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Agent Orange – 50 years on
ABC Radio Australia - December 29, 2011
But it took until June of this year for the United States to cut the first ribbon on a project to clean up some of the country's worst contaminated sites. Critics say it's too little too late for the innocent victims still suffering from the legacy of the war.
Bill Bainbridge travelled to Vietnam to find out more.
Bill Bainbridge: Nguyen Thanh Tung is a master of the Dan Bau, a traditional Vietnamese single stringed instrument.
Legend has it the Dan Bau was invented by the blind wife of a soldier who played in markets to support her family during a time of war. It's been favoured by blind musicians in Vietnam ever since.
Tung was born with limited sight in just one eye, but by the age of 12 that had faded to nothing. His father has no doubt of the cause of Tung's blindness.
Nguyen Thanh Son: (translation) I saw the US helicopters spray the white powder so we had to use the masks for protection and some people became ill and found it very difficult to breathe. We all became contaminated.
Bill Bainbridge: Nguyen Thanh Son is a celebrated Vietnamese photographer but in 1970 he was a young soldier based in Vietnam's Quang Tri province when he caught the very tail end of the decade long herbicide spraying campaign run by the US military.
US air force film: The conduct of this type of air war involves much more than bombing and straving attacks particularly in the guerrilla environment we are facing in Vietnam. One tactic the enemy has used to great advantage is the ambush. From hiding places in the dense forests, he has been able to spring deadly traps on the live troops and convoys and then vanish into the jungle like the drops of a monsoon rain.
This kind of attack is being made increasingly difficult by spraying a non-toxic type of weed killer on the jungle growth bordering special forces camps, important road routes and likely ambush areas.
Nguyen Thanh Son (translation): At that time we were not so frightened of Agent Orange it just made us feel ill, but we were not as frightened as we were of the bombs, if we were hit by a bomb we were broken, but after Agent Orange we only felt unwell. But now we know that Agent Orange lasts so long and even now it still exists in our lives so it really was worse than the bombs after all.
Bill Bainbridge: Operation Ranch Hand saw more than 70 million litres of defoliant – two thirds of which was Agent Orange – sprayed on Southern Vietnam. The point of the operation was to deprive the Viet Cong fighters of food crops and forest cover but Agent Orange, named after the orange stripes painted on the barrels in which it was stored, contained a dioxin that poisoned the streams and the rice fields and entered the bodies of the young soldiers.
Decades later it's an aspect of the conflict that generates anger amongst veterans on both sides of the war. Chuck Searcy is a Vietnam veteran who returned to the country to work on humanitarian programs in 1995. But in 1967 and '68 he was an army volunteer based in Saigon.
Chuck Searcy: When I came here I didn't know what to expect. I assumed that the president and the Congress knew a lot more than I did and there was a very good reason for us to be here. Otherwise we wouldn't be in a war in this part of the world.
Within a very short time I came to doubt everything I'd been told about Vietnam. And then because of the work I was doing I was an intelligence analyst, my job was at an intelligence centre in Saigon and I saw a huge amount of information that came through both classified and unclassified that made me realise that we were all involved huge institutional lie to try to convince the American people to support a war that was unwinnable.
So it was a jarring experience for a young naive patriotic American to realise that the US government, and the highest officials in the government were lying to us.
Bill Bainbridge: He says he only learnt of operation Ranch Hand long after the war had ended.
Chuck Searcy: There was a massive amount of spraying of virtually all of the southern part of Vietnam. Mostly by air but also there was ground spraying around the perimeters and bases. And it pretty much covered most of South Vietnam.
Bill Bainbridge: The United States ended the use of Agent Orange in 1970 after many years of objections by US and international scientific organisations.
But by then the defoliant had destroyed millions of hectares of triple canopy forest. Much of that forest, and forested areas of neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, remains dead to this day. Dr. Phung Tuu Boi is the director of the Vietnamese Forestry Service. He says with the passage of time and Vietnam's monsoonal rains the sprayed areas of southern Vietnam are slowly being reforested and are safe again for crops, livestock and people.
Phung Tuu Boi: The first year many many species died. Only the some species survived in the forest. But now, after 30 or 40 years there is no problem in the land.
Bill Bainbridge: And is there no danger then that people who drink that tea or drink that coffee or eat that rice will then be taking the dioxins into their body? Is that a danger?
Phung Tuu Boi: And many people ask me this question because everybody too afraid of the effect of the dioxin through the fruit and the leaf of the tree. But the reason after many many study to solve that, the dioxin cannot move in that environment from the soil to the fruit of the tree.
Bill Bainbridge: But while the Vietnam's environment is in recovery the same can't be said for the veterans exposed to the toxic defoliant.
