Vietnam protests Dow Olympic sponsorship over Agent Orange crimes

His children are 36 and 33 years old, but they look just like three-year-old boys who still scream through the night, smash anything they find in the house, and bite their parents’ hands for comfort.

In 1968, Nguyen Van Tao, from the northern province of Thai Nguyen, fought to expel the American army from the A Luoi Valley in what is now the central province of Thua Thien-Hue. The US drenched the area with Agent Orange for ten years, 1961-1971 period.

Tao said he was exposed to Agent Orange and blamed his sons’ mental and physical health problems on dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in the herbicide, which US troops used to strip Vietnamese forces of ground cover and food.

But like up to 4.8 million Vietnamese victims who were exposed to the poison, Tao has no idea when its producers will pay them the damages they demand.

“I even don’t know who they [the producers] are,” Tao told Vietweek.

But he might soon as Dow Chemical Company, one of the two major manufacturers of Agent Orange, is all set to crank up its global profile through a 10-year US$100-million Olympic sponsorship. The US chemical giant will give away $100 million every four years to sponsor the Olympics through 2020.

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