Agent Orange: The
Cleanup Begins
by
John Stapleton
All rights reserved.
A Sense of Place Publishing 2013.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1503-1
No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means
including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in
writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote
short excerpts in a review.
This short book is dedicated to
the many victims both living and dead of dioxin, a manufacturing contaminant of
Agent Orange which has damaged millions of lives.
On
the morning of the 9 August 2012, Americans in particular but people around the
world were astonished to observe an historic event occurring at busy Da Nang
airport in Vietnam.The lingering impacts of the infamous herbicide Agent Orange
were finally to be addressed, 37 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
The
former American military base at Da Nang was in a sparsely populated rural area
outside a village at the time of the Vietnam War, which ended amidst chaotic
scenes in 1975.
The
aftermath of the war, impacting on millions of people, has continued in places
like Da Nang to the present day.
Now in the heart of an urban area,
Da Nang is adjacent to the sea and was a rest and recreation stop for American
soldiers. It is now popular amongst many tourists.
The
generation which grew up with peace demonstrations dividing their country now
has the money to pursue their fascination with the first war to be played out
on television before an audience of millions.
Many
former Vietnam veterans travel to Vietnam to seek out the places where they
served. By the end of the war American forces had utilized a total of 2,735
bases, although the remains of these for the most part are no longer to be
seen.
In
2011 Vietnam received six million tourists. This was up one million from the
previous year, perhaps due to political unrest in S.E. Asia’s tourism capital,
ever popular Thailand.
Between
2012 and 2016 some 77,400 cubic metres of soil, 2.7 million cubic feet, are scheduled
to be dug up from the Da Nang airport and treated.
The
treatment involves heating the contaminated soil to a minimum temperature of
325 degrees centigrade, the temperature at which dioxin breaks down into
harmless compounds.
The
soil is then repeatedly tested until dioxin levels are negligible and it is
then re-interred.
Dioxin
is regarded as one of the most toxic, if not the single most toxic, of all the
compounds ever synthesized by man.
It is dangerous at even “vanishing levels” - 10 parts per
trillion or more. It is tested for in parts per quadrillion, an exercise
compared to finding a coffee cup in Canada.
The
technical capacity to do this accurately did not exist for some 20 years after
the Vietnam War.
Seven
parts per trillion, that is seven molecules of dioxin in an Olympic sized
swimming pool, are believed to be the threshold level above which the
probability of shortened life spans and birth defects increases.
The
Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that around three million of their countrymen
are suffering from the impacts of Agent Orange, with around 150,000 children
born with birth defects.
As
well thousands of American veterans and their families have been affected, as
well as veterans from other which participated in the Vietnam War, including
Australia.
While the science remains
disputed, Dioxin is widely believed to have inter-generational effects.
Although
dioxin is not water soluble, it can persist in soil for decades and this
persistence increases the probability it will at some point move into nearby
streambeds and pond bottoms and from there be taken up by fish, ducks, snails
and thereby enter the food chain.
Many
of those born with birth defects were born well after the close of the Vietnam
War. Their parents were not participants in the conflict nor were they in the
direct path of the spraying. Instead both mothers and fathers came to have high
dioxin levels in their bloodstreams by consuming contaminated foods or by
working in areas where there were high residue levels. Or by swimming in lakes
and canals where the toxin had settled into silt.
Transporting
the soil from Da Nang airport to be buried in another location was dismissed as
an unviable option.
Its
transportation would have endangered workers and its burial imperiled future
generations if it were ever exposed by seismic or mining activity.
As
Da Nang is operational gaping holes in the bustling airport would have also
invoked additional costs.
Among
the 18 commercially available technologies to destroy dioxin a number use
heating soil as the means to break down the dioxin molecules. The particular
technology the American and Vietnamese governments agreed to use at Da Nang is
known as In-pile Thermal Desorption.
In front
of a gathering of dignitaries from both America and Vietnam, the amelioration
efforts to destroy the dioxin remaining in the Vietnamese environment and to
treat those suffering from disabilities began.
The
project is being run under the auspices of the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense
and the United States Agency for International Development.
The U.S. Vietnam Dialogue Group on
Agent Orange/Dioxin is a bi-national advocacy committee of private citizens,
scientists and policy-makers working to draw greater attention to the issues
and to mobilize resources in both countries. The Group has estimated the cost
of cleaning up all the Agent Orange hotspots in Vietnam and providing
substantial health/ disability programs at $450 million.
The
United States Government had not as of October 2012 agreed to do more on than
the environmental remediation than what they plan to do at Da Nang, costing $43
million over the four year operation, and an Environmental Impact Assessment at
Bien Hoa north of Ho Chi Minh City. The U.S. has also announced plans for a
three year $9 million health and disabilities program mainly directed to Da
Nang.
Three
studies conducted between 2004 and 2010 have confirmed high levels of
contamination of dioxins in soils and sediments at a number of locations on
Bien Hoa Airbase, making Bien Hoa Airbase a significant dioxin hotspot.
In 1970 a 7,500 US gallon spill of
Agent Orange occurred at the air base.
The
clean-up of dioxin at Bien Hoa is estimated to cost $US85 million, almost twice
the cost of Da Nang.
Bien
Hoa was the largest site in Vietnam in terms of the number of C-123 aircraft
sorties and volume of herbicides used.
Dioxin contamination at Bien Hoa Airbase is the result of
the storage, loading, spillage, and handling of Agent Orange and other
herbicides, especially between 1965 and 1971.
Interim
mitigation measures are currently being implemented at Bien Hoa to protect the
local population from continued exposure to dioxins from the Airbase.
Approximately 43,000 cubic metres of contaminated soils have been excavated and
placed in a secure landfill by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense. This work
was completed in 2009.
A
third serious dioxin hotspot lies at the coastal city of Phu Cat. The Ministry
of Defense, UNDP and the Global Environmental Fund have collaborated on moving
the 7,500 cubic meters of contaminated soil into a long term passive landfill
on the base. The landfill will be monitored and maintained by the Ministry with
technical support from the Czech Republic. The Government of Vietnam in August
removed Phu Cat from the list of dioxin hotspots.
With
the passage of time the former American military base of Bien Hoa is now
located in a heavily populated district.
Over
900,000 people reside in the Bien Hoa area. Many of these local people have the
potential to be exposed to dioxin residues.
Another
$410 million needs to be raised to resolve Vietnam’s Agent Orange issues.
The
Dialogue Group estimates that a total of $US107 million will be required for
the cleanup of dioxin hotspots, including $US17 million to evaluate and clean
up as needed about two dozen smaller known or suspected dioxin hotspots.
