, landmines and toxic chemicals continue to maim and kill civilians. This is particularly true of the Vietnam war. Three decades after US soldiers and diplomats scrambled aboard the last planes out of Saigon in April 1975, the toxins they left behind still poison Vietnam. Relations with the United States have been normalized since the 1990s, but the denial of justice to the victims of Agent Orange remains a major bone of contention.

Not only are Vietnamese still maimed from treading on unexploded bombs, they are also victims of this insidious scourge that poisons water and food supplies, causing various cancers and crippling deformities. Eighty million liters of Agent Orange were sprayed on the jungles of Vietnam, destroying swathes of irreplaceable rainforest through massive defoliation and leaving a toxic trail of dioxin contamination in the soil for decades. The legacy of this chemical warfare can even be inflicted on the unborn, with Agent Orange birth deformities now being passed on to a third generation.

In the 3,160 villages in the southern part of Vietnam within the Agent Orange spraying zone, 800,000 people continue to suffer serious health problems and are in need of constant medical attention. Last month, members of a US Vietnamese working group reported that it will cost at least $14 million to remove dioxin residues from just one site around the former US airbase in Danang. The cost of a comprehensive clean-up around three dioxin hot spots and former US bases is estimated at around $60 million. The $3 million pledged by US Congress last year is a pathetically inadequate amount set against the billions spent in waging war and deploying weapons of mass destruction.

The recent study of one Agent Orange hot spot, the former US airbase in Danang, found dioxin levels 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits. The study confirmed that rainwater had carried dioxin into city drains and into a neighboring community that is home to more than 100,000 people.

Dr Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the US, sampled the soil around former US airbase in Bien Hoa in 2003 and found dioxin levels that were 180 times above the safe level set by the US environmental protection agency. The US government was aware of these findings (pdf) back in 2003.

The US government's Veterans Administration officially recognizes 13 medical conditions linked to Agent Orange and provides free medical treatment to US soldiers who can prove their exposure to the herbicide. But Washington has adamantly denied all responsibility and evaded any kind of accountability for the estimated four million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians who suffered far greater exposure to the dioxin than the US war veterans.

In February 2004, the Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) filed a class action law suit in a New York court, against Monsanto, Dow Chemicals and 35 other manufacturers of the herbicides deployed in Vietnam. The plaintiffs and their lawyers deliberately chose the very same court that had presided over the only previous lawsuit brought against Agent Orange manufacturers, by US war veterans.

The original lawsuit was settled in 1984, when seven American chemical companies paid out $180 million to 291,000 US citizens over a period of 12 years. The out-of-court settlement was linked to a let-out clause for the chemical companies that refused to accept liability, claiming the science did not prove that Agent Orange was the cause of a diverse range of cancers, autoimmune diseases and birth deformities. In 2005, a US court predictably rejected the Vietnamese claim for massive compensation in respect of war crimes and crimes against humanity inflicted on the civilian population. It is still being appealed in the US courts.