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Khung Thoung Sinh, 3, is held by a nurse at Peace village inside
the Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on May 2, 2005.
He was born without eyes having been deformed since birth from
what may be the effects of defoliant Agent Orange.
Paula Bronstein / Getty Images
Clean up after yourself. It's a rule that we learn early in life.
Now, more than 30 years after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam,
the time has come to follow that rule. In Vietnam these days,
unlike many other places, both the people and their leaders are
generally friendly toward the U.S. Vietnam has just joined the
World Trade Organization, and America is both its largest export
market and source of foreign investment. Intel is building a $1
billion chipmaking plant near Ho Chi Minh City.
That's heartening, given that a generation ago we were bogged
down in a war in Vietnam that seemed almost as intractable as
the Iraq war does today. It's also a cause for humility because
it shows that dominoes don't always fall as predicted. After the
communists won in Vietnam, they got into wars with the communists
in Cambodia and then China.
There is, however, one wound still festering. During the Vietnam
War, America sprayed close to 20 million gal. of Agent Orange,
a herbicide that defoliated forests and left behind a residue
of dioxin. The U.S. military also left behind 28 hot spots where
Agent Orange had been used or stored that have not been properly
contained. The Vietnamese say the dioxin is responsible for such
disabilities as muscular and skeletal disorders and such birth
defects as mental retardation. Studies at the University of Hanoi
indicate a higher incidence of these problems among people who
were exposed to dioxin.
I have just returned from a trip up and down Vietnam with two
colleagues from the Aspen Institute that was sponsored by the
Ford Foundation, which under its president, Susan Berresford,
and Vietnam director, Charles Bailey, has led the way in finding
practical solutions to the Agent Orange problem. In the areas
around the Da Nang airport, which is on the site of a former American
air base, high levels of dioxin have been detected. We walked
the barren ground around the air base and went to a house near
one of the ponds, which belatedly were closed for fishing once
tests showed the levels of the poison.
The responsibility for these health problems is less clear. In
low-lying Quang Ngai province, south of Da Nang, where the spraying
of Agent Orange was especially heavy, there are almost 15,000
residents officially classified by the Vietnamese government as
dioxin victims. We also went to Thai Binh province, along the
northern coast. Although it is far from the sprayed areas, a large
proportion of its male population fought in the war, and there
is a high incidence of birth defects in subsequent generations
there.
Scientists have not been able to prove a direct link between
Agent Orange and the disabilities, and attempts by American and
Vietnamese officials to come to a consensus have not succeeded.
Indeed, efforts to resolve the issue will remain paralyzed if
both sides insist on waiting for scientific proof.
A practical and sensible resolution is possible. The U.S. should
help immediately to contain and then clean up the contaminated
sites. After all, we made the mess. Michael Marine, the departing
U.S. ambassador in Hanoi, has been able to win a small amount
of funding from Washington, supplemented by the Ford Foundation,
to start this process.
As for the health concerns, there is no need to pin precise blame
or liability. They can be addressed as a humanitarian issue rather
than as a compensation case. From Thai Binh down to Quang Ngai
province, there is a need for rehabilitation centers, health clinics,
family counseling, and education for the afflicted children who
cannot go to regular schools. Out of both a sense of duty and
a spirit of decency, U.S. government aid programs and private
philanthropies should step forward to settle this last remaining
dispute from the Vietnam War.
Over the past few months, there has been increased public awareness
of the issue in the U.S., including a brutally vivid article by
Christopher Hitchens and photographer James Nachtwey in last August's
Vanity Fair. When President Bush visited Vietnam in November,
the joint statement he issued with Vietnamese President Nguyen
Minh Triet cautiously referred to the need "to address the
environmental contamination near former dioxin storage sites"
and for "humanitarian assistance ... to Vietnamese with disabilities."
Should Congress and the Defense Department choose to get with
this program, they could go a long way toward resolving this crucial
issue by the time President Triet visits Washington in June.
Only then will America finally have closed the last chapter of
the Vietnam War and turned its former adversary into a solid strategic
ally. And addressing this issue will remind us that living up
to our values and showing basic decency is, in fact, the best
way to win hearts and minds.
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