Mr Son says the first sign that something was wrong came with the birth of his daughter Phuong Thuy in 1975, paralysed, epileptic, blind, deaf and dumb, Phung Thuy gently writhes on a day bed in the corner of their small Hanoi home. She needs constant care from Son and his wife.
Nguyen Thanh Son: (translation) At that time we didn't understand what had happened to us, at first we thought it was a problem in our family. It was only in 1980 when the government established a committee and they sent some doctors and they said I was affected by Agent Orange and it would live with me for the rest of my life.
Bill Bainbridge: It is still difficult to say with any scientific certainty how the dioxin affected the soldiers and how it was passed on to their children. The proper detailed study simply hasn't been done. Professor Tuan Nguyen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.
Tuan Nguyen: When it come to the relationship between Agent Orange exposure and birth defects it's a very tricky issue because there have been very few studies in the area. I'm talking about systematic, epidemiological study. But you know I can say that based on the media report in Vietnam back in the '60s, there have been several reports of birth defects in the area that was affected by Agent Orange.
And then subsequently, you know there a lot of study on mice in the US, show that mice exposure to Agent Orange can lead to birth defects and developmental problems. So that is the reason why we hypothesise that people who was exposed to Agent Orange during the war have a higher risk of birth defect.
So in our favour we show that being exposed to Agent Orange increases the risk of birth defects by about two to three folds.
Bill Bainbridge: So do we know how dioxins actually affect human beings when they're exposed?
Tuan Nguyen: Not really. We only know that dioxin is, as you know, a very highly toxic substance. We also know that it can cause reproductive and developmental problems. It can damage the immune system and interfere with the hormonal regulation and metabolism.
Bill Bainbridge: And so do we have any evidence that the exposure to these dioxins has actually caused some genetic mutations?
Tuan Nguyen: The short answer is yes [laughs]. There has been some studies in mice show that (inaudible) with the effect of dioxin. But there's a recent study also on mice in which, you know, several researchers exposure to TCDD (Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), which is part of a dioxin, could act as a tumour promoter.
Bill Bainbridge: But proven or not it is hard to deny the evidence of misery at the Friendship Village. A centre 15 kilometres outside Hanoi established by US war veterans to help their former combatants and their families suffering the long after affects of the conflict. Here the classes are filled with the disabled children born to men who fought in the heavily sprayed south.
(sound of woman speaking)
"All of these children are mentally retarded," this teacher says, "that means we have to work very hard every day, they have very little memory and we must repeat the same lessons over and over."
On the other side of the compound a few men play badminton in an open courtyard but for most of the veterans here that's too physically challenging. Instead they sit playing checkers and nursing their ailments, cancers, skin complaints, rotting teeth and more.
War veteran: (translation) After coming back from the battle my health was not good, my teeth fell out and I had some other diseases.
Bill Bainbridge: This veteran says he fought so that his country may have a future, but for his own family the future is bleak.
War veteran 2: (translation) I have two granddaughters and they have both been born with deformities, that is my big sorrow. Every day I see my granddaughters, they are unable to work or take care of themselves and it is not only my granddaughter, maybe the next generation will also suffer.
Bill Bainbridge: One risk to the next generation is posed by the so called hot spots. Chuck Searcy explains.
Chuck Searcy: There were spills at loading sites and storage sites which is now I think the areas of the most serious remaining contamination in the hot spots, places where underground tanks ruptured and dioxins spilled into there, soil in the groundwater.
So there was a massive amount of contamination during those years in Vietnam, the areas where there were spills and where there were leakages and loading sites, those are still considered quite dangerous.
Bill Bainbridge: In June 2011 work began on a joint US-Vietnamese project to clean up Danag airport, used by US forces during the war. A 2009 study by the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants found chemical levels 300 to 400 times higher than international limits.
The US embassy in Hanoi declined an interview on the project but deputy chief of mission, Virginia Palmer did speak to the media shortly after the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Virgina Palmer: I think it's fair to say that dioxin contamination and Agent Orange was one of the single most neuralgic issues in the US-Vietnam relationship. So the fact that we've been working together for five years to find joint solutions to the environmental problems in particular and to work together on health issues is hugely important and has had very nice repercussions for the rest of the relationship.
And today as we begin to clear the UXO to begin what is the biggest remediation project it really is a big day.
Bill Bainbridge: Professor Carl Thayer from the University of New South Wales is one of the world's foremost experts on Vietnam and its politics. Speaking in Hanoi, he says the Danang cleanup was long overdue.
Carl Thayer: It started off in 1973 with the Paris peace agreements we saw and the... took on the clauses and the United States agreed to heal the wounds of war. And the Vietnamese offered to return the MIAs – that's another story.
So along the way the Vietnamese are saying this has all been one way, we made MIA accounting, humanitarian issues so it's off the table, it's a humanitarian issue.
