PHA-Exchange> Agent Orange and US chemical warfare : Agent Orange Victims Sue Monsanto

[UNNIKRISHNAN P.V. (Dr)]

Agent Orange Victims Sue Monsanto
by Tom Fawthrop, Special to CorpWatch
November 4th, 2004

 


 <http://corpwatch.radicaldesigns.org/img/original/monsantoclaus.jpg> 

Cartoonist: Khalil Bendib
Tran Anh Kiet's feet, hands and limbs are twisted and deformed. He is 21
years old, but trapped inside a body that appears to belong to a 15 year
old with a mental age of around six. He has to be spoon-fed and writhes
often in evident frustration. All his attempts at speech are confined to
plaintive and pitiful grunts.

In Kiet's small community in Cu Chi district, about 45 kilometers from
Ho Chi Minh city, south Vietnam, his story is all too common - indeed
the villagers have a name for young people like him: Agent Orange
babies.

Some 79 million liters of Agent Orange herbicides were dropped on the
jungles of Vietnam from 1961-1971 in an attempt to defoliate the
rainforest and deny any cover for the VietCong guerilla forces resisting
the United States occupation of Vietnam.

Today in Vietnam there are 150,000 other children like Kiet, whose
parents allege their birth defects are the result of exposure to Agent
Orange during the war, or the consumption of dioxin-contaminated food
and water since 1975.

The Vietnamese government estimates that three million Vietnamese were
exposed to these chemicals during the war, and that at least 800,000
suffer serious health problems today as a result.

In February 2004, the newly -formed Vietnamese Association of Victims of
Agent Orange (VAVA) filed a class action law suit in a New York court,
against Monsanto and 36 other manufacturers of the poisonous chemical.

The plaintiffs and their lawyers deliberately chose the very same court
that had previously presided over the only previous lawsuit brought
against Agent Orange manufacturers, by US war veterans. Indeed, the same
judge - Jack Weinstein - is currently hearing pre-trail arguments in the
case.

The original lawsuit was settled in 1984, when seven American chemical
companies paid out $180 million to 291,000 people over a period of 12
years. The settlement was reached after Weinstein persuaded the
companies to buy themselves out of protracted litigation. But the
chemical companies refused to accept liability, as part of the
settlement, claiming the science still does not prove that Agent Orange
was responsible for any of the medical horrors its name has long brought
to mind.

Babies with two heads

The first generation of victims were the war veterans and farmers, who
lived off land exposed to the chemical clouds during the war. The second
generation of victims were their sons and daughters, and today their
children, the third generation, are also suffering similar health
problems as their parents and grandparents.

Inside the Tu Du hospital in Saigon, grotesque birth defects - babies
born with two heads, other with short stumps in place of arms or legs -
are a routine sight. Dr Nguyen Thi Phuong Tan, the specialist in coping
with the new-born victims also keeps a padlocked room of well-preserved
horrors - jars of deformed fetuses that never made it as evidence.

"You can't imagine the state of these children in Can Gie district, they
can't speak, they are paralyzed, they have only the life of a
vegetable," says Nguyen Phuoc Hoang, a researcher who used to work for
the Environment Committee of Ho Chi Minh city.

The third generation of casualties includes those who live in the
vicinity of former US military bases such as Bien Hoa. Agent Orange was
stored in large quantities on these military bases.

Dr Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the US,
sampled the soil there in 2003,and found it to contained dioxin levels
that were 180 million times above the safe level set by the US
environmental protection agency. It is known as one of some 30 hotspots
an environmental disaster area in urgent need of decontamination. Yet
almost 30 years after the war nothing has been done about it.

More compelling scientific evidence was unearthed by a five year study
conducted in the late-1990s by a Canadian environmental firm, Hatfield
Consultants, working in collaboration with Vietnamese scientists that
focused international attention on the extent of the contamination.

Hatfield took extensive samples from soil, water, animals, and people,
and tested for minute concentrations of the active poisons in Agent
Orange near the Ho Chi Minh Trail just south of Quang Tri province, in
the A Luoi valley.In 2002 the results were made public. The researchers
found "a consistent pattern of food-chain contamination by Agent Orange
dioxin...in the air base area, which included soils, fishpond sediment,
cultured fish, ducks, and humans."

Adding Insult to Injury

In June 2001 Monsanto was accused by farmers of Ninh Thuan province of
pressuring them to use genetically modified seeds that resulted in corn
and maize crop failures and economic ruin.

