FORD FOUNDATION GRANTEES HOST AGENT ORANGE DISABILITY FORUM

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 000037 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MLS, EAP/EP, EAP/RSP, EAP/PD, OES/PCI STATE PASS TO USAID FOR ANE, G/ENV STATE PASS TO EPA/OIA (DENNIS CUNNINGHAM AND MARK KASMAN) STATE PASS TO EPA/ORD (KEVIN TEICHMAN) HHS/OSSI/DSI PASS TO OGHA (WSTIEGER/MLVALDEZ/CHICKEY),NIH: FIC (RGLASS) AND NIEHS CDC FOR OGHA (SBLOUT/KMCCALL),NCEH (TSINKS),NIOSH (MHSWEENEY) DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (TSHUBERT AND WVAN HOUTEN) BANGKOK PASS TO RDM/A (OCARDUNER AND JPASCH) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL SENV TBIO KPAO VM SUBJECT: FORD FOUNDATION GRANTEES HOST AGENT ORANGE DISABILITY FORUM Ref: A. 2007 Hanoi 2113 B. 2007 Hanoi 1862 ¶1. (U) Summary. On December 18, the Ford Foundation funded a national disabilities workshop focusing on Agent Orange (AO) and its contaminant dioxin. Various speakers highlighted the need for collective Government of Vietnam (GVN) and international support for the disabled suffering from war legacies, who the GVN claims are the most physically and mentally challenged among the disabled community. The Ford Foundation sponsored U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group project and UNICEF are developing fund raising campaigns targeting Americans to support these efforts. Ford Foundation efforts to mainstream disabled Vietnamese, provided regardless of the cause of those disabilities, supply needed care and services for the disabled community. However, Vietnam requires greater public health and environmental health expertise to guide the limited resources currently mobilized to address this mainstreaming issue. End Summary. ¶2. (U) On December 18, over 150 persons attended a "National Conference on Disability in Vietnam: An Agent Orange Perspective," funded by the Ford Foundation and organized by the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS),the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Organizations (VUSTO) and the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin (DG). Presenters, all of whom received Ford Foundation funds over the past year, included VUSTO, ISDS, DG, Ford Foundation, Ministry of Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), UNICEF, Office 33, Vietnam Public Health Association (VPHA),VVAF, East Meets West, and provincial representatives of people living with disabilities in Dong Nai, Quang Nam, Danang and Thai Binh provinces. ¶3. (U) The Ford Foundation and Aspen Institute's DG project supports ten prominent American and Vietnamese citizens committed to mobilizing (in both countries) public sentiment, political will and financial support for the AO/dioxin issue, the "last remaining war legacy." The group, led by former National Assembly official Madam Ton Nu Thi Ninh and comprised of scientists, politicians, doctors and opinion-makers, has four proposed objectives for 2008-2009: 1) provide coordinated health, rehabilitation, education and vocational training to AO victims and their families; 2) enhance capacity of communities in response to the needs of AO victims and their families receiving these services; 3) strengthen the professional capacities of service providers; and 4) increase the national and international dialogue on policy development and activities to support AO victims and their families. These efforts will start in Dong Nai/Ben Hoa in 2008 and later focus on Danang, Quang Nam, and Thai Binh Provinces. ¶4. (U) In her opening remarks, Madame Ninh stated that U.S.-Vietnam relations will not be "normal" until the AO issue is "resolved," that AO victims cannot wait for scientific evidence and need immediate humanitarian support, and that environmental solutions to clean up the hotspots will be very costly and "too big for the two governments to solve alone." In his remarks, Dr. Charles Bailey congratulated the GVN for recently signing the UN Convention on Disabilities. He noted the association between AO/dioxin and certain disabilities and reported that the Ford Foundation has provided USD 4.2 million from 2002-2007 and would provide another USD 7.5 million during 2008-2009 to "alleviate the consequences of" AO. He noted the "positive steps" taken by the USG and GVN on war legacies including the November 2006 Joint Statement by Presidents Bush and Triet, State Department and EPA provision of USD 400,000 for technical assistance to support dioxin mitigation efforts in Danang, and the "unprecedented support" from the U.S. Congress of USD 3 million for dioxin-related environmental remediation and health activities in Vietnam. However, Bailey said, "The Bush Administration needs to move more briskly. This requires action. And it requires action now." ¶5. (U) Director General Hoang of MOLISA noted that the United