The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting presents
VIETNAM: WAR'S LASTING LEGACY
Friday, November 14, 12-2 p.m.
The George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs
6th Floor, Lindner Family Commons
E Street, between 18th and 19th Streets NW
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A panel discussion, multimedia presentation and light refreshments
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More than three decades after the Vietnam War ended, the Vietnamese people continue to live with the consequences of Agent Orange, a defoliant that has come to symbolize the unintended consequences of warfare. During the war, American forces sprayed nearly two million gallons of Agent Orange across Vietnam's forests in an attempt to steal cover from insurgent forces that lurked in the dense jungle. The U.S. eventually halted the spraying program, after learning that Agent Orange was tainted with high levels of dioxin. But by then, nearly 18 percent of Vietnam's forests and 20,000 villages had been sprayed with this toxic chemical.
For years, Agent Orange's toxic legacy in Vietnam has seemed like an impossible problem. Dioxin has a decades-long half-life and it continues to linger in Vietnam's soil, working its way up the food chain and exposing new generations of Vietnamese. Cleanup costs dwarfed the Vietnamese government's ability to pay, and the logistics of cleanup work looked daunting. But a new era of cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam has finally led to a shift from finger-pointing to problem solving.
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Join journalist Christie Aschwanden and Phung Tuu Boi, one of her Vietnamese
interviewees, for a panel discussion on the unintended consequences of warfare
in Vietnam and what is being done today to overcome the lingering toxins of
Agent Orange sprayed by the U.S. during the war.
Screening of media published in The New York Times and the
International Herald Tribune, and broadcast on public television’s Foreign Exchange.
Moderated by Linda Yarr, Executive Director, Program for International Studies in Asia
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Christie Aschwanden is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist based in western Colorado. Her work has appeared in more than 50 publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Science, National Wildlife, Reader's Digest, Men's Journal, and O, the Oprah Magazine. In 2007 she received a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting to travel to Vietnam. Her report on Agent Orange’s legacy appeared on PBS and her New York Times article about an Agent Orange remediation project in Vietnam’s central highlands received the Arlene Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). She has also received an Outstanding Essay Award from the ASJA and an honorable mention for print journalism from the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Mr. Phung Tuu Boi, is the Director of Assistance for Nature Conservation and Community Development Center (ANCODEC) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Mr. Boi is also on staff at the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute (FIPI). For the past three decades Dr. Boi has studied the effects on forests of the herbicides and defoliants used during 1961-71 in the Vietnam War. He has served as a scientific advisor to the Vietnmese government’s national Steering Committee on Agent Orange and the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange. Currently Mr. Boi is working on a project to remediate Agent Orange contaminated areas in central Vietnam, including his “Green Fence” project to plant a protective border around the former US military base in the A Luoi Valley that is still contaminated with Dioxin.
Mr. Phung Tuu Boi, is the Director of Assistance for Nature Conservation and Community Development Center (ANCODEC) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Mr. Boi is also on staff at the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute (FIPI). For the past three decades Dr. Boi has studied the effects on forests of the herbicides and defoliants used during 1961-71 in the Vietnam War. He has served as a scientific advisor to the Vietnmese government’s national Steering Committee on Agent Orange and the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange. Currently Mr. Boi is working on a project to remediate Agent Orange contaminated areas in central Vietnam, including his “Green Fence” project to plant a protective border around the former US military base in the A Luoi Valley that is still contaminated with Dioxin.
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Contact: For more information, contact Pulitzer Center George Washington Student Liaison Paul Biba at paulbiba@gwmail.gwu.edu
Event Sponsored By: the Elliott School of International Affairs and The War Legacies Project
The reporting project “Vietnam: War’s Lasting Legacy,” is sponsored by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting,
a non-profit dedicated to increasing the quality and quantity of underreported international news in U.S. media.
www.pulitzercenter.org
