Chemical Warfare: Agent Orange in Vietnam
AUGUST 10, 2012, AT NOON: 51 YEARS AFTER THE CHEMICAL WAR
BEGAN IN VIETNAM, WE SHOULD BE SILENT IN MEMORY, THEN TAKE ACTION TO
REMEDY
To take action go to http://www.vn-agentorange.org/
There are images from the U.S. War against Vietnam that have been
indelibly imprinted on the minds of Americans who lived through it. One
is the naked napalm-burned girl running from her village with flesh
hanging off her body. Another is a photo of the piles of bodies from the
My Lai massacre, where U.S. troops executed 504 civilians in a small
village. Then there is the photograph of the silent scream of a woman
student leaning over the body of her dead friend at Kent State
University whose only crime was protesting the bombing of Cambodia in
1970. Finally, there is the memory of decorated members of Vietnam
Veterans Against the War testifying at the Winter Soldier Hearings,
often in tears, to atrocities in which they had participated during the
war.
These pictures are heartbreaking. They expose the horrors of war. The
U.S. War against Vietnam was televised, while images of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq have intentionally been hidden from us. But what
was not televised was the relentless ten years (1961-1971) of spraying
millions of gallons of toxic herbicides over vast areas of South
Vietnam. These chemicals exposed almost 5 million people, mostly
civilians, to deadly consequences. The toxic herbicides, most notably
Agent Orange, contained dioxin, one of the most dangerous chemicals
known to man. It has been recognized by the World Health Organization as
a carcinogen (causes cancer) and by the American Academy of Medicine as
a teratogen (causes birth defects).
From the beginning of the spraying 51 years ago, until today,
millions of Vietnamese have died from, or been completely incapacitated
by, diseases which the U. S. government recognizes are related to Agent
Orange for purposes of granting compensation to Vietnam Veterans in the
United States. The Vietnamese, who were the intended victims of this
spraying, experienced the most intense, horrible impact on human health
and environmental devastation. Second and third generations of children,
born to parents exposed during the war and in areas of heavy spraying —
un-remediated “hot spots” of dioxin contamination, — suffer unspeakable
deformities that medical authorities attribute to the dioxin in Agent
Orange.
The Vietnamese exposed to the chemical suffer from cancer, liver
damage, pulmonary and heart diseases, defects to reproductive capacity,
and skin and nervous disorders. Their children and grandchildren have
severe physical deformities, mental and physical disabilities, diseases,
and shortened life spans. The forests and jungles in large parts of
southern Vietnam were devastated and denuded. Centuries-old habitat was
destroyed, and will not regenerate with the same diversity for hundreds
of years. Animals that inhabited the forests and jungles are threatened
with extinction, disrupting the communities that depended on them. The
rivers and underground water in some areas have also been contaminated.
Erosion and desertification will change the environment, causing
dislocation of crop and animal life.
For the past 51 years, the Vietnamese people have been attempting to
address this legacy of war by trying to get the United States and the
chemical companies to accept responsibility for this ongoing nightmare.
An unsuccessful legal action by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange
against the chemical companies in U.S. federal court, begun in 2004, has
nonetheless spawned a movement to hold the United States accountable
for using such dangerous chemicals on civilian populations. The movement
has resulted in pending legislation HR 2634 – The Victims of Agent
Orange Relief Act of 2011, which attempts to provide medical,
rehabilitative and social service compensation to the Vietnamese victims
of Agent Orange, remediation of dioxin-contaminated “hot spots,” and
medical services for the children and grandchildren of U. S. Vietnam
veterans and Vietnamese-Americans who have been born with the same
diseases and deformities.
Using weapons of war on civilian populations violates the laws of
war, which recognize the principle of distinction between military and
civilian objects, requiring armies to avoid civilian targets. These laws
of war are enshrined in the Hague Convention and the Nuremberg
principles, and are codified in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the
Optional Protocol of 1977, as well as the International Criminal Court
statute. The aerial bombardments of civilian population centers in World
Wars I and II violated the principle of distinction, as did the
detonation of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and
August 9 of 1945. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were killed
in an instant, even though Japan was already negotiating the terms of
surrender.
The use of Agent Orange on civilian populations violated the laws of
war and yet no one has been held to account. Taxpayers pick up the tab
of the Agent Orange Compensation fund for the U. S. Veterans at a cost
of 1.52 billion dollars a year. The chemical companies, most
specifically Dow and Monsanto, which profited from the manufacture of
Agent Orange, paid a pittance to settle the veterans’ lawsuit to
compensate them, as the unintended victims, for their Agent Orange
related illnesses. But the Vietnamese continue to suffer from these
violations with almost no recognition, as do the offspring of Agent
Orange-exposed U.S. veterans and Vietnamese-Americans.
What is the difference between super powers like the United States
violating the laws of war with impunity and the reports of killing of
Syrian civilians by both sides in the current civil war? Does the United
States have any credibility to demand governments and non-state actors
end the killings of civilians, when through wars and drones and its
refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the use of Agent Orange, the
United States has and is engaging in the very conduct it publicly
deplores?
In 1945, at the founding conference of the United Nations, the countries of the world determined:
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of
nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the
obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law
can be maintained, andto promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
If we are to avoid sinking once again into the scourge of war, we
must reaffirm the principles of the Charter and establish conditions
under which countries take actions that promote rather than undermine
justice and respect for our international legal obligations. The
alternative is the law of the jungle, where only might makes right. It
is time that right makes might.
August 10th marks 51 years since the beginning of the spraying of
Agent Orange in Vietnam. In commemoration, the Vietnam Agent Orange
Relief and Responsibility Campaign urges you to observe 51 seconds of
silence at 12 noon, to think about the horrors of wars which have
occurred. We ask you to take action so as not to see future images of
naked children running from napalm, or young soldiers wiping out the
population of an entire village, or other atrocities associated with
war, poverty, and violence around the world. We urge you to take at
least 51 seconds for your action. In the United States, you can sign an
orange post card to the U.S. Congress asking it to pass HR 2634. This
would be a good start to assist the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange
as well as the next generations of those exposed to these dangerous
chemicals in both Vietnam and the United States.
Jeanne Mirer, a New York attorney, is president of the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at
Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National
Lawyers Guild. They are both on the board of the Vietnam Agent Orange
Relief and Responsibility Campaign.
To sign the petition, go to http://www.vn-agentorange.org/
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/chemical-warfare-agent-orange-in-vietnam/32227
