Dying activist in race for justice
79-year-old says Agent Orange caused her health problems and malformations in children
Every day, when Viet Lien calls her mother from Vietnam, she asks the same mundane questions: how did she sleep? What will she do today? But mainly she wants to know that Tran To Nga has made it through another night.
“In the morning, people call me to check whether I am still alive,” said Tran, smiling, after she received the daily call in her living room in the Paris suburbs.
At 79 years old, the former freedom fighter is saving the little energy she has left for what may be the last battle of her life: obtaining justice for herself and hundreds of thousands of victims of Agent Orange, the highly toxic herbicide sprayed by US troops during the Vietnam War.
Today, a French court could make her the first civilian to be recognised as a victim of the defoliant.
She has sued 14 of the multinationals that sold Agent Orange to the US during the war, including Monsanto, now owned by German giant Bayer, and Dow Chemical.
“If I don’t do this, no one else can and the crimes committed [by US troops] with Agent Orange will be buried forever. The hopes of millions of victims are on my shoulders,” she told the Sunday Telegraph.
A verdict in Tran’s favour could set a legal precedent and pave the way for more civilian lawsuits.
It could also see her awarded tens of thousands of euros in damages.
Viet’s concerns about her mother are legitimate. She suffers from typical Agent Orange effects, including heart and lung problems, type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy.
Tran has also contracted tuberculosis twice, developed a cancer and lost one of her daughters, who was born with a malformation of the heart, when she was 17 months old.
“At the time, I was thinking about the effects of Agent Orange on nature: immediately, leaves would fall, trees would be stripped, plants would die, but we did not think about the humans,” she said.
“I did not even think about Agent Orange when my daughter was born and was already sick,” she added.
Her surviving daughters as well as her grandchildren have battled health problems, including malformations and breathing difficulties.
Tran said she blamed herself for the poor health of her children for 40 years, before she discovered she was herself a victim of Agent Orange, which she was exposed to in her 20s.
A chemistry graduate from Hanoi, she was part of an independence movement fighting to liberate the south of the country.
At the age of 22 she joined hundreds of activists walking across forests and mountains to highlight the cause.
In 1966, near Saigon, she was directly affected by the herbicide sprayed from planes overhead.
An analysis of her blood samples revealed in 2011 she still had abnormally high levels of dioxin running through her veins.
NGOS hope the legal case will bolster a growing drive to pressure states to recognise “ecocide” as an international crime on par with genocide and crimes against humanity.
The multinationals argue that they cannot be held responsible for the way the American military used their product at a time of war and that US authorities, not the suppliers, are responsible.
At an earlier court hearing Bayermonsanto argued that they acted “under the orders of a state and on its behalf” and thus should enjoy jurisdictional immunity from prosecution.
The US military sprayed an estimated 76 million litres of Agent Orange between 1961 and 1971 to destroy tree cover and crops used by fighters.
But the chemical warfare also had devastating, long-lasting effects on civilians in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and their descendants.
Up to one million people have health issues or disabilities, including
At the time, I was thinking about the effects of Agent Orange on nature . . . but we did not think about the humans. Tran To Nga
100,000 children, according to the Vietnamese Red Cross.
To date, only military veterans — from the US, Australia and Korea — have won compensation for the after-effects of the chemical.
In 1984, seven chemical companies settled with US veteran plaintiffs for $250 million after 16,000 complained exposure had caused rare forms of cancers, nerve damage, liver disorders and skin problems. The US Department of Veterans Affairs has published a list of a dozen diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure, including several cancers, leukaemia, Parkinson’s, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and skin conditions.
Yet Tran’s legal battle could last for years still as the losing side in today’s verdict is likely to appeal, and she fears she may not see justice served.
In 2017, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her oncologist said she only had five years to live.
“With time, and with everything happening around us, I also feel weaker,” she said.
“But I don’t think I will die before it ends.”