Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:43:39 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Diane Fox (dnfox)" <dnfox@hamilton.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
have heard it repeated many times, and read in one newspaper account, that one of the conditions for the re-opening of relations between Vietnam and the US was that the Vietnamese government would not bring up the issue of Agent Orange.
Can any of you verify this, clarify this, or point me to sources that are more solid than a newspaper clipping?
thanks--
Diane
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:39:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Tai VanTa" <taivanta@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Hi, Diane Fox,
I think you can ask Professor Kevin Bowen of the
Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social
Consequences at University of Massachusetts/Boston at
his email :kevin.bowen@umb.edu
Ta Van Tai
From: "Susan Hammond" <frdev@mindspring.com>
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:17:13 -0400
As I recall it was wording that was not specific to Agent Orange but to reparations for damages from the war.
Susan
From: Andrew Wells-Dang <andrewwd@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 4:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Actually, Vietnam is paying "reparations" to the US as we speak. In the bilateral debt agreement signed between Vietnam and the US in 1997, Vietnam agreed to pay the US $146 million in debts still on the books from the former South Vietnam over a 20-year period. This was a prerequisite for normal trade relations, according to both the US Treasury and Vietnam's Foreign Ministry at the time. Later on, thanks to the efforts of Sens. Kerry and McCain, half of the amount paid by Vietnam was recycled into the Vietnam Education Foundation that is now providing graduate science scholarships for Vietnamese students in the US. (Descriptions of the VEF do not often include this fact, and I wonder how many current VEF students know that their tuition is being paid by the Vietnamese government, not the US!)
I read the debt agreement back when but I don't remember any mention of Agent Orange. It may be that there was a clause that Vietnam renounced any other claims to the US. Does anyone on the list have a copy of this agreement?
Andrew
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Well, now, while these accounting details between the countries have symbolic, political meaning, let's not claim that they actually have meaning in substance as well. Vietnam is an enormous net recipient of aid (one of the biggest in the whole world, despite/because of how well everything's going) and the US is responsible for much of that aid -- through bilateral and multilateral means. It's especially significant given the American electorate's disinterest in development aid, in general. The big positive is that the VEF money is surely some of the most constructively spent aid money out there.
(By the way, Andrew, I'm spending the summer in Beijing studying with the China branch of your old employer, CET. Me and 80 college students.)
Markus
From: Ed Martini <edmartini@mac.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 6:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
On the normalization issue, we should clarify if we're discussing
economic or diplomatic relations, which have been "normalized" over a
number of steps since the embargo was lifted in 1994 and diplomatic
relations were established in 1995. The debt/reverse reparations
agreement itself wasn't finalized until 1997. However, in neither
official documents establishing these agreements nor in public
pronouncements of their finalization were there any mentions of Agent
Orange.
I've got a copy of the debt agreement, although not in front of me,
but I do know that Agent Orange is not specifically mentioned in the
document.
While it certainly could have come up behind the scenes as a talking
point along the way to these agreements, I have yet to find any
evidence of it in the US. I've examined all Congressional hearings
related to economic and diplomatic normalization with Vietnam, and
even in those hearings, AO is not mentioned. The US concerns as
embodied in all of these documents are nearly completely financial
(along with the lingering concerns of the POW lobby). Both simply
wanted "access" to Vietnam - to markets and land to look for remains,
respectively.
The point is that few in the United States seemed concerned that US
responsibility for Agent Orange related issues (or, really, any
responsibility for the war and its effects on Vietnam) would
resurface as a result of normalization. Thus, there seems to me
little reason to suspect that barring discussions would be a
precondition for any other arrangements.
A good example of this is the 1995 GAO Report, "U.S. Vietnam
Relations: Issues and Implications," given to Congress before
diplomatic normalization was finalized. Nowhere in the report is
Agent Orange mentioned.
The report is available through the GAO online database. If you can't
access it, I would be happy to attach it as a PDF or text file,
although it's fairly large.
Best,
Ed Martini
Edwin Martini
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Western Michigan University
269-387-4487
edwin.martini@wmich.edu
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~emartini/
From: Ed Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 6:37 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Markus makes a very good point that the “reparations” should be assessed in context of the larger pattern of agreements and transactions between the US and Vietnam. It is worth pointing out, for example, that the US government allowed Vietnam to take control of assets of the former South Vietnamese government that had been frozen since 1975. (See Federal Register, v. 60, no. 46, 9 March 1995) Of course, this is not to say that the US is now Vietnam’s best friend in the world, or that all US policies and decisions with regards to Vietnam since the 1990s have been admirable. But I don’t see how these exchanges are “reparations” in the way that term is most commonly understood.
Ed Miller
From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 10:53 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Years ago I did my masters thesis on US-VIetnam relations of the
mid-1980s. As I recall, nearly all interactions between the US and
Vetnamese governments during that time were rhetorically couched in terms
of "humanitarian issues". From teh US side, which had the power to enforce
much of the agenda, these "humanitarian issues" numbered exactly 4:
-- POW-MIAs (American, not Vietnamese, though some reciprocal data
sharing took place occassionally)
-- boat people/refugees
-- re-education camp inmates
-- Amerasian children
These issues (as I recall -- I don't have the references with me) made up
the bulk of the "road map" toward normalization of relations that was
developed during the second Reagan administration. There were some small
additions and changes to this list -- e.g., there was US money given for
invalid children "war victims" in the early 1990s, disbursed through
American NGOs, as well as some mine clearance funding, etc.
