Activists in Paris gather to support victims of ‘Agent Orange’ during Vietnam war
- US forces used the herbicide Agent Orange to defoliate Vietnamese jungles and to destroy Viet Cong crops during the Vietnam war
- Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses from it
Activists gathered on Saturday in Paris to support people exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, after a French court examined the case of a French-Vietnamese woman who sued 14 companies that produced and sold the powerful defoliant dioxin used by US troops.
Tran To Nga, a 78-year-old former journalist, described in a book how she breathed some Agent Orange in 1966, when she was a member of the Vietnamese Communists, or Viet Cong, that fought against South Vietnam and the United States.
“Because of that, I lost one child due to heart defects. I have two other daughters who were born with malformations. And my grandchildren, too,” she told Associated Press.
She filed a lawsuit in 2014 in France against firms that produced and sold the Agent Orange, including US multinational companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto, now owned by German giant Bayer.
Tran is seeking damages for multiple health problems, including cancer, and those of her children in legal proceedings that could be the first to provide compensation to a Vietnamese victim, if the French court rules in her favour, according to an alliance of non-governmental organisations backing her case.