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DA NANG, Vietnam
-- For a stark reminder of the Vietnam War, people living near
the airport in this central industrial city can still stroll along
the old stone walls that once surrounded a U.S. military base.
But Luu Thi Nguyen, a 31-year-old homemaker, needs only to look
into the face of her young daughter.
In Da Nang, Luu Thi Nguyen sits with her daughter, Van, 5, who
is barred from school because of her appearance, which doctors
attribute to dioxin, a component of Agent Orange. U.S. and Vietnamese
officials say they are moving to jointly address dioxin-related
environmental damage at several Vietnamese "hot spots,"
including Da Nang.
Photo Credit: Video Still Frames By Travis Fox -- Washingtonpost.com
Photo
Van, 5, spends her days at home, playing by herself on the concrete
floor because local school officials say her appearance frightens
other children. She has an oversize head and a severely deformed
mouth, and her upper body is covered in a rash so severe her skin
appears to have been boiled. According to Vietnamese medical authorities,
she is part of a new generation of Agent Orange victims, forever
scarred by the U.S.-made herbicide containing dioxin, one of the
world's most toxic pollutants.
 Pham
Van Xong holds his son, Truc, 9, in An Trach, Vietnam. Local medical
officials say Truc is a victim of the herbicide Agent Orange,
sprayed by U.S. forces during the war. (By Travis Fox -- Washingtonpost.com)
For decades, the United States and Vietnam have wrangled over
the question of responsibility for the U.S. military's deployment
of Agent Orange. But officials say they are now moving to jointly
address at least one important aspect of the spraying's aftermath
-- environmental damage at Vietnamese "hot spots" such
as Nguyen's city, Da Nang -- that are still contaminated with
dioxin 31 years after the fall of Saigon.
Though neither Nguyen nor her husband was exposed to the Agent
Orange sprayed by U.S. forces from 1962 to 1971, officials here
say they believe the couple genetically passed on dioxin's side
effects after eating fish from contaminated canals. "I am
not interested in blaming anyone at this point," the soft-spoken
Nguyen said on a recent day, stroking her daughter's face. "But
the contamination should not keep doing this to our children.
It must be cleaned up."
Vietnamese and U.S. officials last year conducted their first
joint scientific research project related to Agent Orange. Testing
of the soil near Da Nang's airport, where farmers say they have
been unable to grow rice or fruit trees for decades, showed dioxin
levels there as much as 100 times above acceptable international
standards.
Now the United States is planning to co-fund a project to remove
massive amounts of the chemical from the soil. A senior U.S. official
involved in Vietnam policy said the plan is evidence that the
two countries, having embarked on a new era of economic cooperation,
are finally collaborating to address the problem.
"The need to deal with environmental cleanup is increasingly
clear, and we're moving forward from talking to taking concrete
actions to respond to the issue," the official said, speaking
on condition of anonymity because the project has not yet been
publicly announced.
The more politically sensitive issues of responsibility and direct
compensation for victims remain unresolved. Although medical authorities
here estimate that there are more than 4 million suspected dioxin
victims in Vietnam, the United States maintains that there are
no conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the severe
health problems and birth defects that the Vietnamese attribute
to dioxin.
Still, with a much-changed Vietnam now among Asia's most dynamic
economies -- the French luxury house Louis Vuitton has opened
a branch in Hanoi, and the hottest nightspot in the capital is
a glitzy disco called Apocalypse Now -- both sides appear more
willing to seek common ground. Ahead of President Bush's first
official visit to Vietnam this week, some also express hope that
they are taking the first steps toward a reconciliation on their
most divisive wartime issue.
Coming Together
During the war, American forces sprayed about 12 million gallons
of Agent Orange over the jungle canopies and jade-green highlands
of Vietnam. The most toxic of the herbicides used for military
purposes, it defoliated countless trees in areas where the communist
North Vietnamese troops hid supply lines and conducted guerrilla
warfare.
Because Vietnam lacked the resources to conduct its own environmental
cleanup, dioxin-related birth defects have been diagnosed in thousands
of children whose parents were not exposed during the war. In
many cases, families such as the Nguyens were not warned of the
hazard until it was too late.
After doctors told them their daughter, Van, was a dioxin victim,
the Nguyens cemented over the small garden in their front yard
and stopped eating fish from nearby canals. Even now, however,
many of their neighbors remain unaware of the danger.
"What could any of us do, anyway?" asked Luu Thi Nguyen,
whose family survives on the $1.50 a day her husband makes as
a day laborer. "None of us can afford to move. Now I know
the soil is contaminated. My daughter has already suffered from
this, and I worry about what this soil might still be doing to
all of us."
