“This,
to me, is a red flag. What are they trying to hide?” - Wayne Dwernychuk, chief
scientist formerly in charge of identifying dioxin hotspots on past-US bases in
South Vietnam
(OKINAWA) - In September 2011, The
Asia-Pacific Journal published my research into the presence of US
military defoliants, including Agent Orange, on Okinawa during the 1960s and
early ‘70s.1 Drawing on the testimonies of over 20 US veterans
who had served on the island at a time when it was a forward staging post for
the war in Vietnam, the article catalogued the storage, spraying and burial of
these dioxin-tainted chemicals on 14 American installations from the Yambaru
jungles in northern Okinawa to Naha Port in the south. Despite this large
number of firsthand accounts, however, the Pentagon continues to deny that
military defoliants were ever on the island.
Fuelled by the September article - as well as
others I have written forThe Japan Times and investigations
conducted by journalists from theOkinawa Times - Okinawa’s
politicians and activists have now demanded that both the Japanese and US
governments allay residents’ concerns by coming clean on the usage of Agent
Orange on the island.2
This tide of anger culminated on October 28th when
Okinawa's governor, Nakaima Hirokazu, met with John V. Roos, the US Ambassador
to Tokyo, and requested that he launch an investigation into the issue. Roos
reportedly replied that he would do so assiduously.3
With new information regarding the presence of
these defoliants on Okinawa emerging rapidly, this article aims to update
readers on the most significant developments. First, it looks at the recent
statement from a senior US official who claims defoliants were tested on the
island between 1960 and 1962.
Next, it examines a 1966 Air Force document
which seems to debunk contemporary Department of Defense denials that
herbicides were ever present on Okinawa. Following this, the article explores
new evidence that these defoliants were used post-1972 - specifically on Iejima
Island as well as at Camp Foster and MCAS Futenma.
Finally, it outlines the press conference I
held in Nago City on November 4th where, for the first time,
Okinawan residents told the media about their experiences of US defoliant usage
on their island.
Tests
in the Yambaru jungles: 1960 - 1962
On September 6th, 2011, the Okinawa
Times led with a front page story written by the paper’s US
correspondent, Heianna Sumiyo. Titled “Defoliants sprayed (on Okinawa),
testifies former American high-ranking official”, the article outlined
defoliant tests that had been conducted between 1960 and 1962 in jungle near
the northern villages of Kunigami-son and Higashi-son.4
According to the veteran, who spoke to Heianna
on the condition of anonymity,
“Within 24 hours of the spraying, the leaves
had turned brown. By week four, all of the leaves had fallen off. It was
confirmed that weekly spraying stopped new buds from developing. I do not
recall the specific size of the area sprayed.”
The former service member claimed that the
Department of Defense chose Okinawa for these tests primarily for two reasons.
Firstly, the effects of the defoliants on the Yambaru jungles would elucidate
how they would work in Vietnam since the two environments were very similar.
Secondly, since the entire island of Okinawa was under US military control, the
Pentagon could bypass the more stringent health & safety standards imposed
by civilian authorities elsewhere.
The high-ranking official’s account dovetails
with publicly-available records regarding the Pentagon’s defoliant tests at
this time. During the early 1960s, the US military was still fine-tuning the
technology with which it conducted aerial spray missions over south Vietnam as
part of Operation Ranch Hand.5
Some Department of Defense officials were
growing impatient with the slow pace of results so they expedited tests
elsewhere under the cloak of the highly-secretive Project AGILE.6
Although, some of the documents concerning
AGILE show that defoliant experiments took place in Puerto Rico, Thailand and
the mainland United States, the details of the other locations remain
classified. Attempts to release the remaining files related to Project AGILE
under the Freedom of Information Act have thus far been unsuccessful.
Service members stationed on the north of the
island at the time in question substantiate the Okinawa Times story.
