Excerpt from “Children of the Apocalypse,” by Kim Willsher
Mail on Sunday November 1995
The US dropped 12 million gallons of Agent Orange on Vietnam: 23 years later a poisoned generation is now having to pay.
It was almost impossible not to recoil at the sight of Thoa Nguyen in her cotton summer dress. Even among the many tragically deformed youngsters in the Thanh Xuan Peace Village, near Hanoi, she stood out; her pretty face and slim body shockingly disfigured by patches of black scaly skin sprouting coarse animal-like fur. Thoa, who has a melanin disease, is living testimony to the horrific legacy of the Vietnam War; only one of countless children of a manmade apocalypse now blighting the lives of a new generation. Thoa’s father, Thang Van, a former soldier in the army of Communist North Vietnam, well remembers the American planes which flew low over the villages, spewing poison into the lush terrain and sending coolie-hatted farmers harvesting rice in the paddy fields scuttling for cover.
When they emerged from their secret tunnels the sky had turned pink and within days the lush leaves of the trees and shrubs had died.
Eventually the jungle grew back. But a devastating time bomb had been sown into the crops and rivers upon which 80 per cent of Vietnam’s population depends.
Estimates of Agent Orange victims fluctuate wildly from 100,000 to two million. But the Red Cross says all persons with ailments such as Thoa’s have at least one parent who was in an area sprayed with defoliants during the war.
Researchers claim the type of fetus malformation: claw feet, twisted bones, skin disorders and eyes without pupils – and similar deformities found among siblings, in families with no history of disability, points to gene mutations caused by Agent Orange.
The worst affected areas are also the poorest, most isolated villages where the average income is equivalent to $40 a year.
John Geoghegan, director of the International Federation of the Red Cross in Hanoi, said: “Agent Orange planted chemical landmines deep in the very essence of life, in the genes of the men and women. Now the war is being fought again with the grandchildren of those involved in the conflict. It is impossible to say for certain if a disability is due to Agent Orange. We assume it is when the parents are from sprayed areas, when there are no other possible environmental factors and when there is no history of disability in the family. Disturbingly, the effects appear to be cumulative. One former soldier who was burned by Agent Orange had a son who was born without a toe, and a grandson born without a leg.”
The campaign to help victims in Vietnam is led by 70-year-old Professor Le Cao Dai, a war veteran and director of the Vietnamese Red Cross Agent Orange Fund, who says the need for international aid is critical. “We have found dioxins in human bodies, in food, in soil, water, fish, ducks and eggs and it is still showing up,” he said. “It is a tragedy because the dioxins are being passed to babies through their mother’s milk, so we are seeing a third generation of victims.”