A further $US303 million is
required for the provision of social and disability services.
But
after decades of painfully slow progress developments have sped up
significantly.
On
June 16, 2010 the Dialogue Group published a ten year Declaration and Plan of
Action to address the continuing environmental and human consequences of Agent
Orange. In May 2012 the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange released
its Second Year Report simultaneously in Washington and Hanoi.
“It
should not surprise us that only now, nearly 40 years after the end of hostilities,
are we on the cusp of resolving one of the troubling legacies of the war
between the US and Vietnam -- the lasting effects of Agent Orange and other
dioxin-contaminated defoliants on people, communities and ecosystems in
Vietnam. Wars leave raw political and emotional wounds. Enduring concerns are
poorly understood, and by definition, former enemies lack the trust and
experience of collaboration on which a new strategic partnership can be built.
The Vietnam-US relationship illustrates this truth all too clearly. It most
likely holds lessons for other wars about the time that must pass before
painful legacies can be fully resolved.
“And indeed, for decades little
could be done about Agent Orange/dioxin. The science about its biological and
ecological impacts was poorly understood. So was the extent of the problem;
dioxin’s impact on US military personnel was contentious in the United States.
And litigation in US courts on behalf of those in Vietnam who believed
themselves to be victims brought fresh legal battles, controversy and wariness.
“But
in the last five years, much has changed, in significant measure because of
creative and compassionate interventions by public and private agencies. The
concerns of US veterans are being addressed far more comprehensively than in
past decades – though continued attention is needed.
“Lawsuits have slowed. The
geography of the dioxin ‘hot spots’ in Vietnam is clear, along with estimates
of clean-up costs. A remarkable start has been made towards cleaning up the
first of the three major hot spots at the Da Nang airport. Rough estimates of
the number of people with disabilities that may be linked to dioxin are
available. Their needs – and those of their caregivers – are better understood.
The cost and complexity of clean-up and care can now be estimated based on real
lived experience.”
The
Vietnamese Government has set the year 2020 as the target for completion of the
work on cleaning up Agent Orange under a National Action Plan.
As
it is impossible to determine which people are suffering disability as a direct
result of Agent Orange or to differentiate them from those disabled through
other causes, the money would be spent in a broadcast way by addressing
the needs of all people with disabilities living in the vicinity ofidentified
hot spots and in areas heavily sprayed during the war.
The
Da Nang phase of the cleanup is not expected to be complete until 2016.
Da Nang is the starting point, not
the end point.
The
hotspot at the Bien Hoa airbase will shortly undergo a detailed evaluation in
order to determine the best methods of containing and destroying the dioxin
there.
There are some 25 to 27 further locations to be assessed, where
dioxin is known or suspected to exist, albeit at significantly lower levels
than at Da Nang, Phu Cat or Bien Hoa.
Proponents
for resolving the Agent Orange legacy are hopeful USAID will now step in with
funding and expertise to help complete the assessment of all suspected hotspots
and the clean-up of dioxin in those remaining locations where dioxin exceeds
acceptable levels.
Da
Nang was one of the three worst spots for dioxin contamination in the whole of
Vietnam. It was one of the major sites where American soldiers had decanted,
mixed and re-loaded ton after ton of the herbicide transported to Vietnam
during the early 1970s.
Agent Orange was then sprayed
across the lush valleys, fields and forests of Vietnam.
Vietnamese
experts suspect that there are a few areas in Vietnam where the dioxin has pooled
in the sediment of upland ponds and reservoirs in heavily sprayed regions.
According to the Forestry Inventory and Planning Institute (FIPI) analysis
conducted in 2010, Bien Phuoc, Dong Nai, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue and TayNinh
all have reservoirs in the sprayed regions. Some of the regions sprayed had
large areas of rivers and ponds.
The
infamous Agent Orange was named after the colour of the striped 55 US
gallon barrels in which the herbicide was shipped.
It was the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow
Herbicides" or defoliants sprayed across Vietnam. There were
also Agents Pink, Blue, Purple, Green
and White.
A team of scientists at Columbia
University have estimated that at least 366 kilograms of dioxin were sprayed
across Vietnam, with some estimates placing it at 600 kilograms.
Nobody
at the time realised just how dangerous the herbicide Agent Orange, or more
precisely its contaminant dioxin, was. In a rush to meet the demands of the war
effort in South East Asia, there was little if any concern by manufacturers or
the soldiers doing the spraying of the danger Agent Orange represented. Agent
Orange was conducted under a program called Operation Ranch Hand, which in turn
was part of the broader spraying program called Operation Trail Dust. The
program took place from January 1962 until February 1971.
In
total, some 20 million US gallons of defoliant were sprayed from some 20,000
sorties.
The motto of “Ranch Handers” was: “Only you can prevent a
forest”. This was a play on the anti-bushfire slogans plastered across the US
Forestry’s Smokey Bear posters of the time.
Some
95 per cent of the herbicides were sprayed from the giant US cargo planes known
as C-123s. Their call sign was “Hades” from the Greek word for hell or the
underworld, the abode of the dead. The U.S. Chemical Corps and other allied
forces sprayed the remaining five per cent of the herbicides from helicopters,
trucks and by hand, mainly to clear brush around the perimeter of military
bases.
The painful story of neglect and
obfuscation surrounding the impacts of the herbicide Agent Orange begins in
1961.
In
the long lead up to the War, the first test spraying of Agent Orange occurred on
August 10 of that year, well before the Vietnam War’s official beginning with
the deployment of combat troops in 1965.
In Vietnam August 10 has now been
declared Agent Orange Day.
In the years following 1962 more
than 43 million liters of Agent Orange was sprayed at up to 50 times the
manufacturer’s recommended levels across 24 percent of southern Vietnam. Some
five million acres of upland and mangrove forests and about 500,000 acres of
crops were destroyed.
Of
these areas, 34 percent were sprayed more than once; some of the upland-forests
were sprayed more than four times. The aim was to deny the enemy both cover and
food sources.
One studied found that 3,138
villages were in the path of the spray.
Parts of Laos and Cambodia near
the Vietnam border were also sprayed.
The Americans ceased spraying
Agent Orange in October, 1971, following concern over its side effects on the
environment and studies demonstrating its carcinogenic effects. But the South
Vietnamese military continued spraying various herbicides until 1972.
All
the remaining barrels of the herbicide were shipped out of the country and
destroyed. The production of Agent Orange was ended in the 1970s and remaining
stockpiles incinerated. It is no longer produced.
