Fred Wilcox - Scorched Earth

Long before the American war ended, Dr. Nhan began to notice that people who’d lived or fought in defoliated areas of Vietnam experienced more difficulty recovering from illnesses than those who had remained in the North during the fighting. Patients suffering from a single ailment generally recovered; however, other patients deteriorated rapidly, and no remedy could be found to restore them to health. Something was undermining these terminally ill patients’ immune systems. After careful study, Dr. Nhan concluded that many people had been exposed to dioxin, and that this chemical was killing them.

Certain that millions of Vietnamese people were suffering from the legacies of chemical warfare, Dr Nhan established the fund for Agent Orange victims in 1998. That fund now belongs to VAVA. He also realized that the symptoms of Agent Orange illness are similar to HIV, and he learned that President Clinton wanted to help victims of AIDS.

“So you see, when President Clinton came to Vietnam in 2000, I said to him that Agent Orange sickness is very similar to AIDS. Later, in his letter to me, Mr. Clinton agreed that we should engage in humanitarian activities, and that we ought to develop cooperation between our two countries to help Agent Orange victims.

“After that, he established a foundation to help Vietnam fight against the spread of AIDS. But he did not help Agent Orange victims. I asked him, ‘Why won’t you help us? You agree with me that we should have cooperation and humanitarian activities between our two countries, to help Agent Orange victims. But now you don’t want to help these victims? Why not?’

“I explained that like AIDS victims, people who’ve been exposed to Agent Orange suffer from immune deficiency. So why wouldn’t he help Agent Orange victims who suffer from the same thing as people who are sick and dying from AIDS?

“I can show you on my computer that I have many emails between me and President Clinton. Did he answer my questions? No, he did not.”

“Why didn’t President Clinton answer your questions?” I asked him.

“Can you agree with me to have a frank answer?” he replied.

“That is exactly why we are in Vietnam, to ask questions and to receive frank answers.”

“Okay. President Clinton, when he was the US president, was very afraid. You know, before becoming president of the US, he didn’t enter the army. So, he lifted the embargo and established normal relations with Vietnam, but you see that’s all he could do for this country. You know, the Agent Orange issue is very sensitive. It is a war crime. President Clinton did not want to get involved with a war crime.

“He didn’t understand that Vietnam wants to have good relations with the US. We had already helped the US Army find the remains of soldiers here in Vietnam.”

Dr. Nhan looks at the photographs on his walls, as though hoping that Mr. Clinton might say that he’s sorry to have reneged on his promise. He will order his staff to look into ways that the United States might help Vietnamese Agent Orange victims. He will create a fund specifically for impoverished Agent Orange families. He will…

Iced Vietnamese coffee is delicious. I’d like another. Our translators and other people who accompany us to and from these interviews do not ask for, and will not accept anything but water.

“Missing in action,” says Dr. Nhan, switching to English, then back to Vietnamese. “If the Vietnamese people are willing to help find these war victims, why shouldn’t the US help us with our own war victims? If the US will just accept our proposal to help victims, then there will be no more lawsuits.”

“No more lawsuits?” I ask.

“Yes, no more lawsuits. At the meeting I had with President Clinton in Hanoi, I told him why we want to establish a humanitarian relationship between the US and Vietnam, but the United States did not reply to our demands. They did help us find the remains of some Vietnamese war victims, but they did not help us with Agent Orange. Not at all.”

When he was president of Vietnam’s Red Cross, Dr. Nhan convinced the American Red Cross to help Agent Orange victims and that organization agreed to give Vietnam $1 million.

“And since there are at least three million victims,” he laughs, “that means that each victim would get about thirty cents. You cannot eat very much in Vietnam with that amount of money.

“And yes, some days ago we were informed that the Obama administration is willing to contribute $3 million. So now we have gathered $6 million altogether for cleaning up Vietnam’s environment, and for helping every Agent Orange victim in Vietnam.

Dr. Nhan pauses to make sure that we get the joke. Brendan wanders around the room, taking photographs. The interpreters write in their notebooks.

“That would mean,” he says, speaking in English to emphasize the irony, “that each victim would receive $2.00. Can you visit Vietnam with $2.00? Can you eat breakfast in Hanoi for $2.00?”

“Can’t even get a taxi in Hanoi for $2.00,” I reply, and we all laugh, knowing that taxi drivers in this city are notorious for overcharging their fares.

Dr. Nhan looks at the snow-covered slopes of the Rocky Mountains, so quiet, cool, inviting.

“The Obama administration have very good humor,” he chuckles. “Very good humor. And Obama has not visited Vietnam, so perhaps he thinks Vietnamese are not intelligent people.

“When I was the president of the Red Cross, I promised the victims of Agent Orange that if I can not do anything during that time, in some humanitarian way for them, I will support them all the way to appealing the lawsuit in the United States.

“That’s why in 2004, they asked me to be vice president of VAVA, and to work on behalf of the Agent Orange victims’ fight for justice. Our job is to support the lawsuit, and to mobilize support for victims in our country and abroad.

“In 2005, I went to the United States and traveled to ten of its biggest cities, where I met a lot of American people. And I informed them about the truth of the suffering in Vietnam. I met professors as well as students in many famous cities like Washington, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco. I don’t remember all of them.”

In October, 2008, the American Studies Association invited Dr. Nhan to address their annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unwilling to make such an arduous trip, he sent the conference a copy of his paper, “Agent Orange and the Conscience of the USA,” which he began by telling the scholars that as a boy he was quite curious about America.

At that time, like any other little boy, I was not interested in politics, but enjoyed watching American movies like the cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio , and cowboy films. We enjoyed American movies not because of the scenes of riding and shooting, but their happy endings, which mean “the good defeats the evil.” And I longed naively to see America! But now the US has come to Vietnam. 12

Dr. Nhan told the delegates how, following the Geneva Agreement in 1954 that divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel, the United States decided to mount a campaign to destroy Vietnam’s independence movement. “Ten years later, my boyish, naïve hope was completely broken when the US Air Forces bombed the North of Vietnam, threatening to ‘bring it back to the Stone Age.’”

Herbicides destroyed “more than three million hectares of forest…. As a consequence, erosion, floods and droughts seriously damaged the agriculture—the main means of existence of the majority of the Vietnamese people.”

“Vietnamese women,” he says,

have experienced disorders and complications during pregnancy, including miscarriages, still births, premature births, and severe fetal malformations. These reproductive problems have deprived many women of their right to be a mother….