eee ee

Following U.S. charges that
Vietnam had used chemcial war-
fare against Laos and Kam-
puchea, the Ministry of Foreign

airs of Vietnam issued the fol-
lowing statement:
*x* * ox .

Public Opinion in many coun-
tries, particularly in the United
States and Australia is, with grow-
ing concern, demanding further
Investigations of the consequ-
ences of the U.S. chemical war-
fare in Vietnam. A significant
number of American servicemen

who took part in the Vietnam War - f
-forests were sprayed for defolia-

have sued the U.S. Government
and those chemical companies

that manufactured the defloliant.

for the damages done to them-
selves and their children. from
their contact with toxic
chemicals.

The U.S. Congress has held
hearings on the problem. In Au-
stralia, under the pressure of pub-
lic Opinion, the Australian
Government declared on January
7, that it would investigate
the extent of damage caused by
U.S. toxic chemicals to the off-
spring of Australian Vietnam war
veterans. Research .by Viet-
namese and American scientists
have provided important conclu-
sions on the subject. Yet the U.S.
ruling circles have been trying to
cover up the truth and evade their
responsibilities. In close coordi-
nation with China and its hen-
chmen, the United States has
come out with slanderous accusa-
tions against Vietnam “using
toxic chemicals in Laos and
Kampuchea”’ in order to mislead

blic opinion.

The Ministry for Foreign Af-
fairs of the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam deems it necessary to
point out the responsibility the
U.S. has to bear for the consequ-
ences of chemical warfare it car-
ried out in Vietnam and expose
the machinations and tricks of the
U.S. ruling circles are trying to
evade their responsibility.

In its war of aggression
against the peoples of Vietnam,
Laos and Kampuchea, besides
bombs and shells and war means
of various kinds, the United
States systematically used toxic

chemicals and gases on a large

scale to kill civilians and destroy

Chemical wari
the U.S. cov

the environment in the three
Indochinese countries.

The United States sprayed
more than 100,000 tons of toxic

chemicals on almost all provinces -

of South Vietnam, where 13,000
square kilometres (43%) of land
areas and 25,000 square kilo-
metres (44%) of forests were
targets for one to several spray-
ings.

Seventy percent of coconut or-
chards, 60% of rubber planta-
tions, 110,000 hectares of pine-
woods along the coast and
150,000 hectares of mangrove-

tion, an amount of food enough
to feed millions of people was de-
stroyed as a result of this chemical
warfare. :

There were 2,000,000 victims
of toxic chemicals among whom
3,500 who died. According to the
figures released by the Foreign
Affairs Division, Library of the
U.S. Congress, on June 30, 1971,
toxic chemicals used by the U.S.
in South Vietnam amounted to
about six pounds for every South
Vietnamese.

Many scientists the world over
have stated that the spraying of
toxic chemicals throughout South
Vietnam by the United States was
an undeniable genocidal crime.
Professor Arthur W. Galston, an
American biologist, in testimony
before members of the U.S. Con-
gress and the public February 9,
1977, said: ‘‘I believe that the re-
sulting damage done to Vietnam
and to the environment on which
all of that civilization depends, is
still inadequately calculated’.

U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson
condemned this crime in August
1970, said: ‘‘History of mankind
had never known a case in which
a country declared war against
the environment of another na-
tion, yet the United States had
embarked on the ecological
experiment which no nation has
dared to do’.

The conseqquences of the uses
of 2-4d and 2-4-5-t, known
as herbicide “‘defoliant’’, are the
cause of growing concern for dif-
ferent circles in Australia, and in
the United States. These chemi-
cals, used in South Vietnam from
1962 to 1971, had much greater
toxicity than those used for agri-

ru 5 é

cultural purposes in the United
States and Australia.

Since 1970, Vietnamese scien-
tists have shown that herbicide
2-4-5-t contains dioxin, one of the
most toxic substances known.
Vietnamese scientists’ research,
as verified in Australia, Switzer-
land and the United States, indi-

cate that a micro-amount of the

agent can engender miscarriages,
birth defects, stillbirths, change
of chromonomes and cancer.
Dioxin exists for a very long time
in natural conditions, defoliating
trees, rendering crop land uncul-
tivable for decades and changing
the environment of a country,
causing floods and droughts.

Inthe United States, many Viet-
nam war veterans are suffering
from the effects due to dioxin
herbicide exposure. A Chicago-
based organization known as
CAVEAT, alone reported to rep-
resent 2,000 Vietnam war vete-
rans carrying dioxin symptoms.

Through their organizations,
these veterans filed lawsuit
against five large chemical com-
panies that produced these toxic
herbicides.

The trust fund they asked for
could amount as much as $40-
billion. The chemical companies,

at first not acknowledging any
responsibility, have put the blame
on the U.S. Government for not
advising U.S. servicemen of the
long-term effects of these chemi-
cals and have demanded that the
federal Government.-bear part of
the responsibility.

