|
|
|
|
[ FORWARD | INTRODUCTION
| A VISION FOR AMERICA ]
[ SECTION 1 | SECTION 2 |
SECTION 3 | SECTION 4
| SECTION 5
| SECTION 6
| SECTION 7
]
SECTION 3 Law and Justice The principle of justice is the second greatest principle that constitutes the meaning of life. Without justice there is no joy in being free so, we can say that justice is the joy of freedom. Justice is represented in the universe by the stars and without justice there is no balance in the human mind. The more injustice that we suffer, the more imbalance is the result on the human mind. From the imbalance of the mind comes actions that are considered anti-social and criminal but the cause goes back to the principle of justice. justice is fair-dealing. Justice is that which distinguishes right from wrong. Justice is the weapon that God will use in the Day of Judgment. Justice is a human need therefore justice is a human right. The principle of fair-dealing and equity starts in the home with parents who are balanced and practice fairness in dealing with each other and their children. If love is the foundation out of which we act then we would act equitably and fairly with one another. Justice is righteousness and it is only justice or righteousness that promotes love and strengthens the bond between human beings. The greatest principle of justice was spoken by Jesus and it is called The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) restated this Golden Rule in this manner: We have not attained to righteousness or justice until we love for our brother what we love for ourselves. All the nations of the earth claim to believe in egalitarian principles, or principles of equality and fairness. There are no two things in the universe that are alike. Therefore, things in creation are not equal in size, shape, density, talent, beauty, but that which renders all things equal is the law under which all things are created. No matter whether we are rich or poor, White or Black, noble or ignoble, wise or foolish, the only way we can come onto this planet is by the law of birth. So, birth renders us all equal and those who come on to the planet at some time have to leave and death is a law that renders us all equal. It is only that which is between these two great laws, birth and death, the law of life, that is administered by human beings who are less than what we should be so that inequity abounds and wherever there is inequity there is injustice. In the word equality is another word - qualification. We must qualify ourselves in order to be considered equal. Therefore, opportunity denied disallows the human being to qualify himself or herself for equality and it denies the human being the principle of justification of his or her existence. So, equality of opportunity is a basic human need therefore equality of opportunity is a human right. 19
Racial Profiling Racism is a disease. It spreads like a contagious lethal virus of white supremacy. Racial profiling is an insidious form of racial discrimination and the denial of fundamental human rights. All people are ultimately impacted, yet the cold damp hand of oppression continues to be placed more harshly on the shoulders of people of color in America. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, based in Washington, D.C., issued a policy alert entitled, "The Perils of Driving While Black: Civil Rights Organizations are Suing Law Enforcement Agencies That Stop Black and Latino Motorist Because They Fit a Racial Profile." 20 The alert stated, "News accounts of police profiling are becoming more and more common. These documents are exposing a widespread assault on the civil liberties of people of color throughout society."21Air travelers who have a "middle eastern" appearance are frequently profiled racially and stopped unjustly by law enforcement personnel. 22Racial profiling is broadly defined in the United States to encompass any actions taken by a law enforcement officer during an automobile traffic stop, or at an airport prior to or after travel, that is based upon racial or ethnic stereotypes, and that has the affect of treating minority travelers differently that non-minority travelers which is in violation of both the civil and human rights of minority travelers. 23According to the New Jersey Attorney General, the problem of racial profiling is not a new problem; it is a problem that has persisted for a long period of time. "Although the racial profiling issue has recently gained state and national attention, the underlying conditions that foster disparate treatment of minorities have existed for decades in New Jersey and throughout the nation and will not be changed overnight" 24Racial Profiling is a National Problem The scope of the problem of racial profiling is evident in the series of remedial legislation that is now being proposed in several states including, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Illinois and California. 25Most of the state legislation being introduced is similar to a bill originally drafted by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the "Traffic Stops: Statistics Acts of 1997." 26 The Bill before Congress today is known as HR 1443, the Traffic Stops Statistics Act of 1999.27One of the more explicit and detailed accounts and analysis of the magnitude of the problem of racial profiling was published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 28 In a June 1999 special report entitled, "Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on Our Nation’s Highways," the ACLU emphasized, "Police abuse against people of color is a legacy of African American enslavement, repression and legal inequality"29Under the pretense of carrying out a "war on drugs," persons have been targeted for harassment not based on involvement with drugs but based on race and creed. The ACLU reported:
Constitutionally, the Fourth Amendment prohibits this type of intrusion by the police in acts not justified by the law. "But recent Supreme Court decisions allow police to use traffic stops as a pretext to ‘fish’ for evidence. Both anecdotal and quantitative data show that nationwide, the police exercise this discretionary power primarily against African Americans and Latinos."31 Research has also exposed that racial profiling is not limited exclusively to police misconduct. At airports Arabs and others are routinely subjected to searches and unjustified harassment. Even inside the United States Department of Energy and other government agencies and departments, there is evidence of the existence of racial profiling in employment discrimination. On January 19, 2000, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, released an agency task force report on racial profiling within the Department of Energy. Richardson stated, "I formed this task force because I was concerned that Asian Pacific Americans at our labs were feeling their patriotism and loyalty were questioned in the wake of allegations about Chinese espionage. As a Hispanic, I know first-hand the damage of racial stereotyping."32 Action Items
Police Brutality The Million Family March opposes police brutality. In response to the significant increase in acts of racially-motivated police brutality, abuse and misconduct in the major cities across the United States, the Congressional Black Caucus sponsored unprecedented hearings in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in 1999. During the hearing on police brutality in Washington, D.C., the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union testified, "The federal government has been quite willing to fund programs designed to get officers on the street. It has been considerably less willing to ensure that the officers’ conduct is appropriate once they are on the street." 33It has been difficult to bring police officers to trial for their crimes of police brutality. Even in highly publicized cases such as those of Abner Louima, Tyisha Miller and Amadou Diallo, police officers have been exposed in cover-ups, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to prevent the truth from being made public. New York City Police Officers, Thomas Wiese, Thomas Bruder and Charles Schwarz face five-year sentences on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for lying in an attempt to protect officer Schwarz, who was convicted in the summer of 1999 for holding down Abner Louima inside of the bathroom of the 70th police precinct while Police Officer Justin Volpe sexually attacked Louima, a Haitian American immigrant. Once again, in New York City as well as Los Angeles and all large cities, the issue of police brutality demands a public policy response. The trial of the police officers responsible for firing 41 gun shots at unarmed West African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, hitting him 19 times, is another tragic reminder of the lethal impact of police brutality. The National Urban League issued the following statement:
Juvenile Justice Provide Alternatives for Our Youth35 No one is born a criminal. Proposals that seek to punish but not prevent juvenile crime cannot succeed in the long run. Background Studies show that the number of youth will increase dramatically over the next few decades. Despite an actual decrease in juvenile crime, many conservatives are urging radical new policies in response to this rise. These new "get tough" proposals include imposing mandatory minimum sentences, trying youths as adults, locking them up with adult offenders, and eliminating many prevention programs. However, these "get tough" solutions do not work. Instead, prevention strategies such as community policing account for the recent decline in juvenile crime. In addition, "get tough" efforts, particularly those dealing with drugs, have a disproportionate impact on minority youth. Until 1981, the drug arrest rate for White youth was higher than that for African American youth. By 1992, however, African American juveniles in California, for example, were seven times more likely than White juveniles to be jailed for similar serious drug offenses. African American youth were also referred to juvenile court at a rate twice that of their White counterparts. Goals
Drugs The human brain produces certain hormones and chemicals that give pleasure, help us bear pain, and help us to survive grief and the loss of loved ones. God knew that He created life with the purpose of struggle and it is only through struggle that we attain to the greatness of character that causes us to be a reflection of God. So, in the struggle of life there are disappointments and there are chemicals in the brain that can help us bear the pain of disappointment. Since God created life and is the ultimate cause of death, knowing that each of us at some point in life will lose a friend, a family member, a teacher to death, God has created within us that which would give us the ability to bear the pain of their losses and go on with our lives. Since we are living in a very unusual time period, a time period unlike any period in the history of man and his struggle, there is