Picture courtesy of The US Air
Force.
Dioxin,
a manufacturing defect from the production of Agent Orange, can still be
accidentally produced to this day, most notably in the careless incineration of
hospital waste.
The
inappropriate combustion of plastic syringes for example produces the chemical.
Agent
Orange was produced in numerous factories by several different manufacturers,
including multi-billion dollar giants Monsanto and the Dow Chemical Company.
Other American manufacturers were: Hercules
Incorporated, Thompson-Hayward Chemical Company,
Diamond Alkali/Shamrock Company, the US Rubber
Company, Thompson Chemicals Corporation, Agrisect Company and Hoffman-Taft
Incorporated.
Only a minor temperature variation at above 200 degrees Celsius
in the manufacturing or “cooking” of Agent Orange produced the contaminant
dioxin.
There
was comparatively little time between the development of Agent Orange and its
deployment in the Vietnam War – and therefore little time for the peculiar
health impacts of its then unknown byproduct dioxin to be fully understood.
In
1943 plant biologist Arthur Galston began
studying the compound Triiodobenzoic
acid as a plant growth hormone,
in an attempt to adapt soybeans to a short
growing season.
Galston found that excessive usage
of the compound caused defoliation.
His
colleague Ian Sussex later developed the family of herbicides used in Operation
Ranch Hand.
Galston
was concerned about the compounds side effects on humans and the environment.
Agent
Orange was an approximate 50/50 mix of two herbicides: 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic
acid (2,4-D) and2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T).
While
Agent Orange degraded within days or weeks of being sprayed, the problems were
with its contaminant.
Dioxin
carries the chemical name “2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-para-dioxin”, often
abbreviated to TCDD.
TCDD is regarded as the most toxic
of 419 similar toxic compounds.
In
1969 the American and Vietnamese publics first became aware that many of the
adverse health impacts being experienced by veterans were correlated with
exposure to Agent Orange.
Dioxin
has now been officially classified as a known carcinogen by the American
National Toxicology Program. It is associated with soft-tissue sarcoma,non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma,Hodgkin's lymphoma and
chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
In
the years prior to 2012’s historic events investigators were horrified to
discover that dioxin levels remained exceedingly high at Da Nang airport, some
350 times internationally accepted safety standards. The highest concentrations
were on the site of the tarmac where the chemical had been decantedand reloaded
onto spray planes after importation from America.
It could also be easily traced
moving from the site.
Over
the more than three decades since the war’s end rain and runoff had been
steadily washing the chemical from the airport tarmac down into a popular
picnic and fishing spot known as Sen Lake.
As
it does not exist in nature, nobody knows exactly how long it takes for dioxin
to break down to safe levels.
Estimates put it at 200 years
plus.
While
it does not dissolve in water, the dioxin settled into the mud at the bottom of
the lake, where bottom feeding fish then consumed it.
Anyone
who consumed fish caught in the lake was potentially ingesting dioxin.
Anyone
wading with their feet on the bottom of the lake or swimming in the shallows,
as many children did, was stirring up dioxin.
Over the years, adults and
children had enjoyed swimming in the communal lake. Studies of blood dioxin
levels of people near Sen Lake found dioxin at elevated levels in people
earning their living from fishing in
Sen
lake and people employed to clean weeds out of drainage ditches leading to it.
That was until 2008, when a mass education program warned the populace of the
dangers of a place they had once regarded as nothing but a pleasant location to
relax and play.
The
campaign involved house to house visits by public health volunteers who left
behind posters which displayed safe and unsafe foods.
Fish from Sen Lake were not safe.
Fishing and swimming in the lake
was banned.
The
worst spots on Da Nang Airport were temporarily concreted over in 2007 to
prevent any further movement of dioxin. “We locked it down with a six inch
concrete cap to stop it being exposed to the elements,” Bailey recalls.
“By 2008 we had ended the public
health threat to people in Da Nang.”
The
current acceleration of efforts to resolve the Agent Orange/dioxin legacy in
Vietnam is the result of many years of private efforts to address the problem.
The leading private funding organisation to take on the task had been America’s
Ford Foundation.
Carriage
of the Agent Orange legacy is now being handled by the Aspen Institute, which
is partly funded by the Ford Foundation. There has been a migration of some
personnel to the Aspen Institute to carry on the project.
The Dialogue Group’s Second Year
Report in the leadup to events at Da Nang in 2012 also noted that the
involvement of government at the highest levels:
“Progress
would not have been possible without the bold leadership of leaders in both
societies. Former Presidents Nguyen Minh Triet and George W. Bush, Secretary of
State Hilary Clinton, and legislators from both countries have articulated a
commitment to addressing the human costs of the dioxin legacy in partnership.
Other leaders in both countries have expressed their wish to move beyond lingering
war-related sensitivities. All are focused on the potential for deepening
economic and strategic connections between our two countries.”
The
Institute's President Walter Isaacson - better known as the biographer of
visionary Chairman of Apple computers Steve Jobs - said the August
launch
of Agent Orange amelioration at Da Nang Airport marked the culmination of
efforts from multiple agencies in both America and Vietnam.
He
described that Thursday morning ceremony as marking “the coming together of our
two countries to achieve a practical solution to dioxin contamination. As
important, the U.S. government is also devoting more resources to meeting the
needs of people with disabilities in Vietnam, regardless of cause. This is a humanitarian
issue we can do something about, and the Aspen Institute is proud of its role
in helping to advance enduring responses to the Agent Orange legacy."
The
historic events of August, 2012, owe much to the efforts of one man, Dr Charles
Bailey.
His
arrival in Hanoi as head of the Ford Foundations regional operations in 1997
marked the beginning of the shift from hand wringing, obfuscation, ignorance
and fear towards action and the decisive results which began to become reality
in 2012.
Bailey
had spent the previous seven years in Nairobi as regional head for the Ford
Foundation.
He
says the offer to go to Hanoi came “out of the clear blue sky” but he embraced
the opportunity to settle in such a fascinating part of the world. His two
daughters grew up there.
In
person Bailey provokes that old saying: “Never a finer gentleman could one wish
to meet”.
Erudite,
compassionate, intelligent and particularly well-connected after decades in the
senior ranks of the Ford Foundation, Dr Bailey’s shock at the ignorance and
lack of action over Agent Orange had repercussions in policy wonk circles back
in Washington.
It
took eight years of consistent campaigning before policy makers in Washington
began to move on the story in 2006.