Conspicuously absent from this discourse is the issue of agent orange. The
Vietnamese did try to introduce it, and I "recall" (again, no references
-- sorry!) Vietnamese media quoting officials who tried to include agent
orange and defolient issues inthe "humanitarian" mix, to no avail. My take
on this at the time was that the agent orange issue was in the courts in
the US, and was therefore a troublesome domestic political issue. The US
government wasn't about to undermine its domestic position by defining the
issue as "humanitarian" in Vietnam.
All this is in the decade leading up to the formal "normalization" under
Clinton and may serve as a backdrop. These issues, of course, run parallel
to the "reparations" and debt arguments discussed by others on this list.
Best of luck, Diane. I'll try to dig out my masters thesis to see if there
are any relevant cites.
Cheers,
Joe
From: Diane Fox (dnfox) <dnfox@hamilton.edu>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Thanks everyone for all your thoughts. You've jogged my memory and sent me back to my notes on a brief meeting I had in Hanoi, March 2, 2001, with David Monk, the Public Affairs Officer for the US, and an even briefer exchange with Mike Linan, medical attache. The purpose of my visit was to ask for the official US postion at that time.
DM speaks of the growth in humanitarian help the US has offered Vietnam--As recent examples he speaks of 2 hospitals south of Hue that don't exclude help to people who label themselves as victims of Agent Orange. "My sense is Viet Nam will not be satisfied unless the help is labeled 'US assistance to AO victims'," he says at one point.
At the end of our conversation he sums up, with some feeling, that he feels the Vietnamese are asking for reparations--"And that," he says with great feeling (in my memory, he is pounding the desk as he speaks) "is a non-starter, it's a non-starter... it was one of the conditions for re-engagement that there be no reparations--that was settled long ago...."
So I see more clearly now why this sticks in my memory--but still would welcome corroboration or refutation.
Again, many thanks for your comments, one and all.
Diane
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
His comments might go back to the late 70s when the SRV insisted the US
was obliged by the 1973 Paris Agreement to provide reconstruction aid,
a demand which undermined the Carter administration's efforts to establish
diplomatic relations.
- Steve Denney
From: Chuck Searcy <chucksearcy@yahoo.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2006 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Diane,
I can't refer to any documents specifically, but Ambassador Peterson told me on more than one occasion that Vietnam had given up any standing to pursue the Agent Orange issue against the U.S. based on the diplomatic normalization agreement. There must be some wording in the documents somewhere that reference that, either specifically or indirectly with a term like "war legacies" or damages or some such, as Susan mentions.
And Andrew, thanks for the reminder about VEF. However, I did not realize that only half the money would be allocated to scholarships. Did the U.S. Treasury keep the rest?
Chuck Searcy
From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jun 29, 2006 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: RE: [Vsg] Agent Orange and conditions for normalization of relations?
Diane and all,
I looked back at my MA thesis; I wrote it in 1989 *about* the years
1987-1988, so it was essentially a "current events" exercise. It relied
heavily on FBIS translations of Vietnamese media.
The relevant section is about the Vietnamese negotiators' search for
"parity" with the US government. The Vietnamese felt (according to
official media reports) that the US was dominating the discussion of which
issues were being defined as "humanitarian," the primary one being
AMerican MIAs.
In early 1987, the US and Vietnamese agreed to the visit of General John
Vessey as a special envoy. This visit was initially framed as an important
step in resolving the American MIA issue. In May 1987, Richard Childress
of the NSC visited Vietnam as Vessey's front-man to negotiate the terms
and agenda for Vessey's visit. At that time the Vietnamese pressed the US
to broaden the discussion from MIAs to a range of humanitarian issues and
to recognize (formally) that Vietnam had its own pressing humanitarian
problems as a result of the war. This is the "parity" that the Vietnamese
were seeking.
Prior to and during Vessey's visit, these Vietnamese humanitarian issues
were only occasionally specified in public media. A notable list for your
work, given to Murray Hiebert: "orphans, widows, its own missing
servicemen, and the continuing suffering casued by chemical defolients."
("Diplomacy on the Back Burner," FEER July 23, 1987) Vessey stated to the
House Subcommittee of Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs that, "... our side tried to narrow the focus of
Vietnamese definition of humanitarian concerns and to bring the problem
within limits we might address through concrete steps." (Quoted from the
hearing "The Vessey Mission to Hanoi," Sept 30, 1987).
Apparently, Western diplomats saw the Vietnamese linking of their own
humanitarian issues to the American MIA issue as a major Vietnamese coup.
This was the first time since the end of the war that US not only
acknowledged, but pledged to help resolve Vietnamese humanitarian issues
stemming from the war. In fact, in August 1987, only 3 weeks after Vessey
left Hanoi, the US and Vietnamese held technical talks on addressing
Vietnamese humanitarian concerns.
Now, exactly how, when, and why agent orange was left out of these
discussion, I don't know. I would guess that that story is hidden in
Vessey's comment about dealing with things the US could address with
"concrete steps." As I wrote in an earlier post, I think the US domestic
politics around agent orange made "concrete steps" in dealing with agent
orange in Vietnam very problematic for the US government.
Hope some of this background is useful -- or at least entertainng. I had
fun re-reading my thesis after many, many years!
Best wishes,
Joe Hannah