Eva Cheng
On January 26, after a seven-year battle, the Seoul High Court awarded US$85 million in compensation to a third of South Korea's 20,000 known victims of the chemical weapon Agent Orange (AO) used by the US military during the 1961-73 Vietnam War.
The South Korean ruling improves the prospects for a similar court case underway in the US that seeks compensation for AO's estimated 4 million victims in Vietnam. The US court case will be heard on March 1.
South Korea sent 320,000 troops to Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 to help Washington defeat the Communist-led insurgency against the US-installed puppet regime in South Vietnam. So far almost 20,000 of these veterans have come forward seeking financial compensation for the various cancers, neurological and other serious medical conditions that they are convinced resulted from their exposure to AO during the war.
AO, which contains the deadly carcinogen dioxin, was widely used by the US military as a defoliant in South Vietnam, in an unsuccessful attempt to deny the Vietnamese national liberation fighters jungle cover.
In the January 26 ruling, only 6795 Korean victims were awarded compensation, of between 6 million won ($6180) and 46 million won ($47,400).
The compensation claim was filed against two US chemical companies — Dow Chemical and Monsanto — rather than the US government, because there's no easy legal way to hold a "sovereign power" responsible for the injuries inflicted on those exposed to AO, while many of the big chemical companies profited hugely from the Vietnam War.
The Korean case started in 1999 as two separate litigations, which were defeated in 2002, but which were then appealed to a new judge under a single ruling.
Following the court ruling, the two companies issued a joint statement in which they continued to deny culpability: "The court's decision is contrary to the facts presented during the hearing... contrary to the overwhelming weight of independent scientific evidence which has not found a causation between exposure to Agent Orange and any serious human illness, as all other courts addressing this issue have found."
In making their judgement, the Korean judges cited a report from the US National Academy of Science, which concluded there is a "causal relationship" between AO and 11 diseases such as lung cancer, prostate cancer and larynx cancer. However, they dismissed the plaintiffs' claim that there is a definitive relationship between AO and peripheral neuropathy, which is a condition that plagues a large number of AO victims.
According to the January 26 Korean Times, neither Monsanto and Dow Chemical have listed property in Korea. This will make it harder for the Korean authorities to enforce the compensation decision if the companies refuse to abide by it.
The legacy of AO is much graver for its victims still living in Vietnam, where the 72 million litres were dumped and where the deadly chemical has found its way into the food chain of extensive areas in the central and southern regions.
The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin has also target the US chemical companies responsible for making AO. Its case was dismissed by a US district court judge last March, but an appeal will begin to be heard on March 1.
[To lend your support to the AO victims in Vietnam, sign the petition at <http://www.petitiononline.com/AOVN>. Donations can be made to bank account: Hoi Nan nhan chat doc da cam/dioxin Viet Nam 001.1000.863681, Bank Transactions Office, Vietcombank. Visit <http://www.greenleft.org.au/agent_orange.htm>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 15, 2006.
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