“I
stumbled into the Agent Orange story,” Bailey recalls. “I had no inkling of
this problem. I did not realize it was continuing and persistent, affecting the
health of large numbers of Vietnamese.
“But I became puzzled as to why no
one would talk about it.
“Agent
Orange was a sensitive subject about which little was known. It was large,
mysterious and scary. I was surprised and shocked I wasn’t getting any answers
and discovered how deeply conflicted the subject was.
“I felt I had a responsibility to
see what we could do about this.”
For
Bailey, back in the late 1990s, the first step was to get a better
understanding of how Vietnamese were coping; the second step was to try to
quantify the problem.
Many Vietnam veterans and many
people running disability institutions and orphanages had little doubt there
was a legacy from Agent Orange.
Veterans
have long complained of ill health; and veteran organisations of their members
dying early and painful deaths.
Not
all of these deaths were as a result of the post-traumatic stress that many
veterans experienced or the difficulties they faced for decades after the war
had ended.
The
exploratory moves in the late 1990s were coming almost a quarter of a century
after the end of the Vietnam War and 20 years after the American public first
became aware there was a lingering problem with Agent Orange.
In
1978 a young American veteran Paul Rheutershan declared on the high rating
Today Show: "I died in Vietnam, but I didn’t even know it."
Rheutershan formed a group called
Agent Orange Victims International.
After
protracted proceedings, in 1984 lawyers for Vietnam veterans made an out-of
-court settlement with amongst others the industrial giants Dow Chemical and
Monsanto, for $US180 million. More than $13 million was awarded to lawyers,
with two law firms awarded $1.8 and $1.3 million respectively. Private groups
that had funded attorneys were compensated while one lawyer said to be a
passive investor was awarded $1700.
Veterans
suffering major disability were awarded on average $12,000 spread across 10
years and lost a host of potential government benefits as a result. Wives and
children were not included.
A
widow who could prove – always a difficult exercise – that their husbands had
died of Agent Orange would receive $3,700 in compensation.
In Waiting for an Army to Die, first
published in 1989 with a second edition and a new introduction issued in 2011,
academic Fred A. Wilcox recorded their anger over the failure of the American
government to take their health complaints seriously.
Veterans
were dismissive of claims by the US Defense Department that soldiers had not
been sent into areas which had been sprayed for six weeks.
Wilcox
records their response thus: “Six weeks?” scoffed Vietnam veterans. “Are you
kidding me? More like six hours. Six minutes. What were we going to do, sit
back and wait for the enemy to book? Drank water and ate food sprayed with
Agent Orange. Slept on ground soaked with that shit.Got sprayed
directly.Soaking wet. The government is lying. They can lie all they want but
we know better. They weren’t there. We were. They’re not fooling anyone but
themselves.”
Wilcox conducted numerous
interviews with working class people who had made themselves experts on the
impact of Agent Orange, their homes filled with filled with toxicology reports
on animals and humans. They were angry with a government they had served and no
longer trusted. “Their kitchen and dining room tables were stacked with
materials that, normally, only those with PhDs in science or medical degrees,
might read,” he recalls.
At
first, Wilcox says, he could not understand why the American government was so
dismissive of the veterans concerns.
He
wrote: “In every home, café, bar, hearing room, where I met veterans, I asked
them the same question: ‘Why do you think the government is treating you this
way? The answer never varied. ‘Because,’ they replied, ‘the government is just
waiting for us all to die.’”
Hence the title of his book:
“Waiting for an Army to Die”.
In
his 2011 introduction to the book’s second edition Wilcox maintains his
outraged tone, concluding harshly that “the Vietnam veterans were a throwaway
army; the Vietnam people were a throwaway people”.
One
of the many problems flowing into the slow redress of the issue was that nobody
knew quite what the problem was.
While
American veterans campaigned with slogans such as “Sprayed and Betrayed”, the orphanages
of Vietnam filled with grotesquely disabled inmates. High miscarriage and
stillbirth rates in the Vietnamese population were also attributed to Agent
Orange.
Bilateral
relations between the United States and Vietnam were slow to improve following
the Vietnam War and contributed to the slow response to the Agent Orange issue.
Finally in 1994 the U.S. lifted its trade embargo on Vietnam, normalizing
relations in 1995. The two countries exchanged ambassadors in 1997 and signed a
Bilateral Trade Agreement in 2001.
With
full diplomatic relations not being restored until 1995 and ungrounded fears
over multi-billion dollar compensation payouts, successive American governments
had blithely refused to buy into the argument, dismissed the issue as one of the
mythologies of the Vietnam War.
Bailey
says many policy makers now agree that Agent Orange is a humanitarian issue.
Others see an Agent Orange initiative as important for geo-political reasons,”
Bailey says.
America
has long gone out of its way to befriend Thailand as a bulwark against the
rising power of China.
The
arc of the developing economic powers of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma now
all fall within these considerations. With Vietnam’s economy growing at more
than five per cent a year it cannot be ignored.
The Ford Foundation made their
first grant on Agent Orange in 2000 to the Vietnamese Red Cross.
The foundation was well situated to negotiate its way through
the thicket of conflicting interests because it was perceived as a neutral funding
body rather than a U.S. government agency.
“My program at Ford ultimately put
$17 million into this,” Bailey recalls.
“Both
sides were skeptical. Our role was that of a neutral party working with both
sides - the government of Vietnam and the government of the US. We brought
people together who might not otherwise talk, we funded confidence building
projects for which at the time there was no other donor, and we sought to
mainstream this issue in the US.”
After
the Foundation’s first grant to the Red Cross, the second step was a kind of
scoping exercise, an effort to determine the extent of the problem.
The
involvement of the Canadian government also provided a fortunate break in this
regard.
The question of exactly why the
Canadian governmentwas so willing to help at this juncture in the history of
the aftermath of Agent Orange still raises curious eyebrows.
Since
the 1980s Vancouver based environmental assessment company Hatfield has worked
with regulatory and medical authorities in Vietnam to monitor trace residues of
dioxin in fish, wildlife, human tissue and sediments not only in Vietnam, but
also in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
From
1994 to 2009 Hatfield conducted an investigation of residual dioxin and other
contamination around key former military sites while developing mitigation
measures to help prevent the local population from future exposure.
Hatfield’s
work was been funded by multiple donors, including the Canadian International
Development Agency, Ford Foundation, United Nations Industrial Development
Organization, Environment Canada, Health Canada, the Canadian Space Agency and
numerous Vietnamese government agencies.