One veteran who was on Okinawa between 1961 and 1962 claims that, during war
games in the Yambaru, he witnessed defoliated sectors of jungle. Having
bivouacked in these areas, he is now suffering from several diseases that the
US government lists as dioxin-related - and he believes were caused by his
experiences in the Yambaru.
Adding weight to the high-ranking official’s
account is the fact that, to date, the only case in which the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) has paid compensation for sicknesses contracted from
defoliant exposure on Okinawa was to a former Marine Corps truck driver who
came into contact with these chemicals between 1961 and 1962 when they were
“used in Northern Okinawa for War Games training”.7
Air
Force Report on Okinawa and herbicides: 1966
In October 2011, I received a Department of
Defense document8 from Paul Sutton, the former Chairperson of
the Vietnam Veterans of America Agent Orange/Dioxin Committee. Dated September
8th, 1966, the report detailed an 18-day trip made by civil
engineering representatives to the Philippines, Taiwan and Okinawa. While on
Okinawa, they visited Naha Air Base, Kadena Air Base, the Headquarters of the
US Army and the US Army Medical Laboratory.
According to the report, one of the purposes
of the trip was to “review base programs and assist individual bases with
establishment of safer and more effective programs” related to “pest control”
and “herbicides”.
“Literature on various products was
distributed at the conference and all bases visited. This action is designed to
keep sections informed on some of the newer chemicals now available for pest
and weed control.”
The document also states that “Okinawa
certifications are valid until October 1966. Due to language problems,
translation will be necessary.”
Before discussing this document, it is
important to clarify the US military’s usage of the terms “herbicide” and
“defoliant”. According to William Buckingham in his official Air Force history
of Operation Ranch Hand, “‘herbicide’ and ‘defoliant’ are used practically
interchangeably in discussions about the “Ranch Hand” program.”9
Even today, the Pentagon avoids references to
“defoliants” - possibly due to the term’s dioxin-laden connotations. For
example, during recent email correspondences I have received from Major Neal
Fisher - Deputy Director of Public Affairs for United States Forces Japan - he
repeatedly refers to Agent Orange as “Herbicide Orange.”
With this in mind, it seems that the 1966
report directly contradicts current Pentagon denials. In 2004, for example,
General Myers stated, “records contain no information linking use or storage of
Agent Orange or other herbicides in Okinawa.”10 This 7-year old
denial has become the benchmark by which the VA continues to refuse aid to
veterans claiming dioxin-exposure on Okinawa.11
The 1966 Air Force report, which specifically
refers to herbicides, appears to offer sufficient grounds for former service
members to appeal against their denials of recognition and support by the VA.
Joe Sipala, the organizer of the Agent Orange Okinawa Facebook campaign to push
the Pentagon for transparency on the issue, says
“It really helps veterans. Here is an official
Air Force document that clearly mentions herbicides on Okinawa - contrary to
what the Department of Defense states about having no records.”
Numerous veterans with whom I am in contact
have begun to incorporate the document into their appeals and, to encourage
others to do so, I have made the complete 1966 Air Force report available here.
The Pentagon and the VA are likely to try to
argue that the herbicides mentioned in the report were not the same as the
dioxin-tainted ones employed in Operation Ranch Hand. However, the available
evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise. The 1966 visit was organized by the
Air Force, the branch in charge of Operation Ranch Hand, in a year that the US
military undertook a massive escalation of its defoliant usage in Southeast Asia.12
Furthermore, the report’s reference to “newer
chemicals now available for… weed control” suggests Agent Orange which had
first been shipped to Vietnam in 1965. Veterans I have interviewed are adamant
that these herbicides bound for the war zone were also sprayed on Okinawa.
Among them is one former service member
stationed on Naha Port in the late-1960s who said, “It wasn’t a secret.
Everybody knew that we were using the exact same defoliants they were using
over there (in Vietnam).”
