November 1998 Vol. 10, No.9 (D)
The Strange Experiences of the Srebrenica Survivors
OVERVIEW AND DETAILED MAPS 2
I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4
The Fall of the Srebrenica “Safe Area” 5
Research Rationale and Methodology 8
A Note on the Law 9
Recommendations 11
II. CHEMICAL INCAPACITANTS IN THE SERB ARSENAL 13
Doctrine 14
Using BZ in Srebrenica: A Scenario 16
III. THE MARCH OF DEATH 17
Departure 17
The Serb Shelling Starts 18
The Long Trek to Safety 20
“Strange Smoke” 22
“People Acting Strangely” 25
The Doctors’ Experiences 29
IV. THE USE OF A CHEMICAL AGENT IN SREBRENICA: AN ASSESSMENT 32
Some Question Marks 32
The Doctors’ Interpretations of the Unusual Phenomena 35
Alternative Explanations for Hallucinations 37
A Preliminary Assessment 41
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 45
APPENDIX A: CHARACTERISTICS OF RELEVANT CHEMICAL AGENTS 46
APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE 51
OVERVIEW AND DETAILED MAPS
In the summer of 1995, shortly after the fall of the United Nations “safe area” of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Hercegovina, survivors emerged from a long trek to safety with tales suggesting that Serb forces had attacked them during their flight with some type of chemical incapacitating agent. The presence of chemical weapons in the former Yugoslavia has not been a secret but allegations of actual use have been viewed with a healthy measure of skepticism. Difficult to verify, reports of chemical-weapon use have proliferated more than even the weapons themselves—in the former Yugoslavia as much as in other conflict zones around the world. But the unique character and consistency of some of the testimonies, matched with the certain knowledge that the army of the former Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People’s Army (Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija, JNA), possessed an incapacitating agent named “BZ” and had developed doctrine and a capacity for its use, gave an initial credibility to the allegations.
In 1996, Human Rights Watch carried out an investigation of the claim that Serb forces used JNA-supplied BZ against the people fleeing Srebrenica the year before. Following interviews with some thirty-five survivors, as well as U.N. and other international personnel in the former Yugoslavia, and a review of available documentation relating to events at Srebrenica in 1996-97, Human Rights Watch has found the evidence inconclusive on whether a chemical agent was used. The evidence, while suggestive of the use of a BZ-like compound, is incomplete. Hard evidence—in the form, for example, of chemical traces in the clothes of people who died during the march and whose bodies were exhumed subsequently—has remained elusive.
The reason we have been unable to prove the allegations may be that they are false. But a very plausible alternative explanation is that the investigation so far has been insufficient, due to two key factors: the deaths of the key witnesses, and a lack of resources. Most importantly, it is likely that if a chemical agent was used during the trek from Srebrenica to Tuzla, the people most affected by it are no longer alive to tell their story, having been killed by Serb forces following their incapacitation by BZ or a similar substance. Secondly, Human Rights Watch did not have the resources to do systematic sampling for BZ or a BZ-like compound. Moreover, Human Rights Watch has also not been able to obtain other types of evidence that have been said to exist, including transcripts of Serb radio transmissions from the time of the Srebrenica events.
The United States government apparently took the allegations seriously enough to conduct an investigation, reported to have taken place in late 1996 or early 1997. The results of this investigation have not been made public, but in late 1996 or early 1997 the U.S. intelligence community had information suggesting that chemical weapons may have been used in Srebrenica. The government’s refusal to release the findings may, according to a U.S. official interviewed by Human Rights Watch, be based on a belief that making this information public might hurt the international effort to effect peace in the former Yugoslavia.
In the view of Human Rights Watch, the question whether chemical weapons were used during the Bosnian war—by Serb forces in Srebrenica in July 1995 or by any of the parties to the conflict at other times during the war—must be answered satisfactorily. The existence of chemical weapons and a capacity to produce them in the former Yugoslavia is, in and of itself, an extreme cause for concern, given unresolved issues and renewed conflict in the region. Evidence of the actual use of chemical weapons would add an extra dimension, as the knowledge that one side possesses chemical weapons, has used them with impunity, and is prepared to use them again might encourage others to follow suit, giving rise to a dangerous escalation.
