A overview of a hearing on the lawsuit (Photo: VNA)In itsarticle, the newspaper said that almost half a century after theVietnam war, a court ruling against the Bayer Group and other internationalchemical companies will be made in France on May 10.
Nga, a 79-year-old Vietnamese Frenchwoman, accuses herbicide manufacturerMonsanto (nowunder the Bayer Group of Germany), and other companies, of supplyingthe herbicide and defoliant chemical - Agent Orange/dioxin, which was used extensively by the USarmy between 1961-1971 in Vietnam, causing serious consequences for 4 million people and severely poisoning the environment.
Through this lawsuit, Nga and organisations that have supported her want theinternational community to recognise the crime of "ecological destruction"in the Vietnam war, the newspaper said.
It explained that the defoliant Agent Orange is held responsible for cancer andsevere malformations, among other things. Nga and her daughter also suffer fromheart problems, among other things, and she also has cancer. Another daughterdied early of a congenital heart defect. Even today, 6,000 children are bornwith malformations every year in Vietnam.
The same day, the Deutsche Welle (German wave)website reported on persistent effects of Agent Orange/dioxin that the US usedduring the Vietnam war.
Statistics show that about2-4 million people have been affected permanently by the chemical and at least100,000 children are born with disabilities. In addition to the seriousdefects, there are more than 20 diseases believed to be the direct result ofAgent Orange/dioxin such as cleft palate, hunchbacked spine, immunodeficiency, neurologicaldisorders, diabetes and Parkinson.
Nga filed the lawsuit in May 2014.Among the companies named in her suit, there are such names as Monsanto (nowunder the Bayer Group) and Dow Chemical.
With the support of several non-governmental organisations, Nga accused thecompanies of causing lasting harm to the health of her, her children andcountless others, as well as destroying the environment.
Nga graduated from a Hanoi university in 1966 and became a warcorrespondent of the Liberation News Agency, now the Vietnam News Agency (VNA).She worked in some of the most heavily AO/Dioxin affected areas in southernVietnam such as Cu Chi, Ben Cat and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, ultimatelyexperiencing contamination effects herself.
Among her threechildren, the first child died of heart defects and the second suffers from ablood disease.
On April 16, 2015, theCrown Court of Evry city held the first hearing on the case, but since then,lawyers for the chemical companies have tried every way to draw out procedures.
The trial wasscheduled to open in October 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
From 1961-1971, US troops sprayed more than 80 million litres of herbicides -44 million litres of which were AO, containing nearly 370 kilograms of dioxin -over southern Vietnam.
As a result, around 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical.Many of the victims have died, while millions of their descendants are livingwith deformities and diseases as a direct result of the chemical’s effects.
Nga claimscompensations for health problems.
If the court decidesin her favour, Nga would be the first Vietnamese AO/dioxin victim to becompensated./.
VNA
