The large majority of the chemical weapons production infrastructure in the former Yugoslavia is in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian and Montenegrin remnant of Yugoslavia, but the scientific staff of the program, as well as the industrial chemical production infrastructure, remain in many of the various republics that emerged after the breakup.26 There were four known facilities involved in the production of chemical warfare agents in the former Yugoslavia: “Prva Iskra” in Baric, Serbia; “Miloje Blagojevic” in Lucani, near Cacak, Serbia; “Miloje Zakic” and “Merima” in Kruševac, Serbia; and the Military Technical Institute in Potoci near Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina.27 The equipment in the Military Technical Institute in Potoci was disassembled by Serb troops between January and April 1992 and reportedly moved to Lucani, Serbia.28 A rubber seal collected at a former building of the Military Technical Institute by a team working for World in Action in September 1995 and analyzed by the Swedish Defense Laboratory contained chemicals identical to known breakdown products of sarin.29 The JNA tested its chemical munitions at Mt. Krivolak in what is today the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.30
The development of chemical agents in the former Yugoslavia began in the late 1960s.31 This program did not become overtly offensive until the late 1970s when the JNA developed the offensive doctrine for the use of BZ,which was incorporated in a classified manual published in 1981.32 Further experimentation, development and testing continued during the 1980s, and by the time of the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the JNA apparently had developed and/or produced 122mm, 152mm and 155mm artillery shells; air-delivered bombs; 122mm, 128mm rockets, and 262mm rockets; and mines for lethal chemical agents, making these munitions many times more deadly than their conventional counterparts.33 Binary sarin munitions, in which two chemicals are mixed during firing to produce the chemical agent, were also in development.34
In the late 1980s, the JNA secretly planned to produce a stockpile of chemical munitions. According to Gen. Binenfeld, 5,800 122mm shells for chemical agents were ordered from the PRETIS factory, near Sarajevo, in 1991-95.35 Although the JNA officially claimed that these were phosphorus “smoke” munitions, the tolerances for these shells were very high, normal production procedures were circumvented, and special security arrangements were made. All of this raised the suspicions of technicians at PRETIS.36 Moreover, according to a public document, “Yugoslav Army Involvement With Chemical Weapons,” prepared by the Yugoslav Federal President’s office in September 1991, thousands of rockets for the “Orkan,” a 262mm multiple rocket launcher system, were produced with three types of warheads: a warhead filled with antipersonnel cluster bombs, a warhead filled with antipersonnel landmines, and a chemical weapons warhead.37 In the same document, the Yugoslav Federal President’s office also claimed that several thousands of these rockets—it is not indicated what type—were shipped to Iraq in 1989-90.38
It is not clear how many chemical munitions were produced by the JNA. Because the Yugoslav defense industry was spread throughout the country, the war disrupted or ended production of many weapons. It is known that production of riot control agents and chemical warfare defense equipment continued in Serbia, despite the hardships imposed by the U.N. embargo during the war.
The JNA also produced hand grenades, rifle-propelled grenades, mortar shells, and possibly also artillery shells and 128mm rockets filled with the irritants CS and CN.39 The production of CS- and CN-filled grenades continued at least until 1993. Human Rights Watch was shown a box of CS-filled grenades containing an instructional insert, stamped Kruševac, Serbia, and dated May 8, 1993, which Bosnian troops allegedly had captured from Bosnian Serb units near Bihac.40 According to a JNA manual, the chemical incapacitant BZ was put into hand grenades.41
Yugoslav tanks and armored personnel carriers were designed to operate in a nuclear, biological or chemical warfare environment. The decision to produce such vehicles was apparently made sometime in the 1970s. Newer Yugoslav combat vehicles, including the BVP M-80 Armored Personnel Carrier and the M-84 Main Battle Tank, had standard nuclear, biological and chemical warfare equipment.42 Nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defensive equipment was produced at “Miloje Zakic” in Kruševac, Serbia. This included the M-1 and M-2 Masks, M-3 Protective Clothing, DHM-11B Chemical Detection Kit, and DRHT Radiological and Chemical Detection Equipment (for armored vehicles).43 “Miloje Zakic” continues to develop, produce, and export nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defense equipment. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, “Miloje Zakic” has started production of the M2F and M2FW masks, M3 protective coverall, and OFZ protective suit.44
There are strong indications that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has not abandoned its offensive chemical weapons program. The Yugoslav army continues to maintain a significant chemical defense posture,45 despite the absence of an external chemical weapons threat. Yugoslavia has continued to produce and develop chemical warfare equipment. There is also no evidence of the destruction of stockpiles of chemical agents, the disassembly of chemical agent production equipment, or a willingness to sign and ratify the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.46 Officials from the United States and international organizations interviewed by Human Rights Watch have indicated that they believe that the Yugoslav army maintains its offensive chemical weapons capability.
The Bosnian government produced crude chemical munitions at a factory near Tuzla, Bosnia and Hercegovina, during the war, according to a former Bosnian military officer and other sources.47 The officer told Human Rights Watch that the Bosnian army was filling mortar shells with chemicals in 1992 and 1993, and that UNPROFOR units, upon discovering the ongoing production, would destroy any such munitions they found. President Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, while on a trip to Iran, declared in 1992: “If the current situation continues, the people of Bosnia will be forced to use poison gas to defend themselves and end the crimes committed by the Serbs, even though this may be against their true wishes.”48 Sources in the former Yugoslavia assert that the Bosnian government, now that the war is over, has stopped production of chemical munitions.49 The Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on January 16, 1997.
