(VOVworld) – International media have hailed the US’s involvement in cleaning up agent orange (AO)/dioxin sprayed by American troops in Vietnam during the war. The US’s participation in a cleanup project at the site of a wartime airbase in Da Nang city was praised by Mexico’s MVS news service. MVS reported that since 1989 Washington has given 54 million USD to Vietnam’s disabled and is planning to spend 20 million USD in 2012 on AO/dioxin decontamination and other projects related to disabled people.

The clean-up project at Da Nang airport. (Photo: internet)

Sweden’s “Le Grand Soir” online newspaper ran an article by Andre Bouny, President of the International Committee in Support of Vietnamese AO Victims, which said that 51 years after the US army sprayed the defoliant AO/dioxin in Vietnam the toxic chemical is still causing great harm to generations of Vietnamese. The US has shirked its responsibility for decades, but recently agreed to carry out the AO/dioxin cleanup project in Da Nang city.
Last week US Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear attended a launch ceremony for the project “Environmental Remediation of Dioxin Contamination at Da Nang Airport”, which will cost 43 million USD and will be carried out over 4 years on 19 hectares of land.