Associated Press Worldstream

March 28, 2006 Tuesday 1:16 PM GMT

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 387 words

HEADLINE: Vietnam War veterans, activists speak out about Agent Orange

BYLINE: By TRAN VAN MINH, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: HANOI Vietnam

BODY:

Civilians and Vietnam war veterans from several countries held a two-day conference to plead for recognition of health problems they say are associated with Agent Orange the chemical defoliant U.S. forces sprayed during the war.

"This struggle is not meant for only Vietnamese victims, but also for the victims of many other countries," said Dang Vu Hiep, president of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange.

"It's not only meant for one generation, but for many other generations,"

Hiep said as the conference opened Monday. "It's not only meant for a better life for the victims, but also for a peaceful world and justice."

Conference delegates included veterans and activists from Vietnam, the United States, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Hiep said U.S. aircraft sprayed about 80 million liters (21 million

gallons) of defoliant, mostly Agent Orange, over Vietnam from 1961-71 to lessen communist soldiers' forest cover.

Agent Orange contains dioxin, a chemical that some have blamed for health problems from cancer to spina bifida and diabetes. The U.S. government claims there is no direct scientific evidence linking dioxin to the ailments.

Last year, a U.S. district court dismissed a law suit filed on behalf of about 4 million Vietnamese who claimed that U.S. chemical companies committed war crimes by making Agent Orange for use during the war.

The judge ruled that the plaintiffs could not prove the defoliant had caused their illnesses, and that the use of such chemicals did not constitute war crimes.

American veteran Frank Corcoran, 56, of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, said he's convinced he got prostate cancer after being exposed to Agent Orange while fighting in Vietnam in 1968. He was only in the country for six weeks before he was badly wounded.

He said he hopes the conference will serve as a platform to motivate U.S.

government lawmakers to "start putting pressure, demanding justice from the chemical companies."

Ric Gibrett of Perth, Australia, who spent 1970 in Vietnam, said the U.S.

government and chemical companies should be responsible for the damage caused to victims.

"We know that dioxin poisons people, so you don't need to prove that anymore," he said on the sidelines of the conference. "What we need is the government and the chemical companies to compensate the people."