The international community, which, as sponsor of the Dayton Accords, has an important stake in the accords’ success, must act to prevent further escalation and the future threat of chemical warfare in the former Yugoslavia. Its failure to do so may set the stage for a large-scale use of chemical weapons during a new armed conflict, as it will send a strong signal to those who may have used chemical weapons already once that they can do so with impunity. It should be remembered that if chemical weapons were used in Srebrenica, this would have beena violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol as well as a war crime—a war crime that was an integral component of the commission of another war crime, the mass killing of civilians fleeing the conquered enclave.
In its main recommendations below, Human Rights Watch therefore calls on the international community to use its considerable resources to investigate allegations that chemical weapons were used in Srebrenica, or instruct U.N. agencies, e.g., the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, or the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, to do so; and to release all information on the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons in the former Yugoslavia which international alliances and their member states, including members of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) and Stabilisation Force (SFOR), and the International Police Task Force, may have in their possession.
The Fall of the Srebrenica “Safe Area”
The war in Bosnia and Hercegovina began in April-May 1992, when the JNA, with the active assistance of Serb paramilitary forces, instituted a campaign to deport or scare all non-Serb inhabitants from large parts of Bosnia and Hercegovina.1 Much of eastern Bosnia and Hercegovina quickly came under Bosnian Serb control. Most non-Serb men from the region fled, were put in detention centers, or were killed. Many of the non-Serb women, children, and elderly who did not flee were forcibly expelled.
Thousands of refugees fled to Srebrenica, which, though briefly in Bosnian Serb hands in April 1992, was controlled by territorial defense units loyal to the Bosnian government for most of the war (1992-95).2 Because it was one of the few areas held by Bosnian government forces in eastern Bosnia and Hercegovina, Srebrenica’s population surged to an estimated 55,000 to 60,000.3 Most of these people would remain trapped in the enclave deep in Bosnian Serb controlled territory until July 1995.
Srebrenica’s defenders, commanded by Naser Oric, a former police officer and briefly a bodyguard of Slobodan Miloševic, then president of Serbia within a federated Yugoslavia, initially resisted Bosnian Serb assaults and even conducted attacks against Serb villages in the surrounding area. Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs, including civilians, were reportedly killed in these attacks.4 In a major offensive in early 1993, however, Serb forces reduced the area controlled by Srebrenica’s defenders and threatened to capture the enclave. Shelling of the area and the town increased and no humanitarian convoys were allowed in. The humanitarian situation became desperate, with reports that residents were on the verge of starvation.
In late February and early March 1993, the United States led an air-drop operation that delivered some food to the residents, but Serb attacks continued. On March 11, Gen. Philippe Morillon, the French commander of UNPROFOR, finally and after protracted negotiations forced his way into the enclave to assess the situation in eastern Bosnia and Hercegovina. During his stay, not a single shell fell on the town and when he tried to return to Sarajevo, residents, mainly women, prevented his departure until he agreed to guarantee their security.5 Unable to leave, General Morillon told them: “You are now under the protection of the U.N. forces....I will never abandon you.” Although he did leave a week later with the first food convoy to have reached Srebrenica since November 1992, General Morillon was eventually able to negotiate a cease-fire on March 28. Subsequently, a large number of the town’s residents were evacuated with the assistance of the Bosnian Serbs, reducing the population of the enclave to about 40,000.
On April 5—after it became apparent that the Bosnian government was not willing to allow more refugees to leave the enclave—the Bosnian Serb forces renewed their attack. Less than a week later, shells were again routinely hitting Srebrenica town, and the enclave was again in danger of falling. The international community renewed pressure on the leadership of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and of the Bosnian Serbs, and on April 16 the U.N. received indications from the Serb leadership that a U.N. force would be allowed into the enclave. Later that day the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 819 declaring Srebrenica and its surroundings a “safe area.”
A condition of the creation of the “safe area” was that Srebrenica be “demilitarized.” Bosniak forces would be required to hand in their weapons to the U.N. troops that were set to enter the enclave. In the event, most heavy weapons were collected, but many Bosnian soldiers managed to hold onto their light weapons. These men later conducted a few small raids out of the enclave, which reportedly incensed the Serb population in the surrounding area.6
The first contingent of UNPROFOR peacekeepers in Srebrenica was of approximately 140 Canadian soldiers. They were replaced by units of the Dutch UNPROFOR Battalion (DUTCHBAT), a force of 450 men, on March 3, 1994. With its armory limited to armored personnel carriers (APCs) and light weapons, DUTCHBAT could only offer token resistance to units of the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) equipped with tanks, artillery and mounted guns.7
Thus Srebrenica had become a huge, isolated refugee camp deep in Bosnian Serb controlled territory, with no real defense. Although U.N. aid was allowed in and a humanitarian crisis was thereby averted, Bosnian Serb forces occupied all of the surrounding territory and controlled the quantity, content and frequency of the deliveries to the enclave, taking a share of the humanitarian goods in exchange for free passage.
