In central Hanoi, Vietnam on November 23, 2017, a Vietnamese flag flew atop the State Bank building near the Vietcombank and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam buildings. Reuters captured this photo.
During the war, U.S. forces used defoliants to deprive North Vietnamese forces of cover in forests sprayed with Agent Orange, a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D in a 1:1 ratio. Over a million people in Vietnam developed major illnesses due to exposure to Agent Orange after the war. The use of defoliants has been banned against civilian populations since 1980.
Britain was the first country to use defoliants as a weapon during the Malayan Emergency in the 1960s. They created a substance similar to Agent Orange that also contained dioxin, responsible for the Seveso disaster of 1976. Alongside Agent Orange, the U.S. developed a mixture of cacodylic acid, sodium cacodylate, and water to destroy rice plants that were difficult even with fire to burn down due to their thick leaves and hard stems.
The effects of defoliants were famously captured by Nick Ut’s photo taken in 1972 which showed nine children fleeing from napalm bombs dropped by American aircraft during the Vietnam War. Olof Palme described these effects as “ecocide” at a U.N conference in June 1972 and advocated for it to be designated an international crime due to its devastating consequences on civilians during the war