Monsanto representatives responded with demands and threats urging the
authorities to take action against by the state-run Nguoi Lao Dong
newspaper (The New Worker) in Saigon, which printed a story about the
farmers complaints, based on research done by social scientist Bui Dac
Hai.

Agent Orange activists were outraged that Monsanto had returned to haunt
Vietnam. Former wartime ambassador Madame Nguyen Ngoc Dung, told
CorpWatch: "We have strongly criticized officials responsible for
granting a license" (to Monsanto).

The activists say that Monsanto has been assiduously cultivating
technocrats inside the ministries of trade, investment and planning, who
prefer to put the war totally behind them and believe that any campaign
over Agent Orange undermines good trading relations with the US, and is
therefore bad for business.

Another faction of government officials, which includes including prime
minister Pham Van Khai, backed by the war veterans argue that economic
concerns must be tempered with humanitarian respect for the victims and
that Monsanto should be held accountable for their suffering.

The success of the Agent Orange victims campaign has caused major
differences between the two factions. One communist party intellectual
says he believes that "the humanitarian faction in the party is gaining
momentum and the chances of driving Monsanto out of Ho Chi Minh city are
improving."

A Monsanto spokesperson told CorpWatch that the company has been selling
four varieties of hybrid corn seed since 1995 in addition to herbicides
including Roundup and Lasso brands but that "Monsanto has no
biotechnology crops on the market there." 
Campaign picks up steam

The Agent Orange cause has been picking up steam in the last few years.
Vietnam Red Cross had launched a humanitarian appeal in 1998 for special
support for its Agent Orange Fund. In January 2004 a activist campaign
was launched in Hanoi with the setting up of Vietnamese Victims of Agent
Orange.

Another recently-formed non-profit, the Peace and Development
Foundation, headed by former foreign minister of South Vietnam, Madame
Nguyen Thi Binh, is part of a highly successful campaign to mobilize
people at home and abroad in support of Vietnamese lawsuit and the
victims demand for justice and compensation.

Vietnam Television has just broadcast a new documentary on the subject.
The government has set aside August 10th as an official commemoration
'Agent Orange Day' in support of the victims. (August 10th 1961 was the
date that the very first cargo of Agent Orange defoliant was dropped on
the forest around Kontum in the Central highlands). On September 10th
2004, Thanh Nien newspaper reported the foreign ministry had expressed
support for the Agent Orange plaintiffs.

No such gesture has been made on the other side of the Pacific, despite
pleas for support. When President Bill Clinton visited Hanoi four years
ago, Vietnamese president Tran Duc Long made an appeal to the US 'to
acknowledge its responsibility to de-mine, de-toxify former military
bases and provide assistance to Agent Orange victims." Almost 30 years
after the war no such acknowledgement has been made - all Washington has
offered is funding for scientific conferences and further research.

Former director of Vietnam Red Cross,Dr Nguyen Trong Nhan a tireless
campaigner and vice-president of the the Agent Orange Victims
Association) is sadly disappointed by the US response to the
humanitarian crisis that Vietnam is facing. "Vietnam can't solve the
problem on its own. Hanoi helped the US military to track down remains
of MIAs (Missing in Action),and we asked them to reciprocate with
humanitarian aid for victims of Agent Orange," he says.

Companies respond

Jill Montgomery, a spokesperson for Monsanto, responded to a request for
comment from CorpWatch by email: "There were seven manufacturers who
were required to make Agent Orange at the specific request of the US
government for military use. Production ended more than 30 years ago.
The government of Vietnam resolved its claims as part of the treaties
that ended the war and normalized relations with the United States."

"We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and
understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific
evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious
long-term health effects."

Co-defendant Dow Chemical, Monsanto's parent company, has also issued a
statement that reads: "We believe that it is the role of the US
government and the government of Vietnam to resolve any issues related
to wartime activities."

But Tran Anh Loi ,the father of Agent Orange victim Tran Anh Kiet, says:
"Monsanto must pay compensation for their crimes. They have caused this
tragedy. I think the government should raise their voice and make the
payment a condition before Monsanto can do business in Vietnam.¨

"American victims of the Agent Orange will get up to $1500 a month.
However most war veterans and Vietnamese families have only received
around 85,000 Dong a month (just over $5) in government support for each
disabled child. However in response to the public campaign, Hanoi has
increased compensation benefits in July to 300,000 Dong a month (nearly
$20 a month)."
Source: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11638
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