The Dominion - Gagetown

Political and Chemical Blowback

hillarybain — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:26:24 +0000

How the Canadian government poisoned rural New Brunswick

VANCOUVER–The term ‘blowback’ has two definitions. One is environmental, the other political; both come with a human cost. Blowback happens when chemicals sprayed in the air catch wind currents, blow back towards those doing the spraying and fall on homes, farms and people. Blowback also describes the unintended adverse results of a political action or situation. Chris Arsenault documents how these dual forms of blowback met in rural New Brunswick in his first book Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home.

Blowback documents the irresponsibility of the Canadian government as it pursued a decades-long campaign to spray small town and rural New Brunswick with more than a million litres of Agent Orange, considered one of the deadliest synthetic chemicals known to humankind.

From 1956 to 1984, the military and its private contractors showered more than 1.3 million litres of toxic defoliant on and around the Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, including the town of Enniskillen and its several hundred residents. The reason for spraying was simple: to defoliate trees and brush to make space for acres of training ground and shooting ranges at the base, writes Arsenault.

Arsenault is unabashedly critical of Canadian military neglect, which he describes as deliberate, and has choice words about the systemic defoliation at Gagetown:

…partially a story of inaction, ignorance incompetence and laziness: contract supervisors who didn’t follow safety labels; military personnel who buried improperly sealed barrels of toxin in random locations; aerial sprayers who missed their targets, destroying crops and swaths of land; and power companies who decided spraying dioxin was a cheaper way to clear brush from electrical lines than hiring workers with saws and axes.

Spraying was also used on the land because the topography and foliage simulated conditions in Vietnam. “Of all possible North American test sites,” Arsenault outlines, “it had the terrain most like Vietnam.”

Arsenault uses facts gleaned from Freedom of Information requests, primary sources and interviews to condemn the Canadian government for its complicity in using chemicals against its own people at a concentration higher than the US sprayed in Southeast Asia.

Agent Orange gained infamy when the US used it during the Vietnam War, resulting in serious health consequences for multiple generations of Vietnamese.

In his opening passages, Arsenault outlines similar consequences in New Brunswick, including a resident of Enniskillen who had 11 tumours removed from her body.

One of the most galling examples of private traumas endured by those spraying and being sprayed with the toxic defoliant is that of Ken Dobbie. As a teenager in 1966, he handled Agent Orange with his bare hands while on a six-week contract to strip the bush. Now suffering from a host of neurological and blood disorders, Dobbie told Arsenault, “We were told this stuff was safe enough to drink.” Dobbie is now a leading plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal government.

In 115 pages, Arsenault has compiled a history of Agent Orange in Canada that includes both insight and humour. From the first internal memo to the NDP politician in the 1980s to the press exposés and to the largest class-action lawsuit in US history, Blowback is compelling reading for every Canadian who wants to know more about the wizard behind the curtain. The author's research unearths years of military paper trails and includes extensive interviews with past Gagetown military personnel, labourers contracted to spray, and rural New Brunswick residents.

With dozens of footnotes per chapter, the passages can seem textbook-like. The stories he relates about the individuals most impacted by spraying—like Paul and Cora Thompson, who can’t have children, and Marilyn Kissinger, whose brother and teenage friends died en masse—are haunting and unforgettable, but also underdeveloped. Arsenault seems to have established the trust of one-time Gagetown infantry and past Enniskillen residents. He does each one justice, but would do the reader a favour by indulging a narrative style to heighten memories, loss and sacrifice. However, he does corroborate first-person accounts with documented information, enhancing one through the use of the other.

The war at home, Arsenault writes, is not for mere poetic effect or political rhetoric. No, the history of Agent Orange in Canada is about the war coming home and being waged against Canadians. What citizens finally realized, and what spurred them to mobilize, writes Arsenault, is that they have the justification and agency to blow back against the government and military that poisoned them.

Megan Stewart is a Vancouver-based journalist.

Blowback

Veterans Say Agent Orange Settlement Falls Short

Stuart Neatby — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:56:18 +0000

Government compensation a diversion, say former Gagetown veterans

Notorious for its devastating use by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War, the toxic defoliant Agent Orange was tested and sprayed extensively in Canada by both the Canadian military and its U.S. counterpart in the 1950s, '60s and '70s

Recently, some Canadian veterans received a long-awaited compensation package, but veterans' advocates say the reparations do not go nearly far enough.

In 1966, Ken Dobbie and thousands of other young men spent summers hacking foliage soaked in Agent Orange while clearing forests at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in the province of New Brunswick.

'We never had any protection; we would handle this stuff [brush covered in Agent Orange] with our bare hands,' Dobbie told The Dominion.