A final point worth noting is the reference in
the document to the need for translation of “Okinawan certifications.” This
indicates that civilian base workers were involved in herbicide usage - a
belief substantiated by veterans who report having seen teams of civilians
involved in weed control on Camp Kue, Camp Foster and Machinato supply depot.13
The potential health impact on these workers
is discussed in more detail below.
Use
of defoliants: post-1972
Although evidence of the toxicity of the
dioxin found in Agent Orange had been uncovered as early as 196514,
the Pentagon and military contractors consistently sought to suppress this
information. Throughout the 1960s, the international media reported unusually
high incidences of birth defects in South Vietnam - but the White House
dismissed these accounts as communist propaganda.15
However, in 1969, the US Food and Drug
Administration issued a report that dioxin killed and caused stillbirths in
laboratory mice and recommended that the usage of Agent Orange be curtailed.16
The Department of Defense and manufacturers
fought tooth and nail to keep employing defoliants which, the Pentagon still
claimed were “relatively nontoxic to man or animals”17 - but,
in 1971, Operation Ranch Hand flew its final mission. By April 1972, the US had
removed the remainder of its stockpiles of defoliants from South Vietnam.18
Among the US veterans I’ve interviewed, the
consensus is that most of the military’s supplies of defoliants were
transported off Okinawa in a similar time frame. In 1972, the US army initiated
Operation Red Hat to ship stocks of bio-chemical weapons from Okinawa to
Johnston Island - and it is widely believed that barrels of defoliant were
included, too.19
The VA itself supports this suspicion when it
stated in a 2009 ruling that “the records pertaining to Operation Red Hat show
herbicide agents were stored and later disposed in Okinawa from August 1969 to
March 1972.”20
However over the past two months, details have
surfaced that defoliants were present - and sprayed - on Okinawa until much
later than had been previously feared. By the mid-1970s, the US military was
irrefutably aware of the health risks posed by dioxins. The continued use of
these chemicals at this time is clear evidence of criminal disregard from the
base commanders who ordered or allowed their usage. Furthermore, it exposes the
Pentagon to serious charges of liability for its failure to prevent such actions.
1. Iejima Island: 1973
Since 1955, when the US military seized over
two-thirds of Iejima island at bayonet-point in order to construct an
air-to-surface bombing range, the army had waged a battle of attrition against
local farmers who still tried to work the fields now under military control.21
In an attempt to deter local residents from
entering the base, soldiers regularly used gasoline to raze their crops.
According to an Okinawa Times article
dated October 31, 1973 - “American military in defoliant operation” - in that
month, US forces employed a new technique to discourage the farmers.
“This time, the military did not use gasoline,
they sprayed for the first time an unidentified defoliant. Villagers lost their
pasture land and they worried about pollution of the nearby shore and the
effect on their health. It seemed that the defoliants were used in a 2000
square meter area around the perimeter of the firing range, but the true extent
of its use and whether other areas were affected is not clear.” 22
The Okinawa Times article
explained that the villagers of Maja filed a complaint with the US military
protesting the spraying of these defoliants and demanding that they never be
used again.
The usage of the chemicals on Iejima - the
birthplace of the Okinawa civil rights movement - reveals a new depth of
brutality. Given that the US military was now aware of the health dangers of
these defoliants, its actions border on biological warfare against the very
Okinawan allies who it was supposed to be protecting. I am currently in talks
with residents of Iejima in order to ascertain the location defoliated - and I
am attempting to track down the US base commander’s response to the villagers’
1973 complaint.
2. Camp Foster: 1975
Between 1975 and 1976, Caethe Goetz was
stationed with the Marine Corps on Camp Foster. While there, she witnessed
military personnel spraying herbicides along the base’s perimeter.
"The fence line was devoid of vegetation.
