British Friendship Society leader supports Agent Orange victims
(06/18/2003 -- 17:42GMT+7)
London, June 18 (VNA) - General Secretary of the Britain-Viet Nam Friendship Society Len Aldis has expressed his sympathy with Agent Orange victims in Viet Nam and criticised a rehearsal of the Viet Nam War in the forests outside Wolverhampton city in central England.
"War is never a game," the general secretary said in an article published by the Independence, Sunday Review on June 8.
"It is incredible that, 28 years after one of the most brutal wars in history there are people prepared to dress up in United States and Vietnamese uniforms to re-enact the war," he stressed.
Aldis said: "Every week in Viet Nam you read of people, mainly children, being killed or maimed by the shells still in the soil. Far worse is the legacy of the millions of litres of poision sprayed on South Viet Nam, destroying thousands of acres of forests and crops."
"These are nearly one million "living" victims of Agent Orange, suffering from illness and disabilities, even into third generation, many need 24-hour care," the general secretary underlined.
In conclusion, he said: "The Viet Nam War, as with any war, was not, and is not, a game to be played in the forests outside Wolverhamton or anywhere else."
He told a London-based Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) correspondent that many Britons had shared his view and would follow him to oppose such "game".
Aldis said that so far 76 MPs have signed an early Day Motion to support victims of Agent Orange.