Vietnamese officials estimate the cost of cleaning up the country's
three worst hot spots -- including the area near the old U.S.
military base in Da Nang that is now the city's main airport --
will be as much as $60 million. Before year's end, they hope to
launch the first phase, the development of a plan for cleanup
and land use in the city, with an initial contribution of about
$300,000 from the U.S. government.
That kind of cooperation has appeared to give new momentum to
the issue on other fronts. On Thursday, the Ford Foundation announced
that it is putting $2.2 million toward environmental restoration,
contamination education and victim relief projects related to
Agent Orange. The United Nations Development Program is also set
to piggyback with a major grant in coming weeks that would provide
additional research funding for the cleanup effort, which Vietnamese
officials hope to complete by 2010.
"Vietnam is developing economically very rapidly, and I
think the passage of time has played a role in both sides coming
together," said Charles R. Bailey, the Vietnam director of
the Ford Foundation, which has also funded key studies used to
identify the country's most contaminated areas. "There is
a sense that this is the last piece of unfinished business between
the two countries. It is finally starting to be bridged."
But many here stress that the United States still needs to do
far more to right past wrongs, and some are anticipating that
Bush will offer a measure of apology for Agent Orange's wartime
use when he visits.
"There are new signs that we are moving forward on cooperation
with the U.S. on technical issues," said Le Ke Son, Vietnam's
top official on Agent Orange. "It is very important to close
the past, to close the war between Vietnam and the United States.
But for that to happen, the U.S. must agree to cooperate with
us in a bigger way."
Push for Compensation
What many Vietnamese are waiting for is direct compensation for
victims of Agent Orange as well as an unambiguous admission of
responsibility from the U.S. government.
In 1991, Congress authorized assistance for American veterans
believed to be suffering from dioxin side effects, but at the
same time, the legislation noted that conclusive links between
illnesses and the herbicide remained "presumptive."
That allowed U.S. officials to effectively sidestep a de facto
admission of guilt in Vietnam and avoid offering compensation
to Vietnamese victims.
At least one group of victims has already made a formal push
for compensation, filing a lawsuit in New York against the chemical
companies that produced Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical and
Monsanto. In the late 1970s, U.S. veterans filed a similar case
and settled out of court in 1984 for a $180 million payment. The
Vietnamese case was dismissed last year, but an appeal hearing
is expected next month.
The recent advances toward cleaning up the environment are of
little solace to these Vietnamese. In a country where birth defects
are considered by some an embarrassing reflection of the ill deeds
of ancestors, many of the children born with the most severe defects
end up abandoned or living in squalid conditions with families
too poor to pay for adequate care.
The lucky ones end up in the Peace Village ward for Agent Orange
victims at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. In
rooms filled with stricken children, nurses tend to patients including
a 2-year-old boy born without eyes and a 14-year-old girl whose
head has grown bigger than her torso. Many of the 60 young patients
have severely limited mental faculties, but existence appears
tougher for those who are still alert.
U.S. officials have argued that Vietnam has exaggerated the extent
of Agent Orange's effect, blaming the herbicide for birth defects
that may have other genetic or environmental roots. But it's the
kind of argument that infuriates people such as Duc Nguyen, 25,
who began life as a conjoined twin.
A child lies in hospital ward for Agent Orange victims in Ho Chi
Minh City. A Ford Foundation official called contamination "the
last piece of unfinished business between" Vietnam and the
United States.
A nurse feeds Viet Nguyen, 25, a former conjoined twin, in the
hospital. The U.S. government questions the extent of Agent Orange's
effect, but a senior official said, "The need to deal with
environmental cleanup is increasingly clear."
Nguyen, born in the south-central town of Sathay, an area heavily
sprayed by Agent Orange during the war, was separated from his
brother, Viet Nguyen, at age 7. Doctors here say that soon after
their birth, their mother's tissues were found to contain high
levels of dioxin. These days, Duc Nguyen, who has one leg and
severe bone distortions, works as Peace Village's information
technology specialist. He spends his days in an office one floor
below his noncognitive brother, who is kept tied to a bed most
of the time, unable to move his stump-like body and reflexively
gargling on his own saliva.
A 2004 study by the Vietnamese government indicated that birth
defects in Sathay were 10 to 20 times more common than the national
average. Duc Nguyen is engaged to be married next month to a beautiful
young woman he met through his work at the hospital. But he is
still far from finding peace.
"I find it ironic that on one hand you put [Saddam Hussein]
on trial for using biological warfare, but in another country
where you sprayed chemicals for warfare, you neglect your responsibility,"
said Duc Nguyen, who is not related to Luu Thi Nguyen in Da Nang.
"The United States must admit it's responsible and compensate
the Agent Orange victims in Vietnam," he said. "It is
your moral obligation. Sooner or later, it has to be done."
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