But we think, you know, America meeting its legacy of the war, well that was Agent Orange in part, hot spots that have affected Vietnamese families and the river and other pollution that's occurred here.
The US government has said well there's no scientific evidence that American companies... that one, the US knew it was this bad when it used it and therefore violated international law. American companies aren't responsible, you can't make the scientific link. So the importance has been that all defence cooperation with Vietnam and the United States has always has the Vietnamese at the table bring up the Agent Orange issue.
So one day the light went on for the US and they saw making contributions to clean up but on the side of this and increasing the level each year, the Vietnamese have come from a moral position, saying: 'Well you owe us. Do it'. And just cleaning up Danang is only the beginning, but it was a bellwether for very conservative elements in this country that are still not reconciled.
They didn't lose the war, they unified the country, they've suffered some damage and now the US wants to get in and have a damage (inaudible)... and well, wait a minute, you signed an agreement to heal the wounds of war, you did it, you help clean it up.
Bill Bainbridge: The cleanup is not the first attempt to seek redress from the herbicide campaign. The US government can't be sued because of its sovereign immunity but in January 2004 the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange launched a class action against the chemical companies that produced Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto.
The victims' lawyers argued the companies were in violation of international law, and under the common law for products liability, negligent. They also accused them of civil conspiracy, public nuisance and unjust enrichment.
But the case and subsequent appeals failed. The judge concluding that Agent Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of its use and the chemical companies, as contractors of the US government, shared the government's immunity. US veteran Chuck Searcy says the finding is a mystery to many in Vietnam.
Chuck Searcy: It's very difficult to explain the outcome of that case to the Vietnamese and it's very difficult for many of us Americans to understand either. It's the arcane workings of the American justice system which does not always lead to justice.
Frankly, the decision for most of us makes no sense and I don't think that the courts are going to change their position. The Vietnamese are talking about filing another suit. Many of us have told them there's no use, they will not get justice in the American courts.
Bill Bainbridge: And he says Vietnam's government has preferred to take a pragmatic approach to the chemical companies.
Chuck Searcy: I don't expect the chemical companies to do anything until they're absolutely forced to do something. And I don't see the Vietnamese government doing much to push them either. The Vietnamese government has allowed Monsanto to come back to Vietnam and open an office here.
And now they're pushing GM crops and seeds, the genetically manipulated, genetically modified, genetically mutated foods. Of course they're saying the same thing they said about Agent Orange, absolutely safe, no problem. And, but the Vietnamese government has allowed them to come back. Many of us don't understand why. I don't think we can expect these chemical companies to ever do anything voluntarily.
Bill Bainbridge: He says the US government, which maintains there is not enough scientific evidence to link Agent Orange exposure birth defects is open to the charge of hypocrisy.
Chuck Searcy: The simple point I think that everybody can understand and can identify with – that almost nobody can argue with – is that almost all of the scientific questions aside, off the table for the moment, that means those things need to be done, there need to be more answers sure, but, the US is compensating American veterans for 13 or 14 illnesses and diseases and health problems related to Agent Orange based on the assumption of Agent Orange causality. We should be doing that, I'm glad that finally is happening.
But if we're doing that for American veterans, we ought to be making the same assumptions about Vietnamese people who are exposed to the same problems during the war. And not to do that, to say, well we don't have any proof regarding the Vietnamese while we're making this assumption about American veterans, by anybody's standards of simple decency and fairness. It's just wrong and we've got to own up to that and we've got to do what is necessary.
Bill Bainbridge: But Carl Thayer says some further compensation from the US is likely.
Carl Thayer: I think US governments will meet the Vietnamese insistence that this problem be addressed and having made this step amidst the US Congress, I mean it's putting its money where its mouth not the President out on a limb with loose money that he can control.
I think that will continue and I think that's common ground. I think it's no longer a political issue, it'll just be addressed as part of the development scheme between the two. So the Vietnamese have finally won that round.
Bill Bainbridge: Mr Son says, although he has long suffered health problems he blames on dioxin exposure, he doesn't care about compensation for himself.
Nguyen Thanh Son: (translation) We need from the US some compensation, not for us, the soldiers, but for our sons and daughters or even grandsons and granddaughters, for the next generation because they can't manage by themselves.
Bill Bainbrdge: He says his has been a sorrowful life but despite the obvious hardship he's drawn much joy from the musical accomplishments of his son.
Nguyen Thanh Son: (translation) I'm very proud of him and he also plays in some countries abroad and when the audience applauds, they call his name "Vietnam, Vietnam, Thanh Tung, Thanh Tung" and I am so happy and I get goosebumps.
(Music by Nguyen Thanh Tung)
Elizabeth Jackson: Bill Bainbridge with that report. And you've been listening to a radio current affairs documentary.
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