“Agent Orange”: a woman contaminated 58 years ago during the Vietnam War and 14 agrochemical groups before the courts

Tran To Nga, a Franco-Vietnamese woman, was exposed at the age of 24 to “Agent Orange”, an ultra-toxic defoliant used by the American army during the Vietnam War. This Thursday, August 22, the Paris Court of Appeal must rule on the responsibility of fourteen agrochemical groups for the more than three million deaths during this war.

Tran To Nga, an 82-year-old Franco-Vietnamese woman affected by '"Agent Orange", an ultra-toxic defoliant used during the Vietnam War, will find out this Thursday whether the Paris Court of Appeal recognizes the responsibility of Bayer-Monsanto and 13 other agrochemical groups that supplied the product to the American army. 

"Repeated tuberculosis, cancer and type II diabetes"

Born in 1942 in French Indochina, she was exposed at the age of 24 to this defoliant used by the American army to destroy the Vietnamese forests that protect the fighters of the communist Vietcong guerrillas, but which caused "more than three million victims" according to the Vietnam Dioxin Association.

"The plane passed with a white cloud behind it. It falls very quickly and that's how I found myself enveloped in a sticky liquid and, immediately, I started coughing, choking,”, Tran To Nga recounted at a press conference in April.

His daughter, born in 1969, died of a heart defect after “17 months,”, the collective said, adding that his two other daughters and his grandchildren suffer from “pathologies serious”. Tran To Nga suffers from "repeated tuberculosis, cancer and type II diabetes", denounces Vietnam Dioxine.

During a rally in May in Paris before the appeal court hearing, the octogenarian assured that she was ready to "go all the way" and launched to her supporters, because of her health and age: "maybe it will be up to you to continue the fight”.

Activists had draped a statue with orange banners bearing the slogans “Agent Orange Ecocide” and “Stop Chemical Warfare” for the occasion.

“Jurisdictional Immunity”

In the United States, while veterans have been compensated by certain companies without a trial taking place, the courts dismissed a Vietnamese victims' association in 2005 on the grounds that “Agent Orange”, which takes its name from the color of the strip painted on the barrels containing this defoliant, was a herbicide and not a chemical weapon.

Ms. Nga turned to the French courts. In 2021, she was dismissed by a court in the Paris region.

The latter had declared itself incompetent to handle her complaint against agrochemical giants, including Bayer-Monsanto, Dow Chemical and Hercules, considering that the companies had "acted on the orders of and on behalf of the American state" and that they could, as a result, claim "immunity from jurisdiction".

For companies that responded to orders from the American state, “the room for maneuver was non-existent and the contract was a straitjacket”, had argued in May before the Court of Appeal Me Jean-Daniel Bretzner, lawyer for Bayer-Monsanto.

“The theory of the subordination of companies to the army is a fable”, had argued on the contrary Me Bertrand Repolt, lawyer for Ms. Nga. His other lawyer, William Bourdon, said he was “confident” after the hearing.