When I walked past it, there was a pungent smell and I would get a headache. I
sometimes saw men using hand sprayers… One time there was a breeze and some of
the mist blew onto me." 23
Today, Goetz is suffering from multiple
myeloma - one of the fourteen diseases recognized by the VA as related to
dioxin exposure. Despite being seriously ill, Goetz has been a vocal activist
in the struggle to win recognition of the presence of defoliants on Okinawa.
The banner of Sparrow Walk, the blog she started during her lengthy stays in
hospital, reads “As a former Marine who served in Okinawa, she advocates for
the VA to acknowledge the use of Agent Orange in Okinawa for the benefit of all
who served in Okinawa.” 24
The accounts of three other veterans support
Goetz’s claim that Agent Orange was used on Camp Foster in the mid-1970s. One
former truck driver alleges that he saw dozens of barrels on the base at the
time, while another recalls he often witnessed spray teams clearing weeds near
the perimeter fences.
The third veteran also saw barrels of
defoliants on Camp Foster - and he says that the “demand for AO was strong on
the island” due to its potency in killing vegetation. He explained that other
branches of the military had removed their supplies due to fears over its
health effects, but the Marine Corps kept theirs longer since “disposing of it
would have been wasteful.”
3. MCAS Futenma: 1975
Carlos Garay, a former Marine Corps Lance
Corporal, was stationed on MCAS Futenma between 1974 and 1975 at the base’s
supply section. According to Garay, there were stocks of defoliants present on
the installation and he typed up a request to dispose of 12 barrels containing
the chemicals.
“The disposal process was still being decided.
Since it was toxic material, only the D.O.D. (Department of Defense) could
designate its destination and disposal. I had sent messages to the D.O.D and
informed H.Q.M.C. (Headquarters Marine Corps) on several occasions in
accordance to follow up procedures, but they never replied.”
“Some of the other squadrons also had a
leftover barrel or so but were told to wait since the D.O.D's response time was
extremely slow.”
The Pentagon’s failure to reply to Garay’s
requests reflects its confusion as to how best to dispose of the approximately
7.5 million liters of defoliants left over since the cessation of Operation
Ranch Hand in 1971. Buckingham’s official history catalogues the government’s
disorder as, for six years, it flailed from one increasingly desperate proposed
solution to the next: “injection in deep wells, biodegradation in soil,
disposal in underground nuclear test cavities, sludge burial, microbial
reduction and high temperature incineration.”25
Eventually, after protests by local residents
over the continued storage of Agent Orange in Gulfport, Mississippi, stocks
were burned at sea aboard the Dutch-owned incinerator ship, Vulcanus, between
July and September 1977.
In addition, Garay’s account confirms fears
that base commanders had failed to relay the health risks of these chemicals
through the chain of command.
“We were instructed to gather some of the
barrels together. I believed my senior’s statement that, ‘If you’re not a damn
plant it won’t fucking kill you." So I didn't wait for the forklift with
the special barrel lift attachment. As a result, during the move I got spillage
from the barrel on me. The Agent Orange splashed my arms, legs and boots.”
Today Garay, like Caethe Goetz, is suffering
from illnesses related to this exposure – while his claims continue to be
denied by the VA.
The
experiences of Nago residents: November 4th, 2011
At the beginning of November, I held a press
conference in Nago City to update the Japanese-language media on my current
research and collect statements from residents with information regarding the
use of US defoliants.26 Thanks to a concerted publicity drive
by Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa27 - combined
with the Okinawa Times’ publication of the 1966 Air Force
document on the morning of the press conference - the meeting was
well-attended.
Over 50 local people came (including Akutagawa
Prize winning author, Medoruma Shun28), representatives of the
Okinawa Defense Bureau, Prefectural Assembly member Tokashiki Kiyoko, and
members of the Nago City Council.
In September, Nago had become the first
municipality on Okinawa to adopt a resolution demanding an official
investigation into Agent Orange usage. Councilors’ fears focused on Camp Schwab
- a USMC installation located within the city - where former service member
Scott Parton claimed that large volumes of Agent Orange had been stored and
sprayed on the base between 1970 and ‘71.