States sprayed 72 million liters of AO during the war and claimed that AO damages human health and causes genetic disorders and highlighted GVN efforts to address these health effects of AO. Hoang stated that the GVN is drafting a Law on Disabilities, which will codify HANOI 00000037 002 OF 003 the UN Convention on Disabilities into Vietnamese Law and provide a host of rights to Vietnamese disabled, including "Agent Orange victims." The Law will be sent to the National Assembly in 2008. Vietnam now provides entitlements of approximately VND 140,000/month (less than USD 10/month) to those it identifies as AO victims, Hoang reported, though it lacks standard criteria identifying who should receive benefits. ¶6. (U) Ms. Caroline den Hulk, Communications Director of UNICEF Vietnam, stated that 60 percent of "AO victims" are children. In 2007, the Ford Foundation provided USD 688,000 to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to raise awareness and leverage additional resources for child disabilities in Vietnam. UNICEF plans to take a more universal, rights-based approach to disabilities, instead of focusing on causation, and will build institutional capacity for social services at the national level as well as local levels, starting in Danang. ¶7. (U) Dr. Le Ke Son, Director General of Office 33, which coordinates GVN AO policy, provided a somewhat more confrontational presentation than he normally gives to his U.S. Government interlocutors. He referred to the U.S. defoliation campaign as "the longest chemical warfare in human history." He presented a litany of data: 74 million liters of herbicide sprayed; 18 million liters removed during Pacer Ivy (NOTE: he did not explain that this was a repatriation operation, not a spraying operation); 3.1 million hectares of forest sprayed; 2.1 to 4.8 million people sprayed; and human blood samples in Danang containing 3-4 times the allowable limit for dioxin. Son acknowledged various causes for disabilities, including physical, genetic and environmental causes (including pesticides),but noted that data indicate an increased level of disabilities for veterans in AO spray areas (26 percent) compared to those who did not serve in spray areas (16 percent),asserting that this is evidence that dioxin exposure led to these disabilities. Dr. Son highlighted four GVN objectives: continued study of genetic malformations; continued support for counseling people with high dioxin concentrations to not have babies; systematic characterization of the disabled; and mobilization of domestic and international financial resources to support GVN efforts. He ended his presentation with a photo of malformed fetuses in jars, claiming that the deformities are the result of AO exposure. ¶8. (U) Dr. Tuyet Hanh of VPHA/Hanoi School of Public Health stated that scientific data in the literature, combined with a knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) study of dioxin exposure through food in Bien Hoa and Dong Nai, show that most residents near the hotspots knew almost nothing about dioxin, possible exposure pathways, its possible impacts, and how to prevent human exposure. This necessitates an intervention plan to raise awareness and reduce the risk of dioxin exposure through food. Noting high percentages of villagers who routinely viewed television or listened to the radio, she suggested media campaigns to increase public awareness. ¶9. (SBU) COMMENT: The Ford Foundation's AO/Dioxin program has successfully mobilized field-based humanitarian assistance programs while encouraging other donors to ramp up disabilities rights-based programming at the provincial and national levels (ref A). As this effort matures, there should be opportunities to coordinate with other groups and donors, including USAID implementing partners, interested in disabilities work, which were visibly absent from this so-called national conference. At the same time, presentations at the seminar demonstrate that many persons involved in this issue do not hold views consistent with those of the U.S. Government and were unwilling or unable to focus on other sources of disabilities or means to limit exposure to dioxin. We do not believe that providing a high-visibility forum for unchallenged and possibly unsupported assertions moves the issue forward, though it does accurately reflect the opinions of many of the advocacy groups that focus on Agent Orange/dioxin. Additionally, presenters failed to call for the GVN to limit continued human exposure, including actions as basic as preventing consumption of animals caught at "hotspots." While we continue to make progress in normalizing this issue (Ref B),we still need to be vigilant of unsupported claims about AO/dioxin effects, while promoting cooperative efforts based on sound science. HANOI 00000037 003 OF 003 MICHALAK