26 For example, according to an article in the magazine Hrvatski Vojnik (Croatian Soldier), the staff of the Military Technical Institute in Potoci, Bosnia and Hercegovina, was sixty percent Serb, thirty percent Bosnian and ten percent Croat. “Proizvodnja Kemijskog Oruzja Bivše ja u Vojnotehnickom Institutu - Pogon Mostar,” Hrvatski Vojnik (Zagreb), (December 1993), pp. 39-40. Former JNA chemical weapons officers claim that the chemical weapons units were heavily Serb, reflecting the general make-up of the JNA’s officer corps. Human Rights Watch interviews, Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Croatia, February-March 1996. 27 Binenfeld Paper; and NATO Intelligence Assessment. 28 This is according to a former worker at the Potoci facility, interviewed in “The Unseen Enemy,” World in Action, Granada TV Ltd. (U.K.), November 27, 1995. 29 World in Action, “The Unseen Enemy.” 30 Binenfeld Paper; and Human Rights Watch interviews, Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Croatia, February-March 1996. 31 Binenfeld Paper. 32 Yugoslav National Army, Specijalne Rucne Bombe. 33 According to Gen. Binenfeld, the JNA in the late 1980s decided to stock 122mm shells filled each with 1.8 liters of sarin or sulfur mustard, 128mm rockets filled each with two liters of sarin, and aircraft bombs filled each with twenty liters of sarin. Binenfeld Paper. 34 Binenfeld Paper; and Human Rights Watch interview with a former Bosnian JNA chemical weapons officer, Jablanica, Bosnia and Hercegovina, March 13, 1996. 35 Binenfeld Paper. Two technicians at the PRETIS factory reported the total number was 5,500. Human Rights Watch interview, Sarajevo, February 27-28, 1996 36 According to one PRETIS technician responsible for quality control, these shells, which were referred to in the factory as “special effect” shells, were produced under more stringent rules, had unusual production requirements, and did not go through the entire quality control process, including testing. Every twentieth shell was cut for quality control, and the threads of the fuse wells (where the fuse is screwed onto the shell) were coated with silver—apparently to create a tighter seal and prevent corrosion and leakage. Several hundred of these shells were produced at the factory until production was terminated by the war. Human Rights Watch interviews, Sarajevo, February 27-28, 1996. 37 This document, while publicly released, has not been widely circulated. Human Rights Watch obtained a copy from Kenneth Timmerman of the Middle East Data Project, Inc. in Kensington, Maryland. 38 The Yugoslav 262mm M-87 “Orkan” Multiple Rocket Launcher System was co-produced in Iraq as the Arabel 50. Several systems were in service in Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War. Christopher F. Foss, Jane’s Armour and Artillery 1993-94 (Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group Ltd., 1994), pp. 632-33. 39 Binenfeld Paper; Human Rights Watch interviews, Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Croatia, February-March and August-September 1996; NATO Intelligence Assessment; and U.S. Department of Defense, Bosnia Country Handbook, p. 6-32. 40 Human Rights Watch was shown captured CS- or CN-filled grenades and rifle-propelled grenades by both the Croatian and Bosnian military. Human Rights Watch interviews, Zagreb, Croatia, March 22, 1996 and Zenice, Bosnia and Hercegovina, March 12, 1996. 41 Yugoslav National Army, Specijalne Rucne Bombe. 42 See Christopher F. Foss ed., Jane’s Armour and Artillery 1994-95 (Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group Ltd., 1995), pp. 157, 505. 43 Christopher F. Foss and Terry J. Gander, eds., Jane’s Military Vehicles and Ground Support Equipment 1987 (Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group Ltd., 1987), pp. 759, 792-93; NATO Intelligence Assessment; and U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, “CBW Protective Equipment Manufactured in the Former Yugoslavia,” Individual Protection: Foreign Technology and Equipment of Military Significance (November 1992), p. 25, obtained by Human Rights Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. 44 Terry J. Gander, ed., Jane’s NBC Protection Equipment, 1996-97 (Coulsdon, Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, Ltd., 1996), pp. 44-45, 79, 81. 45 The U.S. Department of Defense’s 1995 Bosnia Country Handbook describes how the Yugoslav army has special units dedicated to chemical warfare defense and trains individual soldiers in chemical detection and decontamination. U.S. Department of Defense, Bosnia Country Handbook, p. 6-33. 46 A 1995 NATO-wide intelligence assessment, for example, lists under “Chemical Production Facilities” in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia the “Merima” facility in Krusevac as having the capability of producing nerve and mustard gases. (NATO Intelligence Assessment). 47 Human Rights Watch interview, Tuzla, August 4, 1996. Jane’s Intelligence Review has reported that these were chlorine-filled 120mm mortar rounds. Enis Dzanic, “The fall and rise of Bosnia’s war machine,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 1997), p. 24. 48 “Bosnia chief threatens to use poison gas against Serbs,” The New York Times, October 31, 1992. 49 Human Rights Watch interview, Tuzla, August 4, 1996, and other interviews.