US court’s Agent Orange decision sparks anger in Viet Nam
Asia News Network
First Posted 16:21:00 02/28/2008
Filed Under: War, Human Rights
HA NOI, Viet Nam -- A decision by the US Court of Appeals confirming the dismissal of the case of Agent Orange victims seeking damages from manufacturers of the chemicals has been called "erroneous and unjust" by the Viet Nam Bar Association.
The decision ignored the fact that chemicals sprayed by the US troops during the Viet Nam War left serious consequences on the people and environment in the Southeast Asian country, the association said in a statement.
The Vietnamese lawyers said it was regrettable that the decision came at a time when Washington was making co-operative efforts with Ha Noi to address the impact of Agent Orange, a defoliant sprayed by US soldiers between January 1965 and April 1970 to destroy jungle vegetation used as cover by the Viet Cong.
Dealing with the ongoing effects of Agent Orange was an urgent humanitarian task, the association stressed. The war ended nearly 40 years ago, but millions of people still suffer from physical and mental pain night and day.
"The claim of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims is completely legitimate. We believe that the international community, including the US legal community, will continue to stand by Vietnamese Agent Orange victims in the struggle for justice," the statement said.
The decision of the US Court of Appeals to uphold dismissal of the lawsuit of Vietnamese Agent Orange/dioxin victims is an affront to the principles of justice and human rights, the Viet Nam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign said in a press statement on Tuesday.
The most basic of human rights, the right to life, was being violated for more than three million Vietnamese victims who continued to die daily from cancer and other illnesses caused by their exposure to the toxic, dioxin-laden Agent Orange, according to the statement.
"Agent Orange contaminated ‘hot spots’ continue to poison Vietnamese born more than 30 years after the end of the war," the statement said.
The consequences suffered by Agent Orange victims are undeniable facts, New Zealand Minister of Veterans Affairs Rick Barker stated in talks with the president of the Vietnamese War Veterans Association, Lieutenant General Tran Hanh during his visit to Viet Nam this week.
Barker said the fight for justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims needed to continue, and he affirmed that he would stand side by side with Vietnamese Agent Orange victims in their lawsuit against American chemical companies.
The US Court of Appeals decision denying compensation to victims of Agent Orange sprayed during the war has sparked resentment among many Vietnamese.
The New York-based court rejected an appeal made by a group of Vietnamese who filed a lawsuit against US chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange during the war.
According to Nguyen Van Ranh, chairman of the HCM City Farmers Association, an estimated 800,000 association members were affected by the toxin which was heavily sprayed in Ho Chi Minh City’s outlying districts of Can Gio and Cu Chi.
Agent Orange, or dioxin, was sprayed on a long stretch of Truong Son Trail from the central province of Quang Tri to the southernmost province of Ca Mau, contaminating many plants and water sources, according to the Most Venerable Thich Nhu Niem, deputy head of Ho Chi Minh’s Buddhist Chapter’s Executive Council.
Residents of Thua Thien-Hue Province’s A Luoi District and Quang Tri Province’s Dac Rong and Cam Lo districts were still prohibited from eating some kinds of fish and using certain water sources because of the contamination, he said.
He said the parents of many of the 1,000 disabled and orphaned children cared for in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, were exposed to Agent Orange.
Many of them were hoping that authorities would further appeal the court ruling.
Heroic mother Nguyen Thanh Tung, who lost two sons and a husband to the war, said, "I fought for revolutionary ideals and never against progressive Americans. I think American mothers whose children and husbands died in the war share the same agony I do. But they are luckier than Vietnamese veterans because they have claimed compensation from the US Government."
Chemical companies settled an earlier claim by US veterans exposed to dioxin.
"Is American justice only for US veterans while Vietnamese victims are left unnoticed? Such a ruling by the US Appeals Court is un-humanitarian," said Tung. Viet Nam News-ANN
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