In early 1995, Bosnian Serb forces apparently began planning an offensive that would eliminate the three Bosnian enclaves in the territory they controlled—Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde. Preparations included a further limit on the amount of fuel, spare parts and supplies that DUTCHBAT could bring into Srebrenica, thus reducing DUTCHBAT’s ability to defend the enclave.
The attack on Srebrenica was predicted several months before it occurred.8 BSA troops were observed gathering around the enclave in April.9 In a preliminary move, on June 3, Bosnian Serb forces attacked and captured a U.N. observation post, with no forceful U.N. response. That month Gen. Ratko Mladic, the BSA chief of staff, traveled to Belgrade on several occasions to meet with his Yugoslav Army (Vojska Jugoslavije, VJ) counterpart, Gen. Momcilo Perišic, apparently to plan and prepare for the offensive; General Perišic and his top generals, in turn, traveled to Bosnia and Hercegovina several times.10
Forces continued to build up around Srebrenica, including Serb paramilitary units from Serbia and Croatia. During and after the attack, Dutch U.N. troops reported seeing paramilitary forces they identified as the Drina Wolves, Šešelj’s Chetniks, Specialna Policija (”Special Police”), White Eagles, Krajina Serbs, and Arkan’s Tigers; Zeljko Raznatovic, a.k.a. “Arkan,” the leader of Arkan’s Tigers, was positively identified by U.N. military observers.11 Yugoslav Army troops also reportedly participated in the attack on Srebrenica.12
The attack began on July 6. The Serb forces quickly overran five of the thirteen U.N. posts surrounding the enclave.13 The Dutch commander, Col. Ton Karremans, requested close air support, but this was denied. Neither the Dutch troops nor the poorly armed Bosniak soldiers were able to mount effective resistance, and over the next days the Serb forces methodically advanced on the town of Srebrenica. On July 11, the U.N. approved a NATO air strike, after repeated requests by DUTCHBAT. The result was the apparent destruction of one Serb tank and an ultimatum from General Mladic that if any more air strikes were carried out, he would fire on the Dutch compound and the civilian population of Srebrenica, and also execute the more than thirty Dutch hostages his troops had taken. The Dutch defense minister, Joris Voorhoeve, immediately requested that the air strikes be called off. The U.N. complied and by the next day, July 12, General Mladic effectively controlled all of the Srebrenica enclave.
On the afternoon of July 11, with the Bosnian Serb forces set to enter the town of Srebrenica, the Bosniak leadership split the enclave’s population into two groups. One group of about 25,000, comprised mostly of women, children, and the elderly, gathered at the U.N. base in the village of Potocari, where they hoped to come under U.N. protection and be evacuated. Most of these people were eventually bused by General Mladic’s forces to Kladanj, a city in Bosnian government controlled territory to the north. During the evacuation, people were robbed and mistreated, an undetermined number of women were raped, and hundreds of men and boys—those who had optedto stay with their families—were taken by Serb forces and executed.14 The second group of between 12,000 to 15,000, comprised mostly of men of military age (fifteen to sixty years old), gathered in the northern part of the enclave near the village of Jaglici. Expecting to be killed if captured by the Serb forces, they intended to march in a long column to Bosnian government controlled territory around Tuzla fifty miles to the north.
Most of those who started the march from Jaglici failed to reach Bosnian government controlled territory. It is estimated that two-thirds of those on the march were either killed or captured by Bosnian Serb forces. Most of the people who were captured are believed to have been summarily executed.
Research Rationale and Methodology
During the course of the march from Jaglici to Bosnian government controlled territory, a large number of the marchers reported having suffered from hallucinations. Many of the survivors of the march concluded—either at the time or afterwards—that the Bosnian Serb forces had made use of a chemical warfare agent to disorient the marchers and create confusion among them.
In the weeks following the fall of Srebrenica, descriptions of the use of “chemical poisons” were reported by a number of different nongovernmental organizations, a U.S. government official, and foreign journalists.15 On the basis of these reports, Human Rights Watch decided to undertake a preliminary investigation. The chemical agent that became the focus of the investigation was BZ, a psychochemical incapacitant. (See appendix A.)
