Before the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the JNA’s chemical weapons program produced the nerve agent sarin, the blister agent sulfur mustard, the psychochemical incapacitant BZ, and the irritants CS and CN, and turned these chemical agents into weapons, according to former JNA officers and technicians, as well U.S. and NATO reports.10 In addition, the JNA also produced the choking agent phosgene, the psychochemical incapacitant LSD-25, and the irritant chloropicrin, and experimented with laboratory quantities of the nerve agents soman, tabun and VX, the blister agents nitrogen mustard and lewisite, and the blood agent cyanogen chloride.11 Many of these agents are lethal or injurious in extremely small doses.

Nerve agents are highly toxic chemicals that even in very small quantities can produce convulsions and rapid death. They are colorless and odorless in a pure state and can act after inhalation or following absorption through the skin or eyes. The general symptoms of nerve agent exposure in order are: running nose, tightness of chest, dimness in vision and contraction of the pupils of the eye to pinpoints, difficulty in breathing, drooling and excessive sweating, nausea, vomiting, cramps, involuntary defecation and urination, twitching, jerking and staggering, headache, confusion, drowsiness, coma and convulsion. These symptoms are followed by cessation of breathing and death, usually less than fifteen minutes after a fatal dose—a drop or less—is absorbed.12 Nerve agents will penetrate normal clothing. The JNA produced sarin and made it into a weapon, and produced smaller quantities of tabun, soman and VX nerve agents.13

Blister agents are chemicals that affect the eyes and lungs, and blister the skin. Although many have a detectable odor, most are insidious in action, only producing symptoms hours or sometimes days after exposure. Blister agents produce long-term and painful, incapacitating injuries, much like burns, and may cause death through secondary infection or damage to the lungs.14 The JNA produced large quantities of sulfur mustard and produced smaller quantities of nitrogen mustard and lewisite (a rapidly acting blister agent).15

Choking agents attack the respiratory tract. Exposure to a choking agent can cause the respiratory membranes to swell, and in severe cases can lead to death through pulmonary oedema (death results from a lack of oxygen when the lungs become filled with liquid).16 The first choking agent employed in war was chlorine (during World War I). The Bosnian government produced limited quantities of munitions filled with what is thought to have been chlorine during the war.17 These kinds of chemical agents are no longer considered to be effective military weapons by most states.18 According to Gen. Binenfeld, the JNA produced fifteen tons of phosgene, a more toxic choking agent, for military use before the war in Bosnia.19

Incapacitating chemical agents are intended to produce physiological or mental effects that prevent exposed military personnel from performing their duties for significant periods of time. With these agents, the incapacitation is only temporary and complete recovery is expected. Some of these agents lend themselves to covert purposes where use is to confuse or can be plausibly denied. One such agent is BZ, which produces a variety of symptoms, including restlessness, dizziness or giddiness, failure to obey orders, confusion, loss of memory, erratic behavior, stumbling or staggering, vomiting, slurred or nonsensical speech, hallucinatory behavior, disrobing, mumbling, stupor and coma.20 The JNA produced the agent BZ, or some similar compound, turned it into a weapon, and developed doctrine for its use. The JNA also produced smaller quantities of LSD.21 It is unclear if the JNA-produced BZ is the same as that standardized in the 1960s by the U.S. Army. (The United States discontinued production of BZ and destroyed its stockpile because the agent was considered unreliable and its effect unpredictable.22) The JNA doctrine, before the war, was to use this agent against enemy forces, and then capture or kill those affected.23

Riot control agents cause tearing of the eyes or irritation of the skin or respiratory tract. The United States does not consider riot control agents—as opposed to incapacitating agents—to be chemical weapons.24 The United States military used large quantities of riot control agents in Vietnam in an effort “to ‘flush out’ unmasked troops from places of concealment or protective positions…and to facilitate their capture or their neutralization by other weapons,”25 but in 1975 renounced the first use of riot control agents in war except in certain defensive circumstances. Human Rights Watch includes reference to riot control agents in this report because the JNA described these munitions as chemical weapons in its manuals and produced these munitions for offensive operations. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention explicitly bans the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare. The JNA produced, and made weapons of, huge quantities of the tear agents CS and CN, and there are numerous reports of the use of these agents, by all sides, during the war in Bosnia (see below).