a greater demand on our brains to produce what we need for balance in a time of extraordinary loss. By the time! Surely man is in loss. Associated with loss is grief and when you live in the time of judgment when the weapon that God uses is justice – that as a man soweth the same shall he also reap, then this is a time of extraordinary pull on the natural hormonal secretion of the brain. In a time when the consequences of our actions are coming back quickly against us, there is a depletion of the body’s natural response to the natural vicissitudes of life. As a result, the chemists are making billions and billions of dollars creating drugs that give the human being what the brain, under normal circumstances, was able to give. There is so much sadness in the world because we live in a time of war and revolution, pestilence, famine, earthquakes and natural disasters. Drugs have been introduced into the society to take the place of God, the peace that belief in God can give and the strength that faith in God can give to allow every human being to handle the most difficult situations in their lives. It is the lack of faith in God, the lack of trust in God, that allows us to put our trust in things. So, man’s trust is in drugs, man’s trust is in guns, man’s trust is in the things that cannot really give peace, as a result, suicide, AIDS, and all manner of disease and destructive behavior is now plaguing human beings. Our lifestyle is based on ignorance of life, as a result the scripture is true, There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but, the ends thereof are the ways of death. Once the human being is reconnected to God, the Source of strength and power, the Source of knowledge, the Source of healing, then connection to that Source allows the human being to believe that there is no burden too great for him or her to bear and there is no impediment too large or too strong that, with faith, he or she cannot remove. 36Drugs: Free Our Families and Communities from Drugs37 The human destruction from drugs has become so commonplace that in some communities many have lost hope. Background The federal government currently spends $15 billion dollars each year on law enforcement, treatment and prevention programs in its so-called "war on drugs." Despite these programs, the human costs of drugs are staggering:
Goals38
Drug Sentencing: Eliminate Disparities39 While we must find solutions to the crack cocaine epidemic destroying our communities, the inherent unfairness in the sentencing disparities for crack and powdered cocaine offenses cannot be justified. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, young Whites, ages 18-25, use crack cocaine at a higher percentage (3.2%) than young African Americans (1.8%). However, the penalties and prosecutions for crack cocaine cases are disproportionately applied to minorities. While the decision to change crack and powdered cocaine offenses in either federal or state court is typically discretionary, federal convictions for cocaine offenses carry mandatory minimum sentences. Minorities currently account for 96 percent of federal crack cocaine prosecutions and convictions. Under federal law, the ratio of powdered cocaine to crack cocaine is 100-to-1. This means that for sentencing purposes, 500 grams of powdered cocaine is the equivalent of five grams of crack cocaine. For example, a White defendant selling 500 grams of powdered cocaine is likely to get one year in the federal system, while an African American defendant selling five grams of crack cocaine likely will be prosecuted in federal court, and if convicted, will receive a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. African Americans are now incarcerated at a rate nearly eight times to that of Whites. The July 1997 proposal by President Clinton to reduce the ratio to 10-to-1 did not eliminate this unfairness. Moreover, recent charges that in the mid-1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Nicaraguan Contras and others trafficked in drugs have heightened concerns about unfairness and raised questions about the connection between U.S. foreign policy and drugs. Goals
Drugs: The Family And The United States Government News articles published in The Final Call News 40 cited evidence linking the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to the introduction of crack cocaine into Black and Latino communities, with the drug profits used to fund the ClA-backed operations such as the support of the Nicaraguan Contra army in the early 1980s.These disclosures, which are based on a series of reports originating from the San Jose Mercury News, verify long-held suspicions of the U.S. government’s programmatic involvement in destroying and undermining growth and development within the Black community. The history of the U.S. government’s involvement in this type of hostile activity against the African American community is long and continuous. As such, it is important for African Americans to understand their need to work vigorously to eliminate and eradicate drug use and drug sales as an option in our communities. Drug use and sales must be viewed as an act of treason and this activity must be looked at as it is: A threat to the very survival of every man, woman and child in the community. Furthermore, we must use the criminal laws to prosecute all government officials involved in the drug trade. We recognize that the criminal justice system is unjust. We further affirm, however, that families should live in a crime-free environment.