In February 1996, just over half a year after those terrible events, some of the persons who had been on the march from the Srebrenica enclave gave testimony to Human Rights Watch suggesting that some unusual munitions might have been used by the Bosnian Serb forces. Several of the marchers gave consistent descriptions of shells that had produced thick smoke that did not rise but spread out, and of people who, following exposure to this smoke, began to act strangely and hallucinate. The hallucinations appeared to be concentrated in the second half of the column and to have started generally during the afternoon and evening of the first day of the march, July 12. Most of those interviewed had either suffered from hallucinations themselves or observed them in others, or both.
As a result of these reports, Human Rights Watch decided to organize a separate investigative mission that would attempt to interview a larger cross-section of those who had fled from Srebrenica to determine if in fact they had been exposed to a chemical agent. In the spring of 1996, Dr. Alastair Hay, a toxicologist and reader in chemical pathology at the University of Leeds, designed a questionnaire based on a Canadian government sample questionnaire that had already been modified by Human Rights Watch in consultation with a number of chemical weapons experts (see Appendix B).16 In July 1996, one year after the events in and around Srebrenica, Dr. Hay, accompanied byHuman Rights Watch researcher Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, traveled to Bosnia and Hercegovina to interview survivors of the march.
The thirty-five survivors interviewed by Human Rights Watch were identified and located through inquiries with people living in the displaced persons camps in the area, various Bosnian towns, as well as the Bosnian government’s military barracks in Zivinice. A number of interviews took place in these locations, as some survivors of the march were found to be there; others were tracked down and visited in the areas to which they had moved. Many of the survivors who had been interviewed during the preliminary investigation in February 1996 could no longer be located in July because much of the refugee population had meanwhile moved to other parts of Bosnia and Hercegovina in search of housing. All interviews were conducted at the interviewees’ homes, places of work, or some other location of their choosing. Some of the survivors were interviewed more than once. All interviews were conducted in Serbo-Croatian.
Following the mission, Human Rights Watch conducted additional research into the allegations of chemical weapons use in Srebrenica. The findings on the basis of the thirty-five testimonies and additional research are presented below. Findings on the JNA’s capability to produce chemical weapons were presented in a report, “Clouds of War: Chemical Weapons in the Former Yugoslavia,” published by Human Rights Watch in February 1997.17
The ban on the use of chemical weapons, as codified in the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (1925 Protocol), is considered to constitute customary international law, applicable to all states regardless of whether they are parties to the protocol.18 The protocol is therefore applicable to all parties in the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and they must comply with its provisions. Moreover, Yugoslavia was a party to the protocol, and successor states are normally bound to the treaty obligations assumed by the predecessor state, unless such obligations are repudiated explicitly. As the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has not indicated a desire to repudiate its treaty obligations, it remains a party to the 1925 Protocol.
In the past certain countries, including the United States—which used massive quantities of tear gas in the Vietnam war—and some of its allies, have maintained that the 1925 Protocol does not ban the use of “riot-control” agents, like tear gas. The U.S., however, never intended to include chemical incapacitants like BZ in this apparent exception.19 Psychochemical incapacitants, because of their unpredictable and potentially harmful psychologicaleffects, cannot be considered non-lethal agents suitable solely for “riot control.” From this it follows that any individual involved in planning to use, and using, a chemical incapacitant during the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina would have been in breach of the 1925 Protocol. The use of a BZ-type agent against a fleeing column of noncombatants, even if it included a number of combatants, could be considered a crime against humanity, i.e., an inhumane act of a very serious nature, including wilful killing, committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. “Widespread” means that the acts are directed against a multiplicity of victims, while “systematic” means that they are carried out pursuant to a preconceived plan or policy.20
Moreover, it would be an additional serious violation of humanitarian law to kill or wound unarmed men, or even soldiers who were rendered defenseless because of the incapacitating effect of a weapon such as BZ. According to Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions:
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of the armed forces who had laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
Survivors of the march from Srebrenica reported that many people who appeared to be affected with what they referred to as a “chemical poison” were in no position to defend themselves. Whatever the cause of their incapacitation, these people would have been protected persons under international humanitarian law.
