FEATURE

The continuing crime against Vietnam

The people of Vietnam are still suffering from the devastating effects of the chemical warfare used against them by the U.S. from 1961 to 1975 during the Vietnam War. Large areas of land that were once covered with crops, vegetation, and animal life are today barren. Dam- age to human chromosomes, causing miscarriages, fetal deaths or congenital malformations, still persists.

By William Pomeroy

C hemical warfare — its use by the U.S. in Vietnam and its effects — was the subject of an international symposium in Ho Chi Minh City on January 14-18. While the Western press virtually ignored the sym- posium, it has given extensive coverage to allegations by the Reagan Administration of Soviet use of chemi- cal weapons in Indochina and Afghanistan — allega- tions that have been proven to be false by authorita- tive scientific bodies in Britain and Australia that have branded the so-called evidence as faked.

Presented to the symposium was a chilling report by Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien, ‘‘The Lasting Conse- quences of Chemical Warfare,’’ compiled from studies by Vietnamese biologists and doctors. In the report, published in Hanoi in the February issue of Vietnam Courier, Dr. Vien generously points out that ‘American biologists ‘were the first to point to the serious consequences of chemical warfare on the vegetal environment” and to ask “distressing ques- tions,’ while the war was still in progress. He cites estimates by U.S. biologist Arthur H. Westing of the amounts of lethal chemicals sprayed upon Vietnam: a total of 44,300 cubic meters or 57 million kilograms of Agent Orange, a mixture containing, all told, 170 kilograms of the extremely poisonous substance, dioxin. es

His report is divided’ into two parts, one dealing with the effects of the chemicals ‘‘on the natural milieu, the ecological environment of Vietnam,” and the other with the effects ‘‘on the health of the Viet- namese population, given the carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic effects of dioxin, at pre- sent and in the future.’’

The objectives of the U.S. chemical warfare pro- gram, carried on from 1961 to 1975, with massive sprayings occurring in 1967-1970, were to destroy guerrilla refuges by wiping out extensive areas of forest and other growth with defoliants, and to de- stroy the guerrilla support base among the peasantry by destroying food crops and thereby forcing the peasants out of the countryside.

’ As Dr. Vien points out, at the same time that these areas were being sprayed with chemicals, they were also receiving colossal bombings and shellings com- prising three times the tonnage dropped on all theat- ers of operation during World War II.

Vast areas of forest were destroyed. Among the immediate effects had been the falling off of leaves, the drying up of tree trunks, the loss of crops, and the killing of plants, insects, fish and animals.

The long-term effects, which continue to the pre- sent and into the indefinite future, are if anything

William Pomeroy is a Daily World correspondent based in London.

worse: disappearance of folial cover, erosion of the soil, impoverishment of the soil, laterization, persis- tence of harmful substances, replacement of natural vegetation by tough grasses difficult to deal with, sec- ondary vegetation susceptible to fire in the dry sea- son, vanishing of honeybees, birds, fish, frogs and snakes while great numbers of mosquitoes, leeches and flies reappear after initial disappearance, impor- tant changes in the climate due to loss of vegetal cover. Natural regeneration has proven to be impos-

sible and artificial reforestation is extremely costly

and will take a long time to carry out.

As far as food crops are concerned, all vegetal groups have been affected. After spraying, plants had withered and died, but subsequently seeds have failed to germinate or seedlings that did sprout soon died in the contaminated soil.

Dr. Vien cites the effects upon specific forest areas. The Ma Da forest, covering 30,000 hectares of rolling hills 100 kilometers northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, had been a rich tropical forest:

The forest was a three-tiered one which could yield up to 200 cubic meters of timber per hec- tare. Many wild animals lived there: elephants, tigers, panthers, bears, deer, roe deer, pythons, a wide variety of other snakes, as well as swarms of honeybees. Many species of medici- nal plants which could be used in traditional pharmacology grew there.

Today, after the chemical sprayings and the bombings, 74% of the Ma Da forest is grassy Savanna or clumps of degenerate bamboo, while the crowns of the remaining 26% of forest are either gone or rav- aged by insects and diseases. “‘Birds and other ani- mals have become quite rare.”’

One of the main targets of the U.S. chemical war- fare was the mangrove forest in the Mekong delta. Here about 100,000 hectares were heavily sprayed, the worst-affected being the 45,000 hectares of the Ca Mau mangrove forest. This was a rich vegetal area, of great economic value, where logging, charcoal mak- ing, fishing, bird-catching and honey-gathering yielded very good incomes to the inhabitants.

The results of the sprayings were devastating. At present 30% of the region is still without vegetation, while that which has regrown has harmful modifica- tions. Waterways have silted up. Rich soil has been ruined by salinity. The rich fauna has diminished al- most to the vanishing point. Local fishermen who used to get catches of 200 kilograms with simple equipment in a night now take a meager 10 to 15% of this. Regeneration could occur only over a very long term.

In the A Luoi region, a valley 30 kilometers long and 2-6 kilometers wide, chemical spraying was con- ducted throughout the 15 years of U.S. destruction. A militarily important region lying near the 17th paral-

Daily World file photos

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U.S. planes spray chemicals on cultivated land in Vietnam in 1965

lel and the strategic Highway 9, it received concen: — trated U.S. attention. Now it is one of Vietnam’s de- sert areas; as Dr. Vien puts it, “the region has 2 sinister look” with “bare stumps of trees that have - died.”

This was an area of highly abundant animal life, where over 150 animal species thrived. The destruc: tion of the fauna, says the report, ‘“‘was especially spectacular.”’ Birds have gone, they have no fruits or insects to eat. ‘In August 1981, in the midst of sum- mer, a team of researchers working a whole night caught only a few insects belonging to 10 different species; in the ponds and rivers they found only three kinds of frogs. . . . In 1981, no sizable mammal of any value was found.”

The conclusion in regard to the A Luoi region could be applied to many areas in Vietnam: “The regenera tion of the flora and fauna has proved to be well-nigh impossible. At any rate, it will call for immense e forts and a very long time:” .

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 29, 1983—Page 4