Prison Reform Since we live in a world that is contrary to that which is of God, a world of injustice and a world of unrighteousness, the consequence of that is the behavior of human beings that causes the human to act as a savage. A savage is a human being that has lost the knowledge of self and is living the life of a beast. When we have a society filled with persons that prey on one another, then we have a society of people that are living on an animalistic plane of existence and therefore prisons are built to house those who offend the laws of men who have already offended the laws of God. These prisons have proved that they do not have the will, the desire or knowledge of how to reform the inmates. As a result, there is a very high rate of recidivism. True prison reform can only come by giving the human being those human rights that were deprived by society and by the ignorance of parents and the family. When white supremacy, rules of the society, and the society becomes fearful of the population growth of the Black American and the Latino American, then society increases the means by which anti-social behavior will become more prevalent and therefore the building of prisons is the biggest growth industry in America. People do not build hotels because they do not expect occupancy. Businessmen invest in prisons that they do not intend to fill. True prison reform starts with the enlightenment of the inmate of who that inmate is in reality and not what he or she has become because of circumstances. True prison reform reconnects the soul to its Creator and begins to provide those human needs and then we see a change in attitude in the inmate that leads to behavioral change. 41The disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and others in the United States is a crisis of mammoth proportions that we must address. In many places, up to 50 percent of persons from our communities are on probation, parole or in jail. Our failure to address this crisis will greatly diminish our family power and voting power. Too often we allow our incarcerated sisters and brothers to be forgotten and disconnected from the community. As we work to raise the cultural and political consciousness of our families in public housing and ghettos, and in the suburbs and upscale areas, we must also work to raise the cultural and political consciousness of our family members in the jail cells and chain gangs, and in the solitary wings and death rows. It is the responsibility of those of us on the "outside" to provide the imprisoned with information, support and encouragement both while they are behind bars and as they re-enter society. Federal, state, and local governments consign many of us to a life of prison numbers, overcrowded cells, parole hearings and disenfranchisement by planning to imprison us rather than planning to educate us. Many of our sisters and brothers have their dreams and aspirations killed by a society which enacts and legitimizes racially discriminatory laws and encourages and justifies the disproportionately high brutalization, harassment, and scrutinizing of our communities by police. To the contrary, we must work to provide all people with a life of academic opportunity, spiritual growth, family development, and community support. We must win the hearts and minds of our people and inspire them to dream and produce an environment which nurtures their dreams and transforms them into reality. When others have given up on our people, we must invest in our people. When others push our people to despair, we must push them to hope. When others declare that our people are irredeemable, we must believe that they are redeemable, and convince them of that as well.
Political Prisoners We have political prisoners and prisoners of war incarcerated in prisons and jails all across America. We have Mumia Abu Jamal unjustly on death row in Pennsylvania. Geronimo Pratt is now free, but still faces a retrial, even though the government knows that he is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Leonard Peltier, a Native American political prisoner, continues to be held unjustly for over 25 years. Assata Shakur remains exiled in Cuba after escaping the brutal political imprisonment imposed on her unjustly by the State of New Jersey during the 1970’s. The stories of COINTELPRO’s involvement in the manufacturing, doctoring, concealing and manipulation of evidence to make sure that revolutionaries are kept off the streets and behind bars are legendary, yet the majority of the leadership turn a blind eye to the reality of the existence of political prisoners and prisoners of war in this country. What is the Problem? The list of political prisoners is long and their sentences are even longer. The government of the United States would have you believe that these people are common criminals. The United States government waged an orchestrated campaign to demonize, vilify and criminalize these people in the eyes of the community and the world prior to bringing them to trial and during the years of their incarceration. On a broad scale they’ve done their job well–so well in fact that even the most progressive elements of our community hesitate to even speak about the existence of political prisoners when they come together and when you bring it up, they change the conversation. We are asking that:
Immigration42 Relief for Central Americans – Parity for Salvadorians, Guatemalans and Hondurans. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is opposed to singling out one group of immigrants for favorable treatment. The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) left approximately 250,000 Salvadorians and Guatemalans with an unresolved immigration status.
Late Amnesty - Section 377 A legislative or administrative solution should be found for the thousands of immigrants who have been in the United States on or before January 1, 1982. As a result of Section 377, thousands of hard-working, tax-paying individuals have begun to lose their work permits and have been forced to go underground and will face the imminent danger of deportation.
