A victim of the US spraying of Dioxin, "Agent Orange", during the period of the Vietnam War
In the war with Vietnam, the Americans used a chemical weapon called Dioxin, (Agent Orange), in order to destroy the dense vegetation that covered Vietnam because they said it hid the Vietnamese Freedom Fighters and because they also wanted to destroy the crops that fed the Vietnamese soldiers. The United States claimed that the chemical they used to achieve their objective, Agent Orange, was only a simple herbicide.
However, this so called herbicide affected millions of people in Vietnam and not only those directly exposed to it. It also affected unborn children - These children exposed to Dioxin were born during the course of the Vietnamese war and after it.
Babies were badly affected by Dioxin. Their brains and their appearances were abnormal. Many of them, as they grew up, came to have a mental age of only about three or four. Some of the children were born without arms or legs, some lacked eyes, noses or mouths. Some had twisted spines and oversized heads. Some children were horribly conjoined.
In other words, as a result of the American gpvernment's chemical warfare, the Dioxin children, as they are known in Vietnam, had very little enjoyment of what other children take for granted. Most of these children could not go to school, they could not play like other children. Moreover, the parents of Dioxin victims have had to take care of them all their lives, even though they are mostly now in their late twenties and thirties.
The simple happiness any parent hopes for, to see their children grow up, was made impossible for the parents of these victims. But it is not only the parents who suffered and still suffer from American chemical warfare; all Vietnamese people share the pain, this deep hurt. We have many charity programs and services in Vietnam designed to help the Dioxin affected, but it never seems to be enough. We are still a developing country and as important as the Dioxin victims are to us there are also other, competing, priorities.
All the Dioxin victims were innocent children, so why did they have to suffer the effects of America's invasion of Vietnam and the civil war America unleashed? Nevertheless, sometimes we feel very proud of our Dioxin victims. Although they are disabled, they still want to study, they still want to live full and useful lives. They try to contribute a little to Vietnam.
The Dioxin victims' pain is the pain of all Vietnamese. The Americans carried out chemical warfare on the Vietnamese population, just as Saddam Hussain carried out chemical attacks on the Kurdish population. It is not only money the Americans need to pay to compensate a little for the Dioxin victims' suffering, but they should do their best to apologise for the harm they have caused and to try to heal the spiritual wound they have caused the Vietnamese people.
Only a few US citizens feel their moral responsibility and come back to Vietnam to help these Dioxin victims. Other Americans just say that it was nothing to do with them and the war was not their fault and the use of Dioxin was not their fault And the US government still, ridiculously tries claim that they thought that Dioxin was only a kind of herbicide.
The US government denied all moral responsibility in 2005. At the same time they turned their Janus face and pretend to be horrified about human rights abuses in China and other countries. The US authorities must think we are silly. They think we cannot see the truth of the matter. We Vietnamese can!
Still, we, the Vietnamese, do not hate the Americans. We are willing to forget, because it is only the past, however, before we can forgive and forget we need them to pay for what they did to our Vietnam. How long will we have to wait for them to grow up and admit their fault.
By the Anh Nguyen sisters
The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA)
Rooms 205-208, B17, Lương Đình Của Street, Đống Đa District, Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: +84 4 574 5657 / 59 — Fax: +84 4 574 5658
Email: hnncddcvn@fpt.vn — Website: www.vava.org.vn
April 14 to May 16, 2010
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