The international community has the responsibility and capability to investigate allegations of chemical weapons production and use. The U.N. secretary-general is charged by the U.N. General Assembly “to carry out investigations in response to reports that may be brought to his attention by any Member State concerning the possible use of chemical and bacteriological (biological) or toxin weapons...and to report promptly the result of any such investigation to all Member States.”21 Procedures for investigating such allegations were established in a report of the secretary-general in 1989.22
Moreover, under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a new international agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based in The Hague, is charged with implementing the provisions of the convention and providing a forum for consultation and cooperation among states parties to the treaty. The OPCW is also mandated to investigate allegations of chemical weapons production and use. Although the OPCW does not have the authority to investigate claims concerning the purported use of chemical weapons prior to the date on which the CWC came into force (April 1997), it can by mandate investigate continuing allegations of chemical weapons development, production and stockpiling in the republics of the former Yugoslavia that have ratified the CWC. It can also, and should, urge the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to accede to the CWC.
In the view of Human Rights Watch, any investigation of chemical weapons development, production, stockpiling, or use, carried out by the OPCW, the U.N., or individual states (for example, states that participate in the U.N. forces in the former Yugoslavia), needs to be transparent and impartial, and be held to rigorous international standards.
1 When the JNA officially withdrew from Bosnia and Hercegovina on May 19, 1992, large quantities of war materiel were left behind and Bosnian Serb soldiers (80 percent of JNA troops stationed in Bosnia and Hercegovina) were free to remain in Bosnia and Hercegovina and fight on behalf of the Serb forces in the republic. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) also resupplied Bosnian Serb troops during the war and paid the salaries of Bosnian Serb military officers who had been JNA officers before the war.
2 The Bosnian government’s official objective was to preserve Bosnia and Hercegovina as a multi-ethnic state. The majority of the people in Bosnian government controlled territory were “Muslim,” a Yugoslav government ethnic category. The Bosnian government and many Bosnian “Muslims” prefer the term Bosniak, or Bosnjak.
3 Approximately 37,000 people—72.5 percent Bosniaks and 25.5 percent Serbs—lived in the Srebrenica municipality before the war. Srebrenica itself was a relatively small town of 8,000 inhabitants before the war. The municipality comprises the town and the villages immediately surrounding it.
4 Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both, Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 79, and Frank Westerman and Bart Rijs, Srebrenica: Het Zwartste Scenario (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Atlas, 1997), pp. 79-80 and 85.
5 Honig and Both, Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime, pp. 85-90.
6 Charles Lane, “The Fall of Srebrenica,” New Republic, August 14, 1995.
7 By 1995, DUTCHBAT’s advanced TOW anti-tank missiles were inoperable, because Bosnian Serb forces had confiscated vital spare parts for the weapons that the Dutch tried to bring into the enclave. Ibid. The BSA was formed after the JNA officially withdrew from Bosnia; its forces consisted of the 80 percent of the JNA’s Bosnian Serb officers who remained in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The Serbs themselves refer to the BSA as the Vojska Republike Srpske (the Army of the Serb Republic), a term not used by the international community which does not recognize the Serb Republic.
8 According to Roy Gutman, U.N. military aides determined that Gen. Ratko Mladic, the BSA chief of staff, would make a major push by the summer to seize the three eastern safe areas. “UN’s Deadly Deal,” Newsday, May 29, 1996.
9 Lane, “The Fall of Srebrenica.”
10 This is according to a NATO intelligence officer working for Lt. General Rupert Smith, U.N. Commander in Bosnia and Hercegovina, cited by Roy Gutman in “UN’s Deadly Deal.” Gutman also said his intelligence source claimed that General Mladic spent most of the time during the battle for Srebrenica at the Yugoslav Army’s Tara command center across the Drina River in Serbia.
11 “Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1019 (1995) on Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Areas of Srebrenica, Zepa, Banja Luka and Sanski Most,” S/1995/998, November 27, 1995. It is not clear what “Krajina Serbs” refers to, as there is not known to have been a militia by that name during the war.
12 Gutman, “UN’s Deadly Deal.”
13 For greater detail on the attack see Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, “The Fall of Srebrenica and the Failure of U.N. Peacekeeping,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 7, no. 13, October 1995.
14 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, “The Fall of Srebrenica” and “Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Security
Council Resolution 1019 (1995).”
15 See Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, “The Fall of Srebrenica”; U.S. Committee for Refugees, “Special Issue: The Death March From Srebrenica,” Refugee Reports, vol