According to Parton:
“Dozens of barrels of Agent Orange were stored
in a big galvanized barn that was off-limits to most of us. Some of the barrels
were marked with a single orange stripe. Others had a double orange stripe…
Some of the barrels were leaking. So the military had dug a foot and a half
(45cm) deep ditch around the palettes to catch the spills.”
Parton’s claims were supported by a second
marine who had come forward with similar accounts of having witnessed
defoliated areas within the base.29
After I had summarized the two veterans’
testimonies at the press conference, local residents were invited to speak. Many
of them were particularly troubled by Parton’s claim of defoliant usage on the
banks of a creek that fed into the nearby bay. City councilor, Oshiro
Yoshitami, believed that he had identified the area - located close to a shore
once popular for collecting shellfish.
Nago resident, S. Higa, explained that, prior
to the 1970s, the rocks and shoreline of the nearby beaches had been covered in
algae and seaweed but as time went on, all of the vegetation died and the rocks
became bleached with no signs of sealife in the area.
Next to speak was F. Shimabukuro, who had
worked as a maid on Camp Schwab’s Kanno barracks between 1962 and 1972. She
remembers talking to Okinawan base workers who had sprayed herbicides on the
installation. Some members of these teams had died young.
Another resident echoed her fears, stating
that over the years there had been an unusually large number of leukemia cases
in the area.30
F. Shimabukuro also reiterated Higa’s concerns
about poisoned sealife. She recalled the deaths of several men who had died
after eating shellfish consumed from the waters near the base. “The last words
of one of the men was never to eat shellfish from the area [near Camp Schwab].”
Another resident recalled a dark oily
substance emerging from clams that had been gathered near the installation - a
particularly worrying observation given that the US army describes Agent Orange
“as a dark-brown oily liquid which is insoluble in water.”31
Residents’ fears extended to the jungles north
of the city. Y. Iha, showed recent photographs that he had taken in
Higashi-son, the village mentioned by the high-ranking US official as the site
of the 1960-2 defoliant tests. The land in the photographs had belonged to the
US military until the early 1990s but in the twenty years since its return to
civilian use, the foliage still had not grown back.
That felt this was unusual given that
Okinawa’s vegetation usually reclaims any open spaces within four or five
years. Further adding to fears that the area was contaminated by dioxins were
media reports from 2007 cataloguing deformities among lizards, turtles and wild
boars in the area.32
Toward the end of the press conference, I was
approached by a middle-aged man who told me that his father had used defoliants
donated by the American military in the years prior to the 1972 Reversion of
Okinawa to Japan. According to the man, the defoliant was “oil-based, thin and,
when mixed with gasoline, light brown. I saw it sprayed along the streets. The
results were truly impressive.”
The man recalled how, within a couple of days,
“the weeds were killed. The parts of the leaves that had been splashed by the
spray also became black. The chemical even stripped the leaves off large trees
on the roadside.”
While neither he nor his father suffered any
ill-effects from the spraying, he was concerned that the chemical was Agent
Orange since the only Japanese herbicides available on Okinawa at the time
tended to be water-soluble and not powerful enough to defoliate large trees.
Conclusion
- the urgent need for environmental testing
This recent surge of new information regarding
military defoliants on Okinawa is clear cause for alarm. Evidence that these
chemicals were used into the mid-1970s and the accounts from Okinawan civilians
suggest that the human and environmental toll may be far graver than suggested
by my September 2011 article.
In the absence of environmental tests on the
sites believed to have stored Agent Orange, it will be impossible to allay the
fears among both Okinawan residents and US military personnel currently stationed
on the island’s bases. The dioxin-poisoned veterans I have interviewed, well
aware of the health risks of Agent Orange, have expressed their unconditional
cooperation in pinpointing the precise location of these areas.