'We were never told these chemicals were dangerous, and now I am living in constant pain,' said Dobbie, 58, who is sick with brain atrophy, neurological disorders, thyroid growths, toxic hepatitis, and type 2 diabetes he blames on the time he spent working and living at Gagetown.

In 1966-67, the U.S. military, invited by the Canadian government, tested Agent Orange and Agent Purple on 83 acres at Base Gagetown.

The term 'Agent Orange' originated from the 45-gallon orange-striped barrels Monsanto and Dow Chemical used to market and ship the roughly 1:1 chemical mix of dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). Dioxin, a known carcinogen linked to cancer and other ailments, is a component of Agent Orange and Agent Purple.

Last week, Canada's Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson announced a 94.5-million-dollar compensation package, offering lump sum payments of 19,700 dollars to some veterans and civilians who were at the base in 1966-67. 'We are proud to announce a plan that is fair and shows compassion to the thousands of Canadians whose lives have been so affected,' said Thompson in a statement.

'We may never fully know what happened when Agent Orange was tested at the Canadian Forces Base in Gagetown in 1966 and 1967, but our government has always stood firm,' said Thompson, a member of Canada's ruling Conservative Party. The federal government reportedly expects about 4,500 people will qualify for the package.

Veterans, however, say the Canadian government is using the compensation, which is only available to victims of U.S. spraying in 1966-67, to divert attention from a larger issue.

Between 1956-1984, the Canadian military sprayed 1,328,767 litres of chemical defoliants on 181,038 acres (an acre is slightly smaller than a football field) of Base Gagetown, including Agent Orange, Agent White and Agent Purple, according to a 1985 declassified briefing to the New Brunswick provincial government obtained by The Dominion through Canada's Access to Information Act.

'Restricting [compensation] payments to a few weeks in 1966-67 is dishonest,' said Tony Merchant, a lawyer representing some 3,000 veterans and civilians in a class action lawsuit against the companies who manufactured Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto, and the Canadian government.

'If the companies created dangerous products that hurt people than those companies are responsible,' Art Connolly, a military veteran and vice president of the Agent Orange Association of Canada, told The Dominion.

Connolly says the recent compensation package is 'part of a government campaign to bewilder, bedazzle and confuse.'

Veterans groups are pushing for a full public inquiry into the spraying of defoliants and compensation for all affected people, not just those who were sprayed in 1966-67.

In 1985, Dow Chemical and other firms paid 180 million dollars to U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War, settling a class action lawsuit. However, both Monsanto and Dow still deny Agent Orange is dangerous.

'When we allowed Americans to spray Agent Orange on a Canadian Base in 1966, the U.S. Congress had passed a law barring the spraying of Agent Orange on military bases in the U.S.' Merchant told The Dominion. 'The problems with these defoliants were known and appropriate care wasn't taken.'

In April 2007, the British government awarded a special pension to Keith Pilmoor, a British solider, who said exposure to Agent Orange at Canada's Base Gagetown in 1966 left him sick for decades.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) in the United States compensates U.S. service members who may have been exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War for health conditions including chloracne, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, respiratory cancers (lung, bronchus, larynx and trachea), soft-tissue sarcoma, type 2 diabetes and prostate cancer.

Peter Stoffer, Veterans Affairs critic for Canada's New Democratic Party (social democrats), called the compensation package 'political perjury'.

'It is unconscionable that you can treat veterans and civilians in this manner,' Stoffer told The Dominion. 'Spraying took place in the 50s, 60s and 70s, not just in 1966-67.'

Canadian Agent Orange survivors have been in close contact with their Vietnamese counterparts.

In a 2006 interview in Vietnam, Le Duc, manager of the Ho Chi Minh City Agent Orange Association, told The Dominion, 'I call on the Canadian people to work with the Vietnamese people to take on the American chemical companies.'

An earlier version of this article appeared at Inter-Press Service

Declassified Documents

Support the Troops or Support the War?

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:42:58 +0000

In Afghanistan, it might be difficult to do both

GAGETOWN, NB -- When some 2,500 people braved snow and ice to form a massive Canadian flag at CFB Gagetown as a part of an emotional farewell to soldiers departing for Afghanistan, it seemed like patriotism at its best.

There was only one problem: many attendees were forced to participate in the rally.

An email to base employees obtained by the Dominion states, “All military and civilian personnel not in an essential service position or undergoing training are required to attend the ceremonies.” On January 26, 708 soldiers from CFB Gagetown will start deploying for Afghanistan as part of Canada’s third rotation.

“I support the military 100 per cent, but when someone tells me I am required to do something, I get up in arms,” said one long-time base employee who didn’t want to be named for fear of professional reprisal. “I will not support our men going over to fight and die in a war we have nothing to do with,” added the employee.