In Australia, research by an
Australian doctor showed that the
rate of birth defects was very high
among the newborn children of
the Australian Vietnam war vete-
rans. On the average there was
one birth deformity or a mis-
carriage out of every four pre-
gnancy cases.

According to U.S. Air Force
figures which are far from the
truth, from 1962 through 1970,
some 44-million pounds of 2-4-5-t
were sprayed in South Vietnam.
Since 70% of the combat zones
were sprayed, the chances ofcom-
ing into contact with dioxin her-
bicides were significantly high.
Evidently, the U.S. spraying of
toxic chemicals left the people
and environment in Vietnam with
extremely serious and inestima-
ble consequences. .

Lately, in close collabora-
tion with China and its henchmen,
the United States has circulated
fabrications and slanderous alle-

gations about what is called
‘‘Vietnam’s use of toxic chemi-
cals in Laos and Kampuchea’’.

In so doing, the United States
tries to mislead public opinion,
cover up and blot out its genocidal
crimes in the Indochinese Penin-
sula and shirk its responsibility
for the crimes it committed
against the peoples of Vietnam,
Laos and Kampuchea, and its
responsibility towards victims of
its chemical warfare, including
U.S. servicemen and soldiers of
U.S.’s allies engaged in the war of.
aggression against. Vietnam.

While striving to stage this
scene of ‘‘ Vietnam's use of toxic .
chemicals’’, the United States de-
liberately conceals the war crimes
against the Vietnamese people in
February 1979 by Chinese troops
including the use of toxic gas in
some populated areas and the
poisoning of drinking water
sources in the areas they oc-
cupied. More serious, the United
States is trying to justify and help
in China’s efforts and is even di-
rectly taking part in the criminal
manoeuvre of restoring the
genocidal regime of ‘‘Democratic
Kampuchea’’ which massacred 3-
million Kampuchean people and
drove the Kampuchean nation to
the brink of extermination.

Concocting this story, the
United States is attempting to dis-
tort the aims of the peoples of
Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea,
sow discord among these three
countries and to meet the political
need of the internal situation in
the United States.

What the U.S. has been doing
in this connection can only be
termed hypocrisy as Repre-
sentative Robert Kastenmeier put
it when the U.S. House of Repre-
sentatives voted on the resolution
of this question.

After a series of slander cam-
paigns about ‘‘human rights’’,
“‘refugees’’, ‘‘Vietnam’s dry-
season offensive’ and
“*Vietnam’s obstruction of the re-
lief activities in Kampuchea’’, the
problem of ‘‘Vietnam’s use of
toxic chemicals in Laos and
Kampuchea’’ is nothing but
another vicious attempt to carry
out the hostile policy that the
Peking-Washington alliance is
hatching against the peoples of
Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea.

The U.S. manoeuvre can de-
ceive nobody. The debts for the
genocidal crimes the U.S. com-
mitted against the peoples of
Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea
can in no way be liquidated by its
deceitful and slanderous allega-
tions. ;

AND WHAT DO THEY THINK?

Moves by the Cartere (2
administration to scrap ;
détente have launched
a nation wide debate in
the Soviet Union.
Novosti Press _inter-
viewed Soviet citizens
to find out their opinions
on Current U.S. policy
and Soviet-Western re-
lations.

Akhmedzyan Mustafin, 77,
leader

¥.

Helen Razvyazkina, 16,

rE

Lt. Leonid Serdyukov, 26,
traffic control officer

Lara Almakhanova, 20,
hairdresser

Heinrick Rotgang, 25,
construction worker

of the Moscow
Cathedral Mosque

We Soviet Moslems demand
that American stop inter-
fering in the international af-
fairs of Afghanistan and Iran
and leave these nations
alone. Soviet aid to Afghanis-
tan concerns only our two
countries. And it is the United
States not the Soviet Union,
that aggravates tension in the
Middle and Near East.

student é

I'm doing my student prac-
tices in the Children’s World
Department Store. | have had
the chance to serve Ameri-
cans: they bought toys and
Olympic souvenirs, particu-
larly Misha the Bear the
Olympic symbol. The Ameri-
cans | have seen were so kind
and friendly that | just can’t
understand why the U.S.
government is so anti-Soviet.

The U.S. adminstration is us-
ing the same old argument of
an alleged Soviet threat. It is
pure invention. Carter has
apparently decided to ensure
the support of the arms man-
ufacturers for his re-election
by promising them bigger
profits. It is indecent to risk
the existence of one’s own
people for the sake of one’s
Career.

| am outraged by the actions
of the American and Chinese
governments which supply
arms to Afghan counter-

revolutionaries who kill-wo- .

men and children.

If the Americans do not par-
ticipate in the Olympics, they
will regret it. A boycott of the
games would be an act of dis-
respect to the international
community. As a builder, |
can say we did our very best
to meet the needs of our
guests. Unfortunately, it ap-
pears that Carter is bent on
using the Olympics for un-
seemly political purposes
and to mix politics with sport.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 22, 1980— Page 9