The chief scientist formerly in charge of
identifying dioxin hotspots on past-US bases in South Vietnam, Wayne
Dwernychuk, states that such tests would categorically confirm or disprove the
presence of these defoliants on Okinawa.
“Results of the tests and the congener
composition of the various dioxins would enable determining if the
contamination was of Agent Orange origin. Agent Orange had one specific
congener of dioxin: 2,3,7,8-TCDD. A very high concentration of this single
congener would indicate the contamination came from Agent Orange,
unquestionably.”
At the moment, two obstacles impede this
course of action. Firstly, there are no facilities on Okinawa equipped to test
for dioxins and the $1000-per-sample price tag is too high to meet without
financial support from the authorities.
The second difficulty lies in the reluctance
of both the Pentagon and Okinawa Defense Bureau to cooperate with such tests.
On November 11, for example, the Okinawa Defense Bureau refused to agree to the
soil tests requested by Nago City on Camp Schwab despite a 1973 Japan-US Joint
Committee agreement which allows local municipalities to order such
investigations.
According to Wayne Dwernychuk, this
recalcitrance backfires on the authorities.
“If the US wanted to put this to bed and stop
the insinuations, they would approve a small sampling program. This, to me, is
a red flag. What are they trying to hide?”
In the past, Tokyo and Washington might have
tried to hold their ground and wait for this storm to blow by. But recent
developments appear to have ruled out such an option. Okinawa’s leaders have
linked Japanese and American cover-ups of Agent Orange with comparable
malfeasance over the relocation of MCAS Futenma to Henoko.
As such, over the coming weeks, as Tokyo and
Washington attempt to increase pressure on Okinawa to accept a new base at
Henoko, it seems likely that they will come under heavy pressure to concede to
tests for these defoliants which, many people are now convinced, have been
poisoning the island’s land for over half-a-century.
Former service members and Okinawan citizens
with information regarding the usage of Agent Orange on Okinawa are encouraged
to contact Jon Mitchell at jon.w.mitchell@gmail.com
Regular updates on this rapidly-moving subject
are posted here.
The leading online community - Agent Orange
Okinawa - is hosted on Facebook by Joe Sipala (link).
Jon Mitchell is a Welsh-born writer based in
Yokohama and represented by Curtis Brown Ltd., New York. He has written widely
on Okinawan social issues for the Japanese and American press - a selection of
which can be found here.
Currently, he teaches at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
For their help and advice with this article, I would like to thank Paul
Sutton, Masami Kawamura, Sunao, O.N., Carlos Garay, Michelle Gatz and Hideki
Yoshikawa.
Recommended citation: Jon Mitchell, 'Agent Orange on Okinawa - New
Evidence,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol
9, Issue 48 No 1, November 28, 2011.
Jon Mitchell
Special to Salem-News.com
Articles
on related subjects
• Jon Mitchell, US Military Defoliants on
Okinawa: Agent Orange
• Roger Pulvers and John Junkerman, Remembering Victims of
Agent Orange in the Shadow of 9/11
• Ikhwan Kim, Confronting Agent
Orange in South Korea
• Nick Turse, A My Lai a Month: How the US
Fought the Vietnam War
• Ngoc Nguyen and Aaron Glantz, Vietnamese Agent Orange
Victims Sue Dow and Monsanto in US Court
Notes
1 Jon
Mitchell, “Military defoliants on Okinawa: Agent Orange”, The
Asia-Pacific Journal, September 12, 2011.
2 In
October 2011, Prime Minister Noda sent Cabinet members to Okinawa to pave the
way for the relocation of MCAS Futenma to an expanded base at Henoko. During
these meetings, the Agent Orange issue was cited as one of the primary
complaints that local leaders wanted Tokyo to address. On 18th October, the
leaders of three municipalities - Chatan, Kadena and Okinawa City - met Japan's
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gemba Koichiro, and requested a wide-ranging
investigation into the matter (details of which can be read in Japanese here).