The
Canadian government funded the original work of the Vietnamese Ministry of
Health 10-80 Committee with technical assistance from Hatfield to investigate
the dioxin status of the A Luoi valley in central Vietnam between 1994 and
1999. This was an area where Agent Orange was known to have been sprayed more
than once and at concentrations 50 or more times the manufacturer’s
recommendations.
The
Canadian consortium conducted detailed studies in the ALuoi valley in central
Vietnam.
As a result, the puzzle of Agent
Orange only intensified.
The 10-80/Hatfield team found
dioxin but at levels too low to require remediation under Canadian standards.
The only place in the ALuoi valley where dioxin exceeded this standard was at
the former U.S. military base at A So in the southern end of the valley.
This
ultimately led to the hotspot hypothesis – that far from being widespread in
the environment as had been feared, dioxin levels were only concentrated at
former American military bases.
Following
on from the work in the ALoui Valley Dr Bailey proposed to the 10-80 Committee
that they extend the study methodology to cover all former U.S. military bases
throughout central and southern Vietnam.
This
study took place 2002-2005 and was funded by a Ford grant of $289,000.
At
the beginning of 2006 the Vietnamese Ministry of Health’s 10-80 Committee and
Hatfield produced their final report into dioxin hotspots in south Vietnam.
Using
information originating from web-based research, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense,
anecdotal US and Vietnam veteran’s accounts and previous 10-80
Division/Hatfield dioxin sampling programs and reports, 18 sites in southern
Vietnam with the highest potential for dioxin contamination, and the highest
potential risk to the health of local people. The 18 sites served as the target
locations for a field reconnaissance program completed in February/March 2004.
Following field reconnaissance
activities, and using data obtained during the survey, seven bases were
selected for further investigation: Da Nang, Pleiku airfield, Phu Cat airfield,
NhaTrang airfield, Bien Hoa airfield, Can Tho airfield, and Tan Son Nhut airfield.
Soil/sediment
samples were collected from each of the seven bases in March 2005. Sampling
sites were selected downstream of suspected former Ranch Hand operations.
Samples were shipped to Canada for laboratory analyses.
Da Nang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa airfields were identified as
significant hot spots on the basis of dioxin levels found in soils/sediments.
The remaining airfields sampled were not considered significant hot spots.
Bien Hoa had the highest level of
dioxin toxicity.
“Ultimately
they narrowed the problem down to a handful of former American military bases,”
Bailey recalls. “The process dispelled the fog of war.”
“If
Agent Orange was just a herbicide, it would have destroyed the vegetation but
there wouldn’t have been the direct and lingering impacts on US and Vietnamese
soldiers,” Bailey says. “The problem lies in the manufacturing defect dioxin.
It wasn’t invented, it wasn’t wanted, it was an accidental contaminant.
“Those affected, often living around former American military
bases, have shorter life spans it appears a greater chance of their children
having birth defects.”
Only
28 of the 2,735 former American military bases showed significant levels of
dioxin.
All
of them were sites where the chemical had been stored and mixed before being
loaded onto cargo planes for aerial spraying.
Contributing
to the push for action was photographer Philip Jones Griffiths’ 2003 book Agent Orange: Collateral Damage.
Griffiths,
who passed away in 2008, had worked with the world’s leading photographic
agency Magnum since 1966. He was president of the agency for a record five
years.
In
an article to mark the launch of the book, now on the website Digital
Journalist, Griffiths records:
“When
I was covering the war in Vietnam there were reports from Hanoi in 1967
claiming that millions of people had been victims of chemical warfare.
Officials in Saigon dismissed these as crude propaganda and for us journalists
in the South there was little opportunity to verify claims made by the North.
“In the summer of 1969 four Saigon
newspapers ran stories with pictures of deformed babies born to women who had
been sprayed with Agent Orange.
“The
South Vietnamese government argued that the deformities were caused by venereal
diseases and President Thieu closed down the papers for ‘interfering with the
war effort.’ After such moves, tracking down any victims proved difficult.”
Griffiths goes on to record that by 1970 he was hearing
stories and rumors that babies were being born without eyes and with such gross
deformities they were being killed before the mother could see them.
Griffiths
records that he visited as many places as he could to witness the phenomenon
himself, but was denied access.
“By
1971, the word was out that the U.S. spraying had been officially stopped
because of its harmful side effects,” he wrote. “There was a flurry of news
stories, but no pictures. I left Vietnam in the summer of 1971 without ever
seeing a victim.
“After the war was over I got back
to Vietnam and saw my first affected child. The initial situation was a mother
with two blind daughters, born with no retinas. Later I saw children with empty
eye sockets and still others with no trace of eyes at all.
“Spending time with the affected
children is never easy – 20-year-olds living in 10-year-old bodies. Some
howling like animals, some giggling hysterically while others search with
catatonic stares for meaning in the heavens. For the parents, their lives are
never the same again. Giving birth becomes a game of roulette.”
Griffiths
remembers meeting a Vietnamese mother who said: "I was so terrified by
what I had seen happening around me, that the moment my child was born the
first thing I asked was whether she had both arms and legs".
The
photographer says he spent 22 years engrossed in his efforts to produce “Agent
Orange: Collateral Damage” because he had been witnessing a staggering human
tragedy unfold.
“In
many ways the sad and terrible Vietnam War has become a war without end,” he
wrote. “The parents of the afflicted are an inspirational group showering love
and care on their children. Most are desperately poor and any compensation
offered by America would make a huge difference to their lives.
“The
US did not drop Agent Orange to produce deformed babies - it was simply meant
to kill vegetation. The dioxin was an accidental by-product. This gives America
a perfect excuse to be magnanimous towards the victims.”
Griffiths
says another reason for his obsession was because of the need to know more
about dioxin. “Each and every person on the planet now has this deadly chemical
in their bodies, mostly from industrial pollution and the embrace of plastics
by society. Even the US Environmental Protection Agency declares that a quarter
of all cancers in America are caused by dioxin.”
He says because North Vietnam was
not sprayed while South Vietnam was, these genetically similar groupings
provide the perfect control group for scientists to determine the truth of
claims being made about the toxin.
Griffiths also records that in the
political climate of the day getting a book
Agent
Orange: Collateral Damage into print had not been easy.
The
book is not light entertainment. But “to turn away and not see the photographs
is to compound the crime".
In
2004 the US Environmental Protection Agency began technical discussions with
its Vietnamese counterpart and provided laboratory equipment. Along with the US
State Department the EPA spent $2 million on laboratory equipment and on
technical assistance focusing on the Da Nang airport.
