Franco-Vietnamese Tran To Nga reaffirmed that she would continue her legal fight against 14 multinational agrochemicals that she accuses of having sold Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. – Thibault Camus / AP / SIPA
She won’t let go. Hardly her request rejected by the court of Evry (Essonne), the Franco-Vietnamese Tran To Nga reaffirmed Tuesday that she would continue her legal fight as a victim of “Agent Orange”. The septuagenarian had sued 14 multinational agrochemicals – including the giant Bayer-Monsanto- for having produced this ultra-toxic herbicide and having supplied it to the American army during the Vietnam War (1955-1975).
While the Evry court declared its claims inadmissible on Monday, Tran To Nga repeated during a press videoconference that it would appeal the decision. But several years of proceedings will be necessary before a new hearing of pleadings is held before the Court of Appeal of Paris, warned one of his counsel, Me Amélie Lefebvre.
“I’m disappointed, I’m even angry”
“Anyway, we won because for six years (of procedure), I managed to bring back this past,” said Tran To Nga. “I am disappointed, I am even angry, but I am not sad because I was still expecting that a bit” (…), she added.
Born in 1942 in French Indochina, she was involved in the independence movement in northern Vietnam and also covered the war as a journalist, when the American army was spreading “Agent Orange” on forests and forests. fields to prevent the advance of the Communist guerrillas. “Agent Orange” with lasting effects was spilled in tens of millions of liters by the US military between 1962 and 1971.
An “immunity from jurisdiction”
The court considered that the companies had “acted on order and for the account of the American state” and that they could therefore avail themselves of “jurisdictional immunity”. A principle of international law which establishes that no sovereign state can subject another sovereign state to its jurisdiction. A person governed by private law – in this case an assigned multinational – can benefit from it “when it intervenes in the accomplishment of an act on order or on behalf of this State, constituting an act of sovereignty”.
This immunity “can not be the pretext for impunity”, denounced Tuesday Me Lefebvre. Tran To Nga says it suffers from pathologies “characteristic” of exposure to this herbicide. Suffering from type 2 diabetes with an “extremely rare” insulin allergy, she also contracted tuberculosis, had cancer and one of her daughters died of a heart defect.