SOUTH KOREA, NOV 19: South Korean Army veterans on Thursday opened a hotline to track down those who fell victim to toxic US defoliants used on the border with North Korea three decades ago. The line was initially opened in the southern city of Taegu by a group of South Korean veterans who have sued Washington for compensation for their exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.Jung Choon-Kwang, 54, head of the group's Taegu office, told Seoul's Yonhap news agency the hotline would be used for a lawsuit to demand reparations from the US.The move came one day after the United States acknowledged its role in the use of Agent Orange and other toxic defoliants in the demilitarised zone in the 1960s. Agent Orange was widely used for defoliation during the Vietnam War but has been linked since to cancers of the lymph glands, lungs, and skin, as well as congenital birth defects.The Pentagon initially said the use of Agent Orange had been a South Korean decision, drawing protests from South Korea. Buta day later, Washington conceded the US Army had devised, supplied and overseen the use of Agent Orange by South Korean soldiers in the buffer zone which divides the Korean peninsula. The turnabout came amid a flap in Seoul over Washington's initial failure to admit the chemical product had been used outside of the Vietnam War.Meanwhile, North Korea has stepped up its anti-US campaign based on the issue.``The desperate move of the US to hide the stark truth behind GIs' atrocities is aimed to kill South Koreans and plunder them as it pleases in the future, too,'' Rodong Sinmun said. The official North Korean newspaper also urged the United States to apologise and compensate for its crimes represented by the alleged massacre of up to 200 South Korean civilians by American troops during the 1950-53 Korean War.