Three studies funded by the Ford
Foundation and conducted by the Vietnam Ministry of Health’s 10-80 Committee in
conjunction with Hatfield in 2003-2005, 2006 and 2009 collected a total of 410
samples—198 soils/ sediments, 41 fish and vegetation and 171 human blood and
breast milk. The first two studies confirmed that the northern areas of Da Nang
Airport were significant dioxin hotspots.
The
real break in the policy logjam came in 2006 with a number of convergent
factors.
The Vietnamese Foreign Minister officially invited the Ford
Foundation to become more actively involved in finding a resolution to the
Agent Orange issue.
Vietnam
was entering the World Trade Organisation yet there was no information on one
of the issues of major concern to exporters and
importers,
the lingering impact or otherwise of Agent Orange and the potential contamination
of food products.
As well President George Bush
arrived in the country for an APEC meeting.
“The Agent Orange deadlock lasted from 1975 to 2006,” records
Bailey. “It took a long time before the two governments could come to some kind
of common understanding.”
During
his November 2006 APEC visit Bush signed a Communiqué with Vietnamese President Nguyen
Minh Triet. It was the first official
acknowledgement by the American government of the issue. Bush committed the US
to help Vietnam clean up dioxin contaminated soil at former US military
airports.
Prior
to Bush’s visit, the influential newspaper The
Washington Post ran several stories on Agent Orange.
“For the first time it came to
everyone’s attention,” Bailey recalls.
Prior to Bush’s visit, the
newspaper’s Anthony Faiola reported a little prematurely that America was about
to address the dismal legacy of Agent Orange.
It would be almost six years
before the first soil was excavated.
The
story was accompanied by a graphic picture by photographer Travis Fox.
Pham Van Xong holds his son, Truc, 9, in An Trach,
Vietnam. Local medical officials say Truc is a victim of the herbicide Agent
Orange, sprayed by US forces during the war. Courtesy of the Washington Post.
Reporting from Da Nang Faola
wrote: “For a stark reminder of the Vietnam War, people living near the airport
in this central industrial city can still stroll along the old stone walls that
once surrounded a US military base. But Luu Thi Nguyen, a 31-year-old
homemaker, needs only to look into the face of her young daughter.
“Van,
5, spends her days at home, playing by herself on the concrete floor because local
school officials say her appearance frightens other children. She has an
oversize head and a severely deformed mouth, and her upper body is covered in a
rash so severe her skin appears to have been boiled. According to Vietnamese
medical authorities, she is part of a new generation of Agent Orange victims,
forever scarred by the U.S.-made herbicide containing dioxin, one of the
world's most toxic pollutants.”
Faola
reported that United States and Vietnam officials were moving to address the environmental
damage at Da Nang.
For decades, the United States and
Vietnam have wrangled over the question of responsibility for the U.S.
military's deployment of Agent Orange. But officials say they are now moving to
jointly address at least one important aspect of the spraying's aftermath --
environmental damage at Vietnamese "hot spots" such as Nguyen's city,
Da Nang -- that are still contaminated with dioxin 31 years after the fall of
Saigon.
Although
neither Nguyen nor her husband was exposed to the Agent Orange sprayed by U.S.
forces from 1962 to 1971, Vietnam officials believed the couple genetically
passed on dioxin's side effects after eating fish from contaminated canals.
"I
am not interested in blaming anyone at this point," the young girl’s
mother Nguyen said. "But the contamination should not keep doing this to
our children. It must be cleaned up."
Estimates vary wildly on the
number of people impacted.
In
2006 The Washington Post reported
that officials believed there were more than four million suspected dioxin
victims in Vietnam, the while the US maintained there were no conclusive
scientific links between Agent Orange and the severe health problems and birth
defects that the Vietnamese attribute to dioxin.
The
most common estimates in 2012, including from the Red Cross and the Vietnamese
Government, were that about three million people were living with the
consequences of dioxin poisoning, and about one million directly suffering some
sort of disability.
The
2006 Post story finished with the flourish: “After doctors told them their
daughter, Van, was a dioxin victim, the Nguyens cemented over the small garden
in their front yard and stopped eating fish from nearby canals. Even now,
however, many of their neighbors remain unaware of the danger.”
Also
in 2006 the Vietnam Public Health Association surveyed the food handling and
eating habits of people living near the Bien Hoa Airport in southern Vietnam,
one of the three most contaminated dioxin “hotspots” in the country and located
in a densely populated urban area.
From
the data collected from their surveys, the Vietnam Public Health Association
prepared targeted messages and materials to increase people’s attention to food
safety.
Bailey
says that exposure to dioxin is linked with chronic ill health and with
increased numbers of children born with severe multiple disabilities. “There is
accumulating scientific evidence of a link between dioxin exposure and ill
health and disabilities, as shown in the biennial review of the scientific
Bailey
says the majority of those affected, estimated by the Vietnamese Government of
Vietnam, to be three million people, appear to be descendants of those
originally exposed in the 1960s.
“One
should never underestimate the destructive power of physical and mental
disability, both for the individual and for his or her family,” he says.
“This
is especially true for women and children, who are the most vulnerable.
Dioxin-associated disability places a heavy and often life-long financial,
physical, social and spiritual burden on families.
“The fear of disability often prevents the formation of new
families – stigma and discrimination can prevent a person considered an Agent
Orange victim from finding a marriage partner.
“For
expectant mothers, the fear of giving birth to a child with disabilities haunts
them.”
Again
in 2006, the Ford Foundation’s involvement in the Agent Orange issue was given
official imprimatur when the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited the
Ford Foundation to get more involved in searching for a resolution.
As
a result an eminent person’s group which became known as the US Vietnam
Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin was formed to find a way forward.
This was a bi-national and
non-partisan committee of prominent private citizens, scientists and policy
makers working to clarify the issue and to mobilize resources. It was a rare
example of successful private and government co-operation. “The Dialogue Group
is useful to all stakeholders for two reasons: First, the members have
conversations among themselves uninhibited by official positions. These
conversations result in periodic reports to the public, beginning with the
Dialogue Group’s five priorities in February 2007, which led to, the
Declaration and Plan of Action in June 2010. The most recent report is the May
2012 Second Year Report of the Dialogue Group. Second, from its first meeting
the Dialogue Group adopted a forward looking approach to solving the Agent
Orange legacy through a
The
Dialogue Group is convened by former Ford Foundation President Susan
Berresford.
President and Chief Executive of the Aspen Institute Walter
Isaacson, and Vice-chair of the Vietnam National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs
Committee Ambassador Ha Huy Thong are the two co-chairs.
