Vietnam Today: A Reportback

Women, Agent Orange and the Socialist Market Economy

Thursday, May 7, 2009, 7:00 p.m. Video, slide show and presentations by two tour members, followed by discussion. The study tour was organized by the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Vietnam today is bustling, colorful, spirited and changing into something new. A 16-person national study tour visited the country in Jan. 2009 hosted by the Vietnam Women’s Union. The group learned about the VWU, a 13-million member grassroots organization that has considerable influence on national policy. The legacies of war was another theme as a US Vietnam vet met with three former NLF fighters in a moving encounter. The remaining sore spot with the Vietnamese on the war is the issue of the use of agent orange/dioxin with three million victims and continued birth defects, a fact the US government has never acknowledged. Vietnamese experts also lectured about the strategy for development, the socialist market economy.