Agent Orange
It is past time that the deadly effects of the herbicide Agent Orange, used as a defoliant in the Vietnam War, are officially recognised. The legal decision last week to grant compensation to Australian Vietnam War veterans suffering illnesses such as cancer and leukaemia as a result of their exposure to these chemicals is long overdue.
For many, it is too little too late. Many have died from their illnesses. Others through despair, pain and lack of assistance, have committed suicide. Veterans are now to receive a relatively small financial compensation for the enormity of what they have lost in years and quality of life.
And for what? The Australian and US governments are to blame not only for the veterans' deaths and illnesses, but for directly conspiring to destroy the lives of the Vietnamese people.
In official circles, where the pain wrought on the lives of Australians who served in Vietnam has at least been belatedly recognised, the destruction wrought on the lives of the Vietnamese people and that country's environment remains virtually unspoken.
Their crime? They demanded self-determination, an end to occupation by foreign forces. And they were prepared to fight for it. As a result, between 1962 and 1971, 72 million litres of herbicides were dumped on Vietnamese territory. More than 42 million litres of this were Agent Orange.
Large numbers of defects in Vietnamese children born since the war have been reported. It is possible that the number of birth defects will increase with the next generation, due to pollution of genetic material, which can take two generations to emerge. This applies to the children of Australian veterans also.
The deadly, long-term and often cumulative effects of herbicides and other chemicals such as those used as defoliants in Vietnam are explored further in two articles of this issue of Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
Much of this information isn't new. As early as 1967 a US botanist, Arthur Galston, queried the long-term effects of herbicides on Vietnam's environment. And in 1970 a report emerged from Sweden that chemicals such as 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D might cause cancer.
The real crime is that, whether as a tactic in war, or quietly in times of peace, governments are prepared to expose people to these deadly chemicals. And why? Because the businesses that produce these chemicals make a profit out of them.
The compensation victory for Vietnam veterans is marred by these facts. First, it is too little too late. Second, where is the compensation for the Vietnamese people still suffering the effects of Agent Orange? And third, unless a strong enough political movement is built to prevent it, the same thing could happen all over again.