Other
US members are Christine Whitman, President of the Whitman Strategy Group,
William Mayer, President of Park Avenue Equity Partners, Mary Dulan-Hografe,
disability advocate and Dr Vaughan Turekian, Chief International Officer for
the Advancement of Science.
On
the Vietnamese side are Professor Vo Quy from the Vietnam National University,
Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong from the Medical University of Ho Chi Minh City, Do
Huoang Long, director of the People to People Relations Department and Lieutenant
General Phung Khac Dang, Vice President of the Vietnam Veterans Association and
member of the Vietnam National Assembly.
The
Dialogue Group set the goal of resolving the Agent Orange/Dioxin legacy within
the larger frame of improving the bilateral relationship between America and
Vietnam.
The Group identified five
priorities:
1.
Expanded services to people with disabilities
2.
Public education in the US
3.
Dioxin remediation at Da Nang airport
4.
Landscape restoration across Vietnam’s affected regions
5.
Establishment of a high resolution Dioxin Laboratory
Following on from President Bush’s
2006 visit in May 2007 the US Congress appropriated an initial three million
dollars for cleanup and health programs.
Another three million dollars was
appropriated in March 2009.
The funds were tiny in contrast to
the estimates of need. And the US government’s funds were slow to disburse.
Vietnamese agencies had many relevant programs and competent staff who knew
their subject well. But
Instead
of funding these agencies though, the US government disbursed its funds only
through US organizations.
Following
the Ford Foundation funded studies around Da Nang airport interim mitigation
measures were implemented, also in 2007.
These
included halting all fishing and agricultural activities on Sen Lake, capping
of soils at the Former Mixing and Loading Area; and construction of structures
to filter water runoff and contain transported sediments. Finally a permanent
fence was constructed between the highly contaminated Sen Lake and nearby
residential areas. In 2009, in an address to the American Public Health
Association, Dr Bailey ramped up the rhetoric in an attempt to force a clear
resolution.
His speech, titled “The Agent
Orange Legacy”, noted that “Agent Orange was brought to Vietnam by the US
military during the war to destroy enemy food crops and places of concealment.
“Daily
spraying over the course of a decade destroyed forests over an area about the
size of Massachusetts,” he told the audience. “There are still large areas in
the mountains where no useful trees or crops will grow. “Agent Orange is a
growing domestic issue in Vietnam,” Bailey declared. “The Vietnamese people
have increased pressure on the government to clean up dioxin where it is still
in the soil and especially to provide better healthcare and support for people
exposed to Agent Orange.
“The
major pieces of any solution need a further and deeper commitment from the US
government with funds and technical assistance. The US government needs to be
more ambitious in its pursuit of a solution.”
Bailey
also reported that an environmental and human population study at Da Nang
Airport conducted in that same year provided a more complete picture of dioxin
contaminated areas, exposure pathways and affected populations.
The
study showed that there were significant quantities of dioxin in soil samples
analyzed from the former mixing, loading and storage areas at the north end of
Da Nang Airport. The levels of concentration exceeded all international
standards and guidelines.
Tilapia,
the most common fish harvested from ponds at the Da Nang Airport showed dioxin
concentrations well above international standards.
There
were also elevated concentrations of dioxin found in the blood samples from
people living north, east and west of the airport.
Fishermen
and those working around Sen Lake, as well as workers at the airport, also
showed elevated concentrations of dioxin in their blood.
Among
the Sen Lake Workers, those earning a living from fishing for Tilapia had the
highest median concentrations.
The
highest concentrations were found in a 42-year-old male who harvested fish and
plants from Sen Lake.
Bailey concluded his speech on the Agent Orange legacy by saying
the challenge was to focus funds and expertise to ensure that people with
disabilities could live with self-confidence, self-respect and be provided
opportunities to maximize their capabilities.
Bailey
called for a multi-year legislated commitment to reducing and removing the
Agent Orange legacy of the Vietnam War.
Alongside
the environmental cleanup this would require a significant increase in US
funding for healthcare and other social services for people with disabilities.
In
September 2011 Rotary International provided a grant of $20,000 to complete the
funding of the $70,000 Dong Son piped water project. Dong Son is the site of
the A Shau airbase, a former U.S. military installation which in 1999 the 10-80
Committee of the Ministry of Health and Hatfield Consultants identified as
contaminated with dioxin.
In October 2011 Rotary hosted a
major conference on Agent Orange and Addressing the Legacy of the War in
Vietnam at the University of California/ Berkeley. The 160 participants cover
all aspects of the Agent Orange legacy, with emphasis on “Ten Things You Can Do
to Make Agent Orange History”.
Just before Christmas of 2011
President Barak Obama signed the
Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2012, which allocated $20 million for Agent Orange in
Vietnam.
Of
this total, $15 million was intended to complete the funding of the full
remediation of the Da Nang airport dioxin hotspot, and to start on remediation
at Bien Hoa and possibly other hotspots.
The
balance of $5 million is for health/disabilities programs in areas of Vietnam
that were targeted with Agent Orange or remain contaminated with dioxin.
In
the lead-up to that historic day in August, 2012, the US – Vietnam Dialogue
Group issued a number of key recommendations and declared: “The next five years
will determine if all parties are on a trajectory that can reach that
objective.
“2012 is a key pivot year.
“The
last five years of progress in finding and pursuing real solutions have brought
us to this auspicious time.
“The
US Agency for International Development (USAID) has set in motion the
destruction of the dioxin contaminating the soil at Da Nang airport, after
joint scientific and technical review by both governments.
“USAID has dramatically increased
its commitment to addressing the needs of people with disabilities, without
regard to the causes of those disabilities.
“Most significantly, the US
Congress has directed USAID to consult with the State Department, the
Government of Vietnam and other interested parties to develop a comprehensive
multi-year plan to address the Agent Orange/Dioxin issue. The Dialogue Group
believes that the comprehensive plan should cover all aspects of the Agent
Orange legacy and be scaled to five years – long enough to show results and
contribute to the ambitious goals that the Government of Vietnam has set for
itself – and yet short enough to be realistic.”
The Dialogue Group listed three
major objectives:
1) To
clean up dioxin at all remaining contaminated sites. As the clean-up of the
three major sites moves forward, the remaining locations need to be prioritized
and neutralized. In some, full remedial action will be required and in others,
soft measures may complete the job. Additional data on possible pooling of dioxin
in ponds and reservoirs may create fresh priorities.
2) To
upgrade social services for people with disabilities. Model programs will need
to be tested and significantly expanded to reach those families most in need.