Naturalization Backlog
Adjustment of status 245(I) Section 245(I) allowed immigrants eligible under the existing quota system who had "fallen out of status" to apply for permanent residence in the United States. Section 245(I) expired in November 1997 and now immigrants must return to their home country to apply for permanent residence. Without Section 245(I), people eligible to become green card holders can be barred from returning to the U.S. for a period of three to ten years. Section 245(I) should be restored. Restoration of Benefits for Legal Immigrants(Please refer to the Health Task Force priorities) H-2A Guest worker/Bracero program The administration and members of Congress should not support any proposal that would expand this program. The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported in December 1997 that no farm-worker labor shortages exist, therefore, there is no justification for the administration and members of Congress to support such an initiative. To import foreign agricultural workers would pose a threat to American jobs and undermine the protection of agricultural workers’ basic needs. Public Charge (Please refer to the Health Task Force priorities) INS Restructuring
INS Enforcement Strategy
Secret Evidence Arab Americans and other minorities are increasingly alarmed about the unconstitutional use of secret evidence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). 43 The use of secret evidence by the INS in legal proceedings against Arab Muslims immigrants is a justice issue deserving greater public awareness and involvement."In 2000, the Arab American political and electoral agenda is aimed at protecting our civil and constitutional rights and ensuring that the promise of freedom and equality applies to all Americans." 44 The Secret Evidence Repeal Act currently before Congress will eliminate the use of secret evidence in deportation hearings conducted by the Immigrations and Nationalization Service."45The use of secret evidence violates the basic right to due process and a fair trial. Racial and religious persecution is offensive to human dignity. Family members are often subjected to harassment as a consequence of a family member facing deportation based on undisclosed information from unidentified accusers. Secret evidence proceedings are discriminatory in practice. 46According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "No person should be deprived of liberty on the basis of evidence kept secret from the person." Secret evidence violates a fundamental requisite of a fair legal system. "Star Camber proceedings conducted out of right of the accused and her attorney are a feature of totalitarian governments, not of our own. The Supreme Court has said time and again that deportation is a severe deprivation of liberty – one that can separate a person from home, family, career, and all that makes life worth living." 47Disturbingly, the ACLU revealed, "Virtually every recent secret evidence case that has come to public attention involves a Muslim or a Arab." 48Action Items
Reparations The scriptures of the Bible warn us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This teaches us that the world, its government and systems, represent that which we should not conform to, but we must open out hearts and minds to that which will renew us by reconnecting us to Him Who created us and to Him Who has the power to renew us and reproduce us. Africa and the Americas have been ruled under white supremacy and racism, out of which came the institution of slavery, colonialism, and the purposeful destruction of our minds and the denial of our basic human rights, self-determination, love, and education. If there is to be reconciliation between the ethnic, racial, tribal and national entities that have violated the rights of each other, there must be truth. There must be acknowledgment, confession, or repentance and then an act of atonement. And, in this principle of atonement there must be that which repairs the damage that was done. Certainly the present-day government and Whites are not guilty of the institution of slavery, the present-day Africans are not guilty of selling their brothers to Europeans, but each of us has to accept the responsibility to repair the damage that has been passed on to this generation. We, as Blacks, have to accept the responsibility of doing something for ourselves in the way of repairing the damage. All whose fathers have been party to the destruction must accept the responsibility to help to repair the damage. It is only in the act of repair by this present government and its people that forgiveness can come and reconciliation on the basis of forgiveness that will allow human beings to act as human beings. So, the act of repair, called reparations, is absolutely and vitally necessary in the principle of atonement. This principle of atonement must be accepted universally, for there are tribes in Africa that have offended each other. There are nations in Europe and Asia that have offended each other. There are nations in the Caribbean and in South America, Central America, North America that have offended each other, as well as other ethnic and racial groups. So, the principle of atonement and repair has to be universally accepted because this world has been a world of evil and injustice and all of us have been victims and have victimized. So, to whatever extent we are guilty, we must accept the responsibility to make a difference. 49Reparations H.R. 40 Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African
Americans Act
