Unexpected success of online appeal for Agent Orange victims
Nearly 323,000 people worldwide added their names to an online petition to support Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange as of August 24.
This is an unexpected success for the creator of the initiative, who at the beginning only aimed for 300,000 signatures by December.
On average, the petition has received 20,000 signatures every day, said Mr. Len Aldis, Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society (BVFS) and also the creator of the online petition, in a recent interview with the BBC. He now hopes the number of signatures will reach 1 million by the end of the year.
According to Mr. Aldis, when the online petition closes at the end of December, he will send letters containing the link to the online petition site to Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, the U.S. President, leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, and the 35 U.S. companies which produced and supplied the Agent Orange defoliant to U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
The appeal was translated into four other languages and made available at www.aafv.org. A Vietnamese student in Japan also translated it into Japanese recently, Mr. Aldis said.
When Mr. Bill Clinton was still U.S. President, Mr. Aldis once sent him a similar paper petition with 4,000 signatures via the U.S. Embassy in London during Mr. Clinton’s visit to Ireland.
(Reported by Xuan Danh – Translated by The Vinh)
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 25 August, 2004, 01:32:59 (GMT+7)
Copyright Thanh Nien News