Health care should include prenatal
information and services, a system for maternal
surveillance and screening monitoring of child development and early childhood
intervention.
3) To
increase the productivity of damaged landscapes. Training courses for forest
managers, technical staff and farmers should be greatly expanded in areas with
severely degraded lands.
This
was also an opportunity to advance disability rights, augment the professional
managerial skills of local partners, conduct local research studies, create new
funding mechanisms and enhance public awareness in both the US and Vietnam, the
report argued.
It
also suggested that $100 million should be spent on cleaning up dioxin
contaminated soils and $200 million expanding services to people with
disabilities over the following five years.
US
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, on an official mid-year visit in 2012
preceding the Da Nang launch, was the first senior American politician to ever
utter the words “Agent Orange” in public.
Clinton
declared that she had “worked very hard to make sure that the United States is
addressing the Agent Orange issue. It is a legacy issue that we are - we remain
concerned about, and we have increased our financial commitment to dealing with
it.”
The
US Secretary of State also raised the issue of long term planning so both
countries could address the issue in the following years; as well as the need
to involve the private sector in remediation efforts.
Of
Clinton’s acknowledgement of the Agent Orange issue Dr Bailey said: “This
represented a change in US government approach from a problem to be managed to
an opportunity to be grasped, to clean up hotspots, deal with damaged
landscapes, deal with disabilities and put this behind us. Clinton’s speech marked
quite a sea change in a relatively short time.
During
the colourful ceremony at Da Nang airport two months later US Ambassador to
Vietnam David Shear described that August day as an “historic milestone”. He
said both America and Vietnam were “moving earth and taking first steps to bury
the legacies of our pasts”.
“We’re
cleaning up this mess,” he declared. “I look forward to even more successes to
follow.”
Shear
claimed that by the time the cleanup was finished in late 2016 the soil would
be safe for industrial, commercial, and residential uses according to
Vietnamese government standards as well as U.S. government standards for dioxin
cleanup sites in the United States.
“Today’s
milestone is both an acknowledgement of our painful past as well as, in the
words of Secretary Clinton during her October 2010 visit to Vietnam, ‘a sign of
the more hopeful future we are building together.’
“It demonstrates the astounding
trajectory of cooperation our two countries have enjoyed since beginning
diplomatic relations only seventeen years ago.
As
these efforts move forward, resources and expertise from the private sector
will be crucial to bolster this assistance. The work of private foundations
like the Atlantic Philanthropies, Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation, and
Rockefeller Foundation complements our work with UN agencies and foreign
government partners.“
Dr
Bailey said unlike many vaguely focused international projects, Agent Orange
was a humanitarian story with a beginning, middle and end.
“Much progress has been made,” Bailey says. “We are a far cry
from even five years ago. People are startled to learn that Agent Orange is a
current problem, but there is a realization that America has a responsibility.
“Da Nang was particularly
important and of interest to news reporters.
“It is a ground breaking joint
effort.
“For
Congress the estimated cost of $450 million cost is virtually a budgetary
rounding figure,” he says. “I was taught as a child to clean up my own mess. We
did not intend to create this problem but we have a responsibility as a nation
to fix it. To do so is good for America, good, obviously, for Vietnam and good
for the bilateral relationship.”
Charles Bailey is the Director of
the Aspen Institute Agent Orange in Vietnam Program. He has worked on solving
the lingering problems related to dioxin contamination in Vietnam for the last
14 years, from when he first went to Vietnam to head the Ford Foundation’s
program there. The Aspen Institute's Agent Orange in Vietnam Program (AOVP) is
a multi-year project to help Americans and Vietnamese address the continuing
health and environmental impact of herbicides sprayed in Vietnam during the
war. The program promotes dialogue on solutions to the continuing impact of the
wartime use of herbicides in Vietnam. The program provides the U.S. secretariat
for the bi-national US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin
<http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/agent-orange/ us-vietnam-dialogue-group-agent-orange/dioxin>
and manages the Agent Orange in Vietnam Fund supporting model projects
benefiting people with disabilities in Vietnam.
Before
coming to Aspen in May of 2011, Charles Bailey was one of the Ford Foundation's
most experienced grant makers. Over three decades, he has worked in Asia,
Africa and the United States, beginning with assignments in New Delhi, Cairo
and Khartoum. Thereafter, he served in Dhaka as the Ford Foundation's
representative for Bangladesh and in Nairobi as representative for Eastern and
Southern Africa. He was representative for Vietnam and Thailand from 1997 to
2007. In 2011, he received the Vietnam Order of Friendship medal, the highest
honor accorded by the government of Vietnam to non-citizens. This citation from
the President of Vietnam recognizes his contributions during ten years as the
Ford Foundation’s representative in Vietnam.
Charles
Bailey has a PhD. in agricultural economics from Cornell University and a
Master's degree in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton
University. He received a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and then
joined the Peace Corps in Nepal where he taught high school.
The
first money John Stapleton ever made out of writing was in 1972 when he was
co-winner of Australia’s leading cultural celebration the Adelaide Arts
Festival’s Short Story Competition. The amount of $75 seemed like a windfall at
the time and opened his eyes to the fact he could make money out of what he
liked to do the most – that is to write.
He
graduated in1975 with a double major in philosophy and anthropology from
Macquarie University and did post-graduate work in the Sociology Department at
Flinders University.
His
articles and fiction have appeared in a wide range of magazines, newspapers and
anthologies Men Love Sex, a collection of short stories which briefly topped
Australia’s bestseller lists, as well as Australian Politics, a collection of
profiles and analyses by journalists from The Australian newspaper.
After
a long period as either a contributor or doing casual shifts as a reporter,
Stapleton joined the staff of The Sydney Morning Herald in the mid-1980s. He
later joined the staff of The Australian.
As a general news reporter in
Sydney John Stapleton, or “Stapo” as he was universally known, covered
literally thousands of stories, from the funerals of bikies, children and
dignitaries to fires, floods, droughts, from the demonstrations of inner-city
worthies concerned over the plight of refugees to the sad and pointless deaths
of youth in the city’s impoverished housing estates.
In
2000 he joined a small group of separated dads at the community radio station
2GLF in western Sydney as a volunteer, thereby helping to found Dads On The
Air, now the world’s longest running radio program dedicated to fatherhood
issues.
After
finishing full time work, since 2010 Stapleton has been traveling in Asia.
During the first few years following his retirement from the demands of day to
day journalism he has written several books, a movie script and founded A Sense
of Place Publishing.
Make sure you keep an eye out for
more short and entertaining publications from A Sense of Place Publishing.