HR 40 IH A Bill To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes. Findings And Purpose THE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE FINDS THAT: Approximately four million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865. The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the government of the United States from 1789 through 1865. The slavery that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship rights, and cultural heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor. Sufficient inquiry has not been made into the effects of the institution of slavery on living African Americans and society in the United States. Goals
Environmental Justice African Americans and other poor and oppressed communities share the burden of disproportionate siting and operation of toxic facilities. This disparate treatment is the manifestation of environmental racism and has been substantiated by numerous studies. Not only are people of color adversely affected by pollution, they receive inequitable treatment from the U.S. government. The government has been bought by multi-national corporations in exchange for public policies that protect the interests of polluting industries in their disregard for public health. There was an outright assault by the 104th Congress on environmental laws and worker-protection fueled by the right-wing and financed by corporations. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), World Trade Organization (WTO) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) allow U.S. corporations to avoid environmental regulations and fair wages for workers. Exposure to toxic chemicals and disparate treatment by U.S. government agencies has created an epidemic of disorders, illnesses and death, including violence and other behavioral disorders, learning disabilities and a general learning curve decline among African Americans and other poor and oppressed communities. Our communities also suffer from a wide range of reproductive and developmental disorders, cancers and other environmentally related diseases.
Poor and minority communities disproportionately shoulder the brunt of pollution in this society. Economically unable to escape, many poor people live next to polluted sites, drink contaminated water, and are exposed to increased health risks from hazardous waste. Background Race and income are the most significant factors in determining where toxic waste sites are located. Of 64 studies looking at the disparities in the location of pollution, all but one found environmental disparities either by race or income. Minorities and poor people continue to live in polluted neighborhoods in disproportionate numbers. Sixty percent of African Americans lived near abandoned toxic waste sites in 1987. In 1994, minorities were 47 percent more likely than Whites to live next to these sites. The Environmental Protection Agency has made efforts to identify and respond to the injustices caused by toxic racism. However, state and local jurisdictions that oversee land use planning must also address these injustices. Goals
Nuclear Radiation: Environmental Dangers from Atomic On January 29, 2000, the New York Times reported, "After decades of denials, the government is conceding that since the dawn of the atomic age, workers making nuclear weapons have been exposed to radiation and chemicals that have produced cancer and early death." 51Secretary Bill Richardson who heads the U.S. Dept. of Energy affirmed, "This is the first time that the government is acknowledging that people got cancer from radiation exposure in the plants." 52 It is estimated that more that 600,000 people who worked in the atomic weapons industry since the beginning of Work War II, have cancers directly related to their work environment.53The Million Man Family March calls for justice and compensation for the families of the 600,000 persons suffering from this injustice and supports public policy to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.
Justice for United States Veterans Injured by Agent Orange United States Veterans and their families deserve respect and support, in particular, those veterans of the war in Vietnam who were exposed to the carcinogen, Agent Orange. According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, an estimated 3.1 million veterans served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand and sailors in the South China Sea). 54 Of that number, 2.6 million veterans actually served within the borders of South Vietnam and the surrounding waters.55From January 1965 through April 1970, Agent Orange was used extensively by the United States military as a herbicide defoliant throughout Vietnam. 56Technically speaking, Agent Orange is a reddish-brown liquid compound containing four highly toxic herbicides: 57
Government scientists revealed that (2,4,5-T) "was contaminated in the manufacturing process with a type of dioxin–2,3,7,8–tetrachlorodibenzo–p–dioxin, also known as TCDD."58 Dioxin itself is a toxin known to cause cancer after prolonged exposure, especially in persons who have weak immune systems or other chronic health problems. Families of veterans contaminated from exposure to Agent Orange, in particular, infants and children, also suffer from cancers and other severe health problems directly as a result of a family member’s exposure to Agent Orange. In August of 1999, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs issued the following statement:
Authoritative sources estimate that there are more than 3,000 children afflicted with the congenital abnormality as a result of their parent or parents exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Action Items
Notes:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
[ FORWARD
| INTRODUCTION | A
VISION FOR AMERICA ] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2000 Million Man March, Inc.
All rights reserved. |