On 21stOctober, 2011, the Mayor of Chatan met the deputy Chief
Cabinet Secretary, Saito Tsuyoshi, and asked him for reassurances on the burial
of defoliants in his town (a Japanese-language link is here).
The account of the alleged burial of dozens of barrels of Agent Orange in
Chatan Town can be read in full here.
4 Japanese
text is available here.
5 William
A. Buckingham, “Operation Ranch Hand - The air force and herbicides in
Southeast Asia, 1961-1971”, Office of Air Force History, Washington D.C., 1982,
16.
6 Some
declassified sections of Project AGILE are available here.
7 The
complete text of the 1998 VA ruling can be read here.
8 A
full pdf file of the document is available here.
9 Buckingham,
196.
10 Quoted
in “Agent Orange was likely used in Okinawa: U.S. vet board”, Kyodo News
Service, July 8, 2007.
11 The
VA often relies upon a formulaic denial along the lines of this 2009 decision:
“The Board is unaware of any official confirmation that veterans were exposed
to herbicides anywhere in Okinawa... There appears to be no actual evidence of
herbicides in Okinawa.” (The full text of this denial can be
found here.)
12 In
1966, the Air Force began to spray defoliants over Laos and the border between
North and South Vietnam. This expansion put such a strain on herbicides
supplies that in 1966, there was almost a herbicide shortage in the United
States. Buckingham, 133.
13 See
my September article for more information related to the exposure of Okinawan
base workers.
14 Philip
Jones Griffiths, “Agent Orange - ‘Collateral Damage in Viet Nam”, Trolley
Ltd., London, 2003, 165.
15 Buckingham,
164.
16 Griffiths,
169.
17 “Employment
of Riot Control Agents, Flame, Smoke, Antiplant Agents, and Personnel Detectors
in Counterguerilla Operations,” Department of the Army Training Circular, April
1969.
18 Buckingham,
188.
19 The
alleged disposal of Agent Orange during Operation Red Hat is explained in
detail in my September, 2011 article.
20 Attempts
to acquire the documents upon which the Montana VA made these comments are
currently the focus of a protracted Freedom of Information request tussle with
the National Archives and Records Administration.
21 Jon
Mitchell, “Beggars’ Belief: The Farmers’ Resistance Movement on Iejima
Island, Okinawa”, The Asia-Pacific Journal, June 7,
2010.
22 米軍が枯葉作戦,
Okinawa Times, October 31, 1973.
23 A
fuller account of Goetz’s struggle with the VA can be read here.
24 Goetz’s
blog can be accessed here.
25 Buckingham,
188.
26 A
Japanese-language TV report on the press conference can be viewed here.
27 Originally
formed in anticipation of COP-10, Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa
is a group focusing on the interrelationship of the environment, peace and
human rights.
28 Medoruma
Shun has become increasingly involved in the recent struggle for truth over
defoliant usage on Okinawa and his coverage of my press conference can be read here.
29 A
complete account of Parton’s testimony can be read here.
30 In
an October 2011 meeting with Nakamura Goro, Vietnam War photographer and one of
Japan’s leading experts on Agent Orange, he explained to me the problems faced
by researchers attempting to identify clusters of dioxin-related diseases in
Japan. Unlike the US, whose Centers for Disease Control and Prevention record
spikes in diseases, Japan has no such system. With no centralized source
available for tracking down records related to public health, it is almost
impossible for researchers to pinpoint higher incidences of dioxin warning
signs such as birth deformities and specific cancers. The only way involves
surveying clinics and hospitals near the areas of suspected defoliant usage.
31 “Employment
of Riot Control Agents, Flame, Smoke, Antiplant Agents, and Personnel Detectors
in Counterguerilla Operations,” Department of the Army Training Circular, April
1969.
32 For
example, see: 薬品影響?北部で奇形生物 Okinawa Times, July 12, 2007.
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