Victims of
Agent Orange
In
light of the 2005 Classroom on the Quad's Human Rights theme, SAAAC has
decided to couple with Emviet to make our semester-long Awareness Project
focus around victims of Agent Orange.
Agent Orange is
the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S.
military during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used from 1961 to 1971
and has caused serious harm to the health of exposed Vietnamese,
Australians, Canadians and Americans, their children and grandchildren.
During the Vietnam War, Agent Orange's official military purpose was to
remove the leaves of trees to prevent guerrilla fighters of the National
Liberation Front from hiding. Today, thousands of Vietnamese children are
still born with severe birth defects as a result of the chemical that
remains in the land. Victims range from young children to full-grown adults.
Some suspected victimshave perfectly intact minds but live with missing or
terribly malformed limbs. Others appear almost "normal" but suffer from
mental retardation, blindness, or epilepsy. Still others suffer from
torturous skin conditions, dwarfism, paralysis, double sets of elbows and
knees, tumors, and countless other maladies.
To this day,
Vietnamese victims have yet to receive an official apology or compensation
from the U.S. government and/or the companies who developed the chemical.
On January 31, 2004, a victim's rights group, the Vietnam Association for
Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), filed a class action lawsuit in a US
Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, against several US companies,
for liability in causing personal injury, by developing and producing the
chemical. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent
Orange for the US military, and were named in the suit along with eight
other companies.
On March 10,
2005, the District Court judge dismissed the suit, ruling that there was no
legal basis for the plaintiffs' claims. The judge concluded that Agent
Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of
its use by the US; that the US was not prohibited from using it as an
herbicide; and that the companies which produced the substance were not
liable for the method of its use by the government. A number of lawsuits
by American GIs, however, have been won in the years since the Vietnam War.
To show our
support for the victims, EmViet and SAAAC have planned a number of
activities including fundraising, letter-writing campaigns, photo displays,
and petitioning.
Oct 19 -
Classroom on the Quad , 1-4pm
Come to
Classroom on the Quad and listen to a number of renowned professors and
speakers who will share their expertise on various Human Rights issues. Make
sure to visit the SAAAC/EmViet booth and pick up more information on Agent
Orange, write letters, and sign petitions.
Oct 24-28 -
APIA Celebration Week
While we
celebrate the history of APIA heritage at Emory and in the United States, we
also want to take this week to continue our project. Throughout the week,
the following opportunities will be available for those who are interested
in learning more:
- DUC Photo
Display -- come see photos of victims of Agent Orange and form a better
understanding of how this is affecting the lives of people today, and of
generations to come.
-
Information Table - we'll have a table set up outside Cox or in the DUC
Commons with petitions and information sheets. We also urge students to
write letters or cards to victims in Vietnam that we will send as a group.
Hate Incident at U Michigan
The following e-mail was forwarded to SAAAC by the U Mich. Director of APIA
Studies:
Subject: Query: citations
on anti-Asian hate, bias & discrimination
Dear Colleagues,
At the University of Michigan, a coalition of students, faculty and staff
are mounting a campaign to University adminstrators to demand concrete
interventions against anti-Asian bias and hate. This is in response to an
incident two weeks ago (and still under investigation) in which two white
male students allegedly assaulted two students of Asian heritage; one of
the white students allegedly urinated on one of the Asian students, and
racial slurs were shouted.
You are invited to visit the blog at: http://stopthehate.umich.
There is also an online petition at:
<http://new.petitiononline.com/aanohate/petition.html>
The investigation of the incident is still pending, and predictably the
alleged suspects have been waging an email defense (like, it was beer, and
they shouted to the Asian students to speak English because the Asian
students weren't speaking English). Regardless of the outcome of the
incident, we have been successful in steering dialogue toward the
broader--and more elusive--issue of climate, and to shape conversations
around the insidiously pervasive forms of bias and innuendo that APAs
endure routinely.
Amy K. Stillman
Director, Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies
University of Michigan
