An Agent Orange victim in Ho Chi Minh City.

A Vietnam War veteran, Congressman Faleomavaega asks why billions of dollars are appropriated for reconstruction efforts elsewhere, while the suffering of Vietnamese people and US veterans are ignored.

“To this day, in the same way the US denies the damage it did in Vietnam which went beyond the scope of war and affected the lives of innocent civilians, the US also refuses to accept responsibility for what it did in the South Pacific, only making minimal efforts to clean up its environmental mess and even less to compensate the people it unfairly exposed to deadly disease throughout generations of time,” said Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment.

Faleomavaega’s testimony before the subcommittee last week was posted on its website Monday. This was the second time the US Congress held hearings on Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used by the US army in Vietnam. The first hearing took place in March 2008.

At the hearing, Faleomavaega cited the Congressional Research Service (CRS) stating “a 1995 study of over 3,200 Vietnamese nationals found average TEQ blood levels were nearly six times higher among the people from sprayed areas compared to people from unsprayed areas; average breast milk levels were nearly four times higher; and average fat tissue levels were over 24 times higher.

“A separate study of blood dioxin levels of Da Nang residents reported tetrachlorodibenzop dioxin (TCDD) concentrations more than 100 times globally acceptable levels. Elevated

TCDD concentrations were also found in blood samples of Bien Hoa residents,” the report added.

Faleomavaega acknowledged that assessment of the environmental consequences of dioxin in Vietnam are ongoing, with serious contamination having been found at so-called “hot-spots,” more specially at ex-US military bases in Bien Hoa, Da Nang, Phu Cat, Nha Trang, and at a former US military base in the A Luoi Valley.

But he pointed out that the financial assistance the US had earmarked for Vietnam in this regard compared with other grants was minimal.

“The US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are only providing technical assistance and financial support for containment and remediation efforts in and around the Da Nang airport, and support is minimal, with less than US$6 million being appropriated for environmental remediation and health care assistance,” he said.

“In contrast, from 2003 to 2006, the US appropriated $35.7 billion for Iraq reconstruction. For Germany, according to the CRS, in constant 2005 dollars, the US provided a total of $29.3 billion in assistance from 1946- 1952 with 60 percent in economic grants and nearly 30 percent in economic loans, and the remainder in military aid.”

Total US assistance to Japan for 1946-1952 was roughly $15.2 billion in 2005 dollars, of which 77 percent was grants and 23 percent was loans, he added.

“Why can’t we do more for our US veterans and the people of Vietnam? We can and should more, and this is why I am fully committed to doing everything I can to bring attention to this issue, and make it right,” Faleomavaega said.

“As a Pacific Islander, I have a special affinity for the people of Vietnam and what it means to have been exposed to a horrifying array of diseases,” he said.

Recently, the International Peoples’ Tribunal of Conscience, which held a hearing on May 15-16 in Paris, ruled that those who manufactured Agent Orange and the government that allowed its use were guilty of ecocide and must fully compensate the victims of Agent Orange and their families.

Agent of terror

Agent Orange, named after the color of the stripe on barrels in which the defoliant sprayed by American forces during the Vietnam War was stored, contains tetrachlorodibenzop dioxin (known as TCDD), one of the most poisonous chemicals ever made by man.

Agent Orange has caused reproductive problems, birth defects, cancer and other diseases in affected people on both sides of the war.

Between 1961 and 1971, the US Army sprayed some 80 million liters of the defoliant, containing 366 kilograms of the highly toxic dioxin, over 30,000 square miles of southern Vietnam.

By the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people had been exposed to Agent Orange, causing 400,000 deaths. Millions more have suffered devastating long-term health effects, including cancer and genetic defects.

Reported by An Dien