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VietNamNet
- A Vietnamese Agent Orange delegation visited Boston, US, from
November 18 to 21 to seek justice from US chemical makers that
produced the chemical defoliant during the American War.
The delegation arrived in Boston on the afternoon of November
18 and immediately travelled to Boston College and Phillips Andover
Academy.
On November 19, the delegation met at Harvard with representatives
of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign
(VAORRC), Veterans for Peace (VFP), Harvard University student
groups, the American Friends Service Committee, the Dow Accountability
Campaign, the William Joiner Research Centre on War Consequences
and Society and United for Peace and Justice.
Vietnamese students from the Boston area also attended the meetings.
The presentation began with a short documentary film showing the
effects of Agent Orange (AO) sprayed in Vietnam during the American
War. Presenters also related the lives of two victims - Dang Thi
Hong Nhut from HCM City and Ho Sy Hai from Thai Binh - who represent
more than 3mil AO victims in Vietnam.
Professor Do Trong Nhan, who leads the delegation, and AO activist
Merl Ratney spoke on progress with a Vietnamese lawsuit against
Dow Chemical, which manufactured the toxic defoliant. The most
common question raised was: "What can we specifically do
to help those victims?"
Audience
members and speakers alike put forward suggestions on how to obtain
restitution for the damages done by the chemical defoliants, such
as sending a petition to the US House of Representatives, conducting
studies at Harvard and MIT on the effects of the toxin and studying
cases brought successfully against the US government by American
veterans of the war.
The delegation will visit the University of Massachusetts at
Boston on November 21.
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Boston
shares AO pain with Vietnam