uruknet.info
  اوروكنت.إنفو
     
    informazione dal medio oriente
    information from middle east
    المعلومات من الشرق الأوسط

[ home page] | [ tutte le notizie/all news ] | [ download banner] | [ ultimo aggiornamento/last update 01/01/1970 01:00 ] 64760


english italiano

  [ Subscribe our newsletter!   -   Iscriviti alla nostra newsletter! ]  



Vietnam’s forgotten victims
Four decades on, Agent Orange continues to ravage the children of those exposed.


April 2, 2010 - Danang, Vietnam - At 46, each year of misery seems to have etched new wrinkles around Tran Thanh Dung's angry gaze. When he was child in the early 1970s, Tran says he witnessed U.S. soldiers shoot his parents — both of whom were communist Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War. Bent on revenge, he joined the guerrilla group within hours. To this day, Tran weeps over the memories of bloodshed and the hellish cries of his dying friends. But one bizarre memory will haunt him forever. "The American airplanes came right toward me and dropped a mist in the jungle, and the next day, the trees were dead," he recalled. "We weren't scared. We were confused."...


[64760]



Uruknet on Alexa


End Gaza Siege
End Gaza Siege

>

:: Segnala Uruknet agli amici. Clicka qui.
:: Invite your friends to Uruknet. Click here.




:: Segnalaci un articolo
:: Tell us of an article






Vietnam’s forgotten victims
Four decades on, Agent Orange continues to ravage the children of those exposed.

Geoffrey Cain

2agent-orange.jpg

GlobalPost, April 2, 2010


Danang, Vietnam - At 46, each year of misery seems to have etched new wrinkles around Tran Thanh Dung's angry gaze.

When he was child in the early 1970s, Tran says he witnessed U.S. soldiers shoot his parents — both of whom were communist Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War. Bent on revenge, he joined the guerrilla group within hours.

To this day, Tran weeps over the memories of bloodshed and the hellish cries of his dying friends. But one bizarre memory will haunt him forever. "The American airplanes came right toward me and dropped a mist in the jungle, and the next day, the trees were dead," he recalled. "We weren't scared. We were confused."

Thanks to that experience, his son has been unable to walk since birth.

Tran was sprayed with dioxin, codenamed by the military Agent Orange — an herbicide that the U.S. Army used to kill off shrubbery in central Vietnam during the 1960s and early 1970s, so the Viet Cong would have no place to hide.

The defoliant is known to cause a myriad of birth defects in the children of those exposed. Today, Tran's 18-year-old son suffers from a spinal disorder called spina bifida, an ailment Tran's doctor said was caused by his contact with dioxin four decades ago.

"It makes all of us sad, our family and the Vietnamese people," Tran said, adding that he wants the U.S. government to reimburse the families of Vietnamese soldiers for the effects of the spraying. "The problems of war will never leave us."

During the Vietnam War, the United States sprayed up to 18 million gallons of Agent Orange around Vietnam, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress.

The Vietnamese government, meanwhile, estimates that as many as 400,000 Vietnamese have died from illnesses related to exposure to dioxin, such as cancer. It also claims that up to 500,000 children have birth defects, such as spina bifida, because their parents were exposed.

The U.S. government insists the direct spraying of Agent Orange onto people — like in Tran's case — cannot be linked to any illnesses in Vietnam. It does admit, however, that when the defoliant seeps into local water and food sources, people can get sick.

"The United States Government advocates the use of sound science," said Jim Warren, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Hanoi, referring to an alleged lack of evidence for a link between certain illnesses and dioxin exposure.

Critics point out that this claim rests on an inconsistency: that former American soldiers who suffer from illnesses related to Agent Orange are eligible for veterans' benefits.

Even though critics say the U.S. remains sticky on that one point, others say it's making progress. In 2007, the U.S. government and the Ford Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit, began funding a clean-up effort at Danang airport, a brutally contaminated site in central Vietnam.

During the 1960s, pilots stored dioxin at the airport, which then leeched into the local water supply and soil. Farmers have been unable to grow certain crops for decades. But a 2009 assessment by a Canadian contractor determined the clean-up reduced human exposure "significantly." The main bulk of the cleaning project is expected to start this year.

Still, that doesn't wipe away the existing human toll that dioxin has created. Thanks to the contamination at that airport, the city of Danang and surrounding countryside are thought to have among the most dangerous dioxin levels in all of Vietnam.

About 5,000 people in Danang might be ill from exposure to dioxin, and about 1,400 of them are children, according to the Danang Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, a Vietnamese NGO that runs two rehabilitation buildings for disabled children. Those are significant numbers for Danang's total population of 752,000.