“A lot of the time they [soldiers] don’t have a choice,” says 17-year-old Shayley Jestin as she volunteers at a table passing out yellow ribbons. “Supporting the troops is different from supporting the war,” says Jestin, whose father is in the military.

At the January 19 rally, scampering kids munched hot dogs and blue cotton candy, politicians made pro-war speeches and soldiers held their loved ones. For some families, this will be a last caress. Word around the base is that one in 10 soldiers will die in Afghanistan; media reports say one in six is expected to be injured.

“It’s like feeling every emotion at the same time,” says Sapper Bruce MacCleary who will be deployed to Kandahar in February. “Anyone who says they aren’t worried is lying,” says MacCleary while holding his 16-month-old daughter.

During my interview with MacCleary and his wife Samantha, public affairs officer Lieutenant Desmond James, a clean-cut navy man with sharp eyes, watches closely. After asking the standard questions about training, feelings and worries, I try something a little different.

“In 2005, Major General Andrew Leslie went on record saying ‘Afghanistan is a 20-year venture’, because ‘every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you’re creating 15 more who will come after you.’ By this logic, don’t you think the occupation is misguided?” I ask.

Sapper MacCleary answers the question.

We shake hands and walk our separate ways. MacCleary starts talking to public affairs officer Lieut. James. Moments later MacCleary returns and asks to withdraw his answer.

“Soldiers don’t comment on policy or rules,” said public affairs officer James when asked why MacClearly wasn’t allowed to give his opinion on the subject for which he’s risking his life.

It’s ironic that average soldiers, support staff and their families can’t talk about the politics behind the mission when at times they likely understand the situation better than politicians and generals.

Take this statement from Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor’s Gagetown speech, “The Afghan economy has tripled over the last five years.” This may be true, but only one domestic sector is growing: heroin. According to American government figures, last year Afghanistan produced more drugs than ever before.

According to The Washington Post, the country now supplies 90 per cent of the world’s heroin.

“The Taliban don’t want heroin production to be brought low,” said Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson who took the stage after O’Connor. Thompson would do well to remember that the Taliban, while imposing fundamentalist religious law, were the ones who curtailed heroin production in the 1990s.

Western forces haven’t embarked on a Colombia-style aerial eradication campaign on heroin poppies for fear of crippling the Afghan economy and driving tens of thousands of average farmers towards the insurgency.

“It’s in our national interest to deal with terrorism where it is bred,” said Gordon O’Connor, as Canadian flags wave on tele-screens behind him.

The terrorists operating in Afghanistan were once part of this national interest: Osama Bin Laden and his mujahedeen were trained and armed by the CIA and its western proxies during the 1980s when they launched Jihad against Soviet occupiers.

“I believe the media has been emphasizing the negative stuff too much,” says Sapper MacCleary, as the public affairs officer nods in agreement.

“Families would like to see and hear more about the reconstruction,” said MacCleary.

Afghan families would also like to see more reconstruction.

But the money hasn’t been forthcoming to make this happen. According to the NDP’s Jack Layton, “For each $1 we’re spending in Afghanistan, only 10 cents goes to aid and reconstruction, while the other 90 cents goes into combat.”

“Five years after the overthrow of the Taliban, Kabul has only three hours of electricity per day and unsanitary and inadequate drinking water,” writes Christian Parenti, who reported from Afghanistan for The Nation in 2006.

Canada’s core strategy for subduing Afghanistan is based on the ‘three block war’: defence, diplomacy and development. However, according to NGOs working on the ground, the focus on defence is undermining the other aspects.

The fate of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), one of the world’s most respected humanitarian groups who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, illustrates this situation perfectly. MSF assisted the people of Afghanistan from 1980 – 2004, until they were forced to pull out after five of their staff were murdered.

According to MSF, “The violence directed at humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan comes amid consistent efforts by the US-led coalition to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political aims... The organization has also spoken out against the military’s attempt to usurp humanitarian aid.”

Towards the end of the Gagetown event, I slip outside for a smoke and a coffee and start chatting with a mother whose son is going to Kandahar next week.

“There are a lot of sides to it,” she says, as the snow pelts down. The woman, who didn’t want to be named, drove up from Nova Scotia to attend the event. She’s worried about her son, but “it’s his job. We can’t be all doctors and lawyers.” When asked about the occupation itself, she takes a classic unassuming tone.

“I’m really not educated enough to say if I am for or against it,” she says, “but I wouldn’t want foreign soldiers coming here and telling us what to do.”

Sapper Bruce MacCleary

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:36:28 +0000

Sapper Bruce MacCleary with his wife and daughter in Gagetown.