The event began with the moderator
explaining that this was the last stop on for the Vietnamese Agent
Orange Victims tour of the USA. They had made many stops, including
Midland Michigan, Washington DC, and other places. Click her picture to
read the info handout they gave me that covered the material quite
well. Then she introduced the guy from San Francisco's government, who
read a proclamation signed by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. The
proclamation acknowledged the serious nature of the agent orange issue
and expressed support for bringing the issue to light. Then she
introduced Tran Xuan Thu, the delegation leader.
He began by
thanking the many friends that had helped out during
the tour. He spoke in Vietnamese, and his words were translated
by Hoang Cong Thuy, who is standing to the left of the delegation
leader in the above picture. They continued that it had been an honor
to talk to two Congressmen in Washington, DC and that they are hopeful
something good will come of the discussion. Dr. Thu expressed
disappointment that the judge had ruled against them in the class
action
lawsuit, but they were optimistic that the decision would be overturned
on appeal.
Hong said a few
words, but her voice was very bad. She was obviously having trouble
saying anything. The moderator moved us on, explaining that she was
painfully exhausted and somewhat sickened by the grueling trip.
This guy is an influential member of
the San Francisco Veterans for Peace Chapter. He expressed his belief
that Agent Orange is the worst chemical weapon known to man. He feels
that we owe the people we sprayed with the stuff something, and this
tour is all about spreading awareness of the issue. Unfortunately, the
Agent
Orange Committee had managed to rack up a $20,000 plus debt paying for
the tour of the Agent Orange witnesses. Most of the money went into
flying people around, feeding them, and paying for hotels. He urged us
all to dig into our
pockets to help defray expenses. After they passed around collection
plates the moderator opened the floor for questions and comments from
the audience.
This woman said she sees a lot of
parallels between what happened with Agent Orange and the victims of
radioactive fallout in Nagasaki. She also sees parallels with the DU
situation in Iraq. She wanted to know if the Agent Orange committee had
done any reaching out to the other groups.
The woman in blue said yes, every
chance they get Iraq Veterans are invited to speak on the same
platforms they get, and the other groups are also on their radar. Then
she explained that they had visited Midland, Michigan because that was
the home of Dow Chemical, where Agent Orange/Dioxin had been
manufactured. People there were dealing with the same health problems
the Vietnamese people are dealing with. One of the reasons so much of
the stuff had been used in Viet Nam was that Dow had lied about how
persistent and awful the stuff was. There are also Agent Orange/dioxin
hot spots in Columbia (where cocoa crops were sprayed) and other
places. They are looking at ways to use
this issue to bridge between the domestic and international
environmental justice movements.
This guy wanted to know if Viet Nam is healing. The delegation leader
explained that most places which were just sprayed with Agent
Orange/Dioxin were getting steadily better. Enough time had passed that
the rain had washed away much of the stuff, and the half life of Agent
Orange/Dioxin was short enough that much of the rest has decomposed
into more harmless compounds. The remaining problem is in places where
large tanks of the stuff were dumped for one reason or another. Those
toxic hot spots are still causing problems, and they need to be cleaned
up.
The man in the white shirt said that he
had been a medical corpsman in Viet Nam, and one time a helicopter had
accidentally dumped an entire tank of Agent Orange on their hospital.
He had a rash for days after that incident, and since that time a lot
of the people he knew then had died of one health problem or another. I
think he said that he also has health problems now. He mainly wanted
the delegation to know that some of us are suffering to.
This guy made a speech the gist of which was that the North Vietnamese
government lies about everything and how can you trust what anybody who
gets along with that regime says? I think he was a South Vietnamese
Partisan, and still hasn't stopped fighting the Viet Nam War. After he
had gone on for a while the crowd shouted him down.
This guy said that he had been a South Vietnamese Soldier fighting the
Communists. He commanded a group that would cut down tall trees so the
American helicopters could spray the area. One time his crew had been
sprayed, and since the rash had healed he had been okay. He asked how
could Agent Orange/dioxin be a problem if he didn't have the symptoms.
Tran Thu explained to him that Agent Orange/Dioxin only gets a
percentage of
the people sprayed, and maybe you were one of the lucky ones. The
moderator named several activists she had known that had died from
Agent Orange related problems.