Agent Orange Justice launched in Sydney
By John Percy
Agent Orange Justice – Australia-Vietnam Solidarity Network, has now been
established in Australia. A very successful inaugural meeting was held in Sydney on June 1, attended by more than 40 people, with 20 new members joining AOJ.
Speakers were Mai Phuoc Dung, the new Vietnamese consul-general (whose speech
is printed on page 19), Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, green bans activist Jack
Mundey and Mike Karadjis from AOJ. We also showed part of a powerful 35-minute
DVD on Agent Orange from VAVA, the Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent
Orange/Dioxin, based in Hanoi.
There was lively discussion and useful ideas thrown up on how to build the
campaign.
The organisation has agreed on the following mission statement:
“Agent Orange Justice – Australia Vietnam Solidarity Network is a new
organisation being established as the Australian section of the international
campaign to hold the United States government responsible for the disaster it
created for millions of Vietnamese people as a result of its 10-year spraying
of Agent Orange – a chemical weapon – in Vietnam between 1961 and 1971.
“This international campaign is spearheaded by the Vietnam Association of
Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), with chapters in many countries, and
aims to pressure the US government, and the chemical companies which produced
Agent Orange, to pay to clean up the toxic mess still contaminating parts of
Vietnam’s environment and to provide adequate compensation to some 3 million
Vietnamese who are affected by this chemical, especially in the form of
horrific birth defects which now affect the third generation. To date the US has refused to accept its responsibility.
“In addition to this solidarity with this campaign, our organisation will also
aim to raise awareness of the issue more broadly in the Australian community,
pressure the Australian government to recognise its responsibility for this
disaster as part of the US’s war on Vietnam, and link this issue with other anti-war
issues, and do our own small part in raising solidarity funds for the victims.”
Background
This organisation is long overdue. Australian activists have been aware for
decades of the terrible tragedy of Agent Orange inflicted upon the Vietnamese people.
Campaigns have been waged in other countries, in the USA and UK for example, but little has been done about it in Australia. A number of activists came together
to get it off the ground.
In late 2010 the Revolutionary Socialist Party organised successful Vietnam seminars and poster exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Two of us had
visited Hanoi in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of Vietnam’s independence celebrations, and participated in two conferences, and talked with
people about Agent Orange. We visited Hanoi again early last year, meeting a
range of people and groups, including VAVA, and visited two institutions caring
for Agent Orange victims.
Two other supporters of the Vietnamese struggle had just returned to Sydney
after living for 10 years in Hanoi, and two others had been in Cambodia for 10
years and were now back in Sydney. There were also initial supporters in other
states and overseas. We resolved that a specific Agent Orange campaign group
had to be set up, in the framework of solidarity with the people of Vietnam.
The inaugural meeting was built through multiple e-mailings, Facebook, articles
in the left press, and leafleting and contacting at a range of events in the
month before, such as the May Day rally, an exhibition of photographs by
Wilfred Burchett of Vietnam in 1955-56, Australia Cuba Friendship Society
events, an MUA retired members meeting and the funeral and wake of Bob Gould,
who had been instrumental in building the campaign against the US war in Vietnam
in Sydney.
A delegation from the Vietnamese consul-general’s office and the Vietnam Trade
Office attended the meeting. There were also two journalists from the Vietnam
News Agency, and their report has been carried in many Vietnamese papers and
websites in Vietnamese and English.
A delegation of three attended from APHEDA – Union Aid Abroad, the overseas
humanitarian aid agency of the ACTU. Executive officer Peter Jennings spoke in
the discussion, and pledged that APHEDA will affiliate. Members of the Australia-Cuban
Friendship Society also attended.
Activists from many other ongoing campaigns as well as former activists from
the anti-war movement in the 1960s attended. Some participants of the
Revolutionary Socialist Party’s Vietnam seminar and poster exhibition in
September 2010 in Sydney attended.
An Adelaide radio station did an interview with an AOJ spokesperson.
The AOJ website is now up and running: <www.agentorangejustice.org.au>
and already the site has been added to and improved considerably. The meeting
proceedings were videotaped and will be made available on the website.
Future plans and possibilities
There were keen contributions and constructive ideas from many participants
that include:
* Getting in touch with the Australian Vietnam veterans who had campaigned hard
in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to win recognition and compensation from the
Australian government for their cancers, their children’s deformities and other
health problems believed to have arisen from Agent Orange. This is to find out
the state of their campaign if it still exists (very little was known about the
veterans’ campaign activities for many years).
* Link to campaigns against Monsanto, Dow Chemical and
Union Carbide.
* The production of a 10-minute Power Point presentation of the Agent Orange
Justice case as a basic tool to take the campaign to a wider audience.
* If the rumoured visit to Australia of Henry Kissinger takes place, one of the
architects of the war on Vietnam, then we should organise a protest directed at
him.
* AOJ-AVSN should obtain high quality images
of the AO victims and the AO campaign in Vietnam and possibly other countries
such that they can be enlarged, laminated and deployed as tools to educate a
wider Australian audience on the issue.
* Given the Casula Power House Museum had held exhibitions on the US war in Vietnam three times, AOJ-AVSN should explore possibilities of collaboration for some joint
projects.
* AOJ-AVSN should mobilise more trade unions, environmental groups, student
groups and non-government organisations to lend their support for this
campaign, in the form of possible resolutions to be moved.
* AOJ-AVSN should endeavour to increase its public profile by taking part in
public actions or meetings where the campaign might find a receptive audience.
AOJ quickly put this last suggestion into action with an intervention at the
World Environment Day rally on Sunday, June 5. A group of us went along with
the AOJ banner and a stall and leaflets and collected about 150 names and
emails for the mailing list, donations and many words of solidarity and
support.
Now that the Sydney group is established, we can start the first steps to get
groups organised in Brisbane and Melbourne also. Possibilities have also
emerged for activities in other places, with supporters in Tasmania and Canberra.
VAVA conference Aug 8-9
VAVA had held its first Agent Orange international conference in 2006, and has
called a second conference for August 8-9 in Hanoi. They have invited AOJ to
send a delegation, and two comrades will definitely be participating from Australia. They are Allen Myers, the assistant editor of Direct Action currently
living in Phnom Penh, who attended the first VAVA conference, and Hamish
Chitts, a Brisbane activist who initiated Stand Fast, an organisation of former
military personnel opposed to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On his return, Hamish Chitts will be speaking at public meetings reporting on
the conference, talking about the issues of Agent Orange, and urging people to
build AOJ. His first meeting is scheduled for Sydney on August 24. Meetings
will follow in Brisbane and Melbourne, and hopefully other cities as well.
The campaign has got off to a good start.
How you can help
Join Agent Orange Justice (AOJ). Membership fee: Individuals: $20 per
year; $10 concession; $50 solidarity; small organisations: $50 affiliation per
year; large organisations: $100 affiliation per year.
Take part in AOJ’s campaigning activities to raise consciousness about
this issue among the broader Australian population.
Donate to AOJ. We need resources to reach people in Australia about this important issue with leaflets, posters, badges, DVDs, film showings.
Any funds raised above our operating and publicity expenses will be sent to
VAVA in Hanoi.
Contact us at
info@agentorangejustice.org.au.
