Salem-News.com
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june012011/ao-monsanto-la.php"I would have then taken him to see the living victims of Agent Orange..."
 Cam Lo, Quang Tri Province. Phan Thi Hoi bathes her 14-year-old son, Bui Quang Ky. She was exposed to Agent Orange when she was in the North Vietnamese Army during the war. Courtesy: mindfully.org |
 Recent photo of an orphanage for AO victims in Read more about the kids in the orphanage in this special report:
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...Those laboring behind projects to force the American company Monsanto into taking responsibility for contaminating the earth with deadly Agent Orange are devoted human activists and one I have known for the longest, is Len Aldis of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society.
Len dispatched this letter to Monsanto's board of directors, posing many questions about the company's ultimate responsibility to people in so many locations, whose lives have been impacted in a dire way and terminated by Monsanto's Agent Orange, particularly in Vietnam where the toll is the highest.
It seems highly unconscionable that officials at the helm of a company with this type of history would fail to take the opportunity to witness the human catastrophe that their company has created.
As many already know, Monsanto is now the main company behind genetically modified food (GMO) and their bizarre death-based pattern seems no partner to a positive, healthy future.
Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society
Flat 2, 26 Tomlins Grove, London E3 4NX
Secretary: Len Aldis
Tel: 0208 980 7146. Mobile: 0779 657 1017
lenaldis@yahoo.co.uk
www.lenaldis.co.uk
Skype: Len.Aldis
24 August 2011
Board of Directors
Monsanto Company
800 North Lindbergh Boulevard
St Louis. MO 63167
c/o David F. Snively. Secretary
Ref: 10 August 1961 – 10 August 2011
Dear Mr Snively,
Fifty years ago this August, United States Forces began spraying a herbicide manufactured by your company over South Vietnam. During the ten-year period, eighty million litres were sprayed. Agent Orange is the commonly known name of the herbicide.
You may not be aware of the part played by your company in this criminal act, but there have been many protests here in the UK and many other countries at the use of Agent Orange on Vietnam. I have called in at your office in Ho Chi Minh City in the hope of meeting the director and inviting him to the Peace Village at Tu Du Hospital where he would have seen as I have seen the results of your product in jars containing unborn babies, a sight not many people could stomach seeing.
I would have then taken him to see the living victims of Agent Orange, the children with various deformities, no eyes, minus one or two limbs, twisted bodies etc etc etc, due to your product Agent Orange. Unfortunately he used the excuse that he would be out of the city when I was due to arrive, a pity, because he would have had the opportunity to speak to the doctors and nurses who give these youngsters their love and care, trying to help them live a normal life. And if he did not grasp the point, I would have told him that the youngsters were born many years after the war ended in 1975.
Mr Snively, you do not have to travel to Vietnam to see the people who have been affected by your company’s product Agent Orange. In the US there are thousands of Vietnam Veterans suffering from illnesses and disabilities, as are their children. Contact the various veterans’ organisations in the US.
In Vietnam there are near to four million such victims, of all ages, many not able to be treated in a hospital or a clinic. Many live at home, in small towns and communes throughout the country. These tragic victims and their parents need our help and the help of your company that made profits running into $billions in manufacturing Agent Orange.
On leaving the peace village I would have asked your colleague in Ho Chi Minh City: “what does it feel like working for a company that has caused this to happen to the children of your country? I ask you the same question. Yes Mr Nively, there are many American children suffering from Agent Orange.
On 29th July I shall arrive in Ho Chi Minh City to see again these youngsters, and to have meetings, then on 6th August will fly up to Hanoi for an international conference being held on 8th, 9th and 10th, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the use of Agent Orange. While there I shall, along with other international delegates, visit more victims.
In the speech I intend to make at the conference I shall call upon the companies such as yours to accept its responsibility for the horrific damage it has done to the people of Vietnam, and to make compensation to the victims, to fund the building of small clinics, to build respite homes in the communes where the parents can rest from their 24 hour caring of their sons/daughters.
I need not tell you or your board members that many thousands of Vietnamese have died in the past fifty-years and until Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, DuPont and the other companies accept responsibilities, many more thousands will die. Those who survive birth in the coming years will suffer as today’s victims are suffering. The effects of Monsanto’s Agent Orange have gone into the third generation of the Vietnamese. Soon, if not already, it will enter into the fourth.
When you place this letter in front of your board members, I hope it will be met with a positive response, not only for them to accept responsibility for the damage done to the people and land of Vietnam, but also to give financial and practical support to the victims and their families.
Such a response will be appreciated.
Look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely
Len Aldis
URGENT-URGENT: ASK YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT TO SIGN EDM 1366
Support the victims of AGENT ORANGE, Sign the Online Petition
Australian group seeks justice for Agent Orange victims
 John Percy, National Secretary of the Revolutionary Social Party delivered speech at the AOJ. |
At the debut ceremony, AOJ launched a campaign to call for assistance to Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims and demand US chemical companies to clean up the environment and compensate the victims in the Southeast Asian country.
John Percy, National Secretary of the Revolutionary Social Party said the ceremony that although the war ended over 35 years ago, many Vietnamese people are living with heavy after-effects caused by AO/dioxin sprayed by US troops.
Percy said AOJ is building a website at www.agentorangejustice.org.au to gather more support for the victims and serve as a forum for everyone to better understand the aftermaths
Vietnamese people are suffering from this toxic chemical.
The Vietnamese Consul General in Sydney, Mai Phuoc Dung, spoke highly of AOJ’s initiative, promising to work closely with AOJ in the campaign to seek justice for AO/dioxin victims in Vietnam.
AOJ was established as apart of an international campaign to force the US government take responsibility for the consequences of AO/dioxin that US troops sprayed onto Vietnam from 1961 to 1971.
Wed, June 1, 2011
Aldis made the request in his letters sent to the headquarters of Monsanto in St Louis, the US and its offices in Cambridge, the UK and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam as well as the offices of Dow Chemical and DuPont in Vietnam on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the use of AO in Vietnam.
He also sent letters to British Prime Minister David Cameron and MP Leader of the Labour opposition Ed Miliband, calling on them to consider what the UK government could do to help ease the suffering of Vietnamese AO victims.
Aldis stressed that in Vietnam there are near to four million victims of AO produced by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, DuPont and other companies and sprayed by US forces during the 10-year period beginning August 10th, 1961. Many of them have not been able to be treated in a hospital or a clinic. These tragic victims and their parents need help, especially help of Monsanto Company that made profits running into billions of US dollar, in manufacturing AO, wrote Len.
The effects of Monsanto’s AO have gone into the third generation of the Vietnamese. Soon, if not already, it will enter into the fourth, he wrote.
Aldis pointed to the fact that in the US there are also thousands of Vietnam veterans suffering from illnesses and disabilities, as are their children, as a consequence of their exposure to AO during the war in Vietnam.
The Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society, express hope that his letter will be met with a positive response, from related companies and individuals, not only in accepting responsibility for the damage done to the people and land of Vietnam, but also in giving financial and practical support to the victims and their families.
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