For an organization that runs the only center for handicapped children in the city — housing 100 children while turning away the other 1,300 — the issue is that it doesn't get the funding it deserves, said Nguyen Thi Hien, the group's president.

"We need far more help from foreign donors," she said, adding that she's disappointed the U.S. "is not putting enough funds directly to helping the victims." (USAID allocated $1 million of its initial $3 million aid package to helping victims.)

Some groups have already taken matters into their own hands, but without much success. In 2007 a U.S. appeals court in New York upheld a 2005 ruling by a judge to throw out a dioxin suit filed by the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, based in Hanoi.

The group claimed in the lawsuit that several American chemical companies which produced Agent Orange during the war, including Dow, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock, were liable to reimburse victims for their suffering. But the appeals judge ruled the U.S. government had intended to use dioxin on foliage, not humans, and therefore its deployment did not meet the definition of "chemical warfare" under international law.

"This is a very sad situation," Nguyen said.

The parents of afflicted children have similar complaints about inaction. "The [Vietnamese] government has done a lot to help us, but overall our country just doesn't have enough money," said Huynh Dang Eu, 41, who did not fight in the Vietnam War but says she was exposed through a local water source.

Her 10-year-old son, who also suffers from spina bifida, lies on a rug all day, arms and legs contorted in all directions. "The [Vietnamese] government gives us $30 a month to take care of him," she says. "The hospital is an hour away."

She goes on. "My husband and I have to work on the farm every day. We can't hire a caretaker. When we get old and die, our child might have nowhere to go." she said. "We're poor, and I don't think the American government realizes it, or even wants to know about this. So, do you think we're being taken care of enough?"





:: Article nr. 64760 sent on 03-apr-2010 16:43 ECT

www.uruknet.info?p=64760



:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

The section for the comments of our readers has been closed, because of many out-of-topics.
Now you can post your own comments into our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/uruknet





       
[ Printable version ] | [ Send it to a friend ]


[ Contatto/Contact ] | [ Home Page ] | [Tutte le notizie/All news ]







Uruknet on Twitter




:: RSS updated to 2.0

:: English
:: Italiano



:: Uruknet for your mobile phone:
www.uruknet.mobi


Uruknet on Facebook






:: Motore di ricerca / Search Engine


uruknet
the web



:: Immagini / Pictures


Initial
Middle




The newsletter archive




L'Impero si è fermato a Bahgdad, by Valeria Poletti


Modulo per ordini




subscribe

:: Newsletter

:: Comments


Haq Agency
Haq Agency - English

Haq Agency - Arabic


AMSI
AMSI - Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq - English

AMSI - Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq - Arabic




Font size
Carattere
1 2 3





:: All events








     

[ home page] | [ tutte le notizie/all news ] | [ download banner] | [ ultimo aggiornamento/last update 01/01/1970 01:00 ]




Uruknet receives daily many hacking attempts. To prevent this, we have 10 websites on 6 servers in different places. So, if the website is slow or it does not answer, you can recall one of the other web sites: www.uruknet.info www.uruknet.de www.uruknet.biz www.uruknet.org.uk www.uruknet.com www.uruknet.org - www.uruknet.it www.uruknet.eu www.uruknet.net www.uruknet.web.at.it




:: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
::  We always mention the author and link the original site and page of every article.
uruknet, uruklink, iraq, uruqlink, iraq, irak, irakeno, iraqui, uruk, uruqlink, saddam hussein, baghdad, mesopotamia, babilonia, uday, qusay, udai, qusai,hussein, feddayn, fedayn saddam, mujaheddin, mojahidin, tarek aziz, chalabi, iraqui, baath, ba'ht, Aljazira, aljazeera, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Palestina, Sharon, Israele, Nasser, ahram, hayat, sharq awsat, iraqwar,irakwar All pictures

 

I nostri partner - Our Partners:


TEV S.r.l.

TEV S.r.l.: hosting

www.tev.it

Progetto Niz

niz: news management

www.niz.it

Digitbrand

digitbrand: ".it" domains

www.digitbrand.com

Worlwide Mirror Web-Sites:
www.uruknet.info (Main)
www.uruknet.com
www.uruknet.net
www.uruknet.org
www.uruknet.us (USA)
www.uruknet.su (Soviet Union)
www.uruknet.ru (Russia)
www.uruknet.it (Association)
www.uruknet.web.at.it
www.uruknet.biz
www.uruknet.mobi (For Mobile Phones)
www.uruknet.org.uk (UK)
www.uruknet.de (Germany)
www.uruknet.ir (Iran)
www.uruknet.eu (Europe)
wap.uruknet.info (For Mobile Phones)
rss.uruknet.info (For Rss Feeds)
www.uruknet.tel

Vat Number: IT-97475012153