LookAtVietnam – A special TV programme dedicated to Agent Orange (AO) victims in Viet Nam is expected to broadcast next month on VTV4 – the international channel of Viet Nam Television.

Seeking justice: Japanese director Sakata Masako’s movie, Agent Orange – A Personal Requiem will air on VTV4 next month during a special programme dedicated to AO victims.

According to the programme’s general director, who is also the head of the International Channel Department, Bach Ngoc Chien, more than three million Americans can access the VTV4 channel. “Among our American audiences, a large number of families have children or relatives that are AO victims. That’s why we want to share with them information related to the issue; we expect them to share a common concern and sympathy,” he said.

The programme, which will air all day on August 10, will present eight documentaries and three movies, as well as other reports and talk shows relating to AO/Dioxin, a deadly defoliant used by the US forces during the American war in South Viet Nam.

Chien said that VTV had bought the copyright to screen some foreign documentaries and movies. The 71-minute documentary Agent Orange – A Personal Requiem by Japanese female director Sakata Masako is among the documentaries being presented that day.

The documentary is in memory of her husband – Greg Davis, a famous American photojournalist, who died in 2003 due to liver cancer that was caused by his exposure to AO while serving with US forces in Viet Nam from 1967 to 1970.

According to the 61-year-old director, the documentary is about a subject that she and her beloved husband were passionate about: the millions of Vietnamese who suffered and continue to suffer from the after-effects of America’s chemical assault on Viet Nam.

The documentary, which took three years to complete, from 2004 to 2007, features her surveys on the effects of AO to humans and the environment after the war, as well as the nonchalance of the US government to the pains of the victims.

Masako has won much praise for this, her first film, which has been presented in many countries, including Japan, the US, France, Canada and Cuba.

The Last Ghost of War

is another movie that will also be broadcast. The film, made possible by a grant from the US’s New Jersey Council for the Humanities, was produced by Pham Quoc Thai and Janet Gardner, directed by Gardner and narrated by Kevin Cline, from the New York-based Gardner Documentary Group. The film focuses on the physical and spiritual plight of terminally ill AO patients at Tu Du Hospital in HCM City.

The US’s NewsDay newspaper comments on the movie: “A must-see documentary. A catalyst to a much-needed national debate on AO.”

The 56-minute movie has already been shown on the national channel VTV1 as well as in many countries all over the world.

To prepare for the special TV programme, Chien and his colleagues at VTV4 have worked hard to find suitable and necessary movies and other TV programmes, which have been presented before on TV. “We’ve rummaged through all the information archives to search for necessary and important TV programmes. So far, we have enough to broadcast for 50 hours,” Chien said.

On the same day, TV stations nationwide will broadcast their own programmes, designed to focus on the AO theme.

In harmony with Agent Orange Day, a special artistic performance and talk show will be held at the Ha Noi Opera House. Secretary of the Britain-Viet Nam Friendship Society, Len Aldis, will be among the programme’s special guests. Aldis, who has written two open letters to US President Barack Obama to require justice for Vietnamese victims of AO.

The programme will broadcast live on the international channel VTV4 and national channel VTV1.

“I strongly believe that the American people will be convinced by our emotional TV programme, screened on Agent Orange Day. They will have sympathy, and thus will support Vietnamese AO victims,” Chien said.

According to the Viet Nam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, US troops sprayed some 80 million litres of defoliants onto central and southern Vietnamese battlefields from 1961 to 1971, containing almost 400kg of dioxin.

The number of people who were exposed to the toxic chemical in the regions is about 4.8 million. The after-effects have also reached 2nd and 3rd generation children.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News