(VOVWORLD) -Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) newspaper ran an article on Sunday highlighting a lawsuit by Vietnamese-French Tran To Nga over multinational companies which produced and sold the toxic chemical Agent Orange (AO) containing dioxin sprayed by US forces during the war in Vietnam. The article emphasizes that the consequences of the toxins continue to linger in Vietnam until now.
 (Documentary photo): Mrs. Tran To Nga during a talk in Paris about the consequences of Agent Orange to the people and the Vietnamese environment, especially the diseases she is having in her body. (Photo: Bich Ha / VNA) |
The author wrote that during 1961-1971, the US army sprayed 80 million litres of herbicides and defoliants, 46 million litres of which were AO produced by many companies, including the US chemical manufacturer Monsanto, now part of the Bayer Group.
Agent Orange, which also contains poisonous dioxin that directly attacks the genetic make-up, has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of sick people in Vietnam. Even today, in the fourth generation after the war, around 6,000 babies with deformities and serious diseases are born in Vietnam every year, the paper said.
In 1984, US veterans who participated in the Vietnam war were paid almost 180 million USD in compensation. However, Vietnamese AO victims have been paid nothing, it said.
Mrs. To Nga, therefore, filed a lawsuit in Evry, France, where she now lives, against 14 chemical giants such as Monsanto or Dow Chemical in 2004. The ruling is expected to be issued on Monday.