Things finally seem to be moving on the issue of cleaning up wartime dioxin or “Agent Orange” in Vietnam. A study is being released, containment and clean-up measures are being planned.

More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orange has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.

“They’re the highest levels I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Thomas Boivin, the scientist who conducted the tests this spring. “If this site were in the U.S. or Canada, it would require significant studies and immediate cleanup.”

Soil tests by his firm, Hatfield Consultants of Canada, found levels of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical compound in Agent Orange, that were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits.  (Read story here)

Three generations of Vietnamese (or up to 3 million people) have been affected by the herbicide but the US government continues to deny there is a link between the toxins and birth defects and other health issues in Vietnam. At the same time the US compensates their own war veterans with health problems linked to Agent Orange. 

Denial tactics are, of course, nothing new. The US first denied that it left any toxins in US bases in the Philippines. Then they denied bearing any responsibility for cleaning up toxic wastes of superfund proportions. Interestingly, they do feel responsible for cleaning up base contaminants in Canada, Northern Europe and Japan.

The U.S. government maintains that the U.S.-Philippine Military Bases Agreement [of 1947] does not provide for clean-up responsibility despite the context that such treaty was entered into prior to the advent of environmental awareness among governments. The position that the U.S. could not act without a clause on U.S. responsibility in said agreement was belied by the fact that the U.S. provided clean-up fund for Canada and other major allies in Europe and Asia whose military agreements with the U.S. does not contain the same. Finally, the U.S. government’s claim that the Philippines waived its right to a clean-up was rejected by a Senate Joint Committee declaring that: “Nothing in the agreement and amendments thereto authorized the U.S. to unduly pollute the territorial waters with contaminants, destroy the environment by dumping toxic wastes within the bases, and endanger lives of residents in the vicinity.”

Such denial of responsibility is contrary to customary and international law with respect to the care and diligence required of States in preventing environmental damage required of the U.S. as the state exercising authority over the former bases as well as seriously disregards Principle 1 of the Stockholm Convention which established the foundation linking human rights and environmental protection. (More) 

One reason, perhaps, the US is more inclined to move in Vietnam’s case is that it has never coughed up billions in reparations promised, while aid packages have been doled out to the Philippines. Another is  politics related to the “War on Terror.” Agreements now give permission to US troops to hold exercises, construct facilities, bring weapons and ammunition, use ports and airstrips….which will likely spread contaminants to the whole archipelago. Ten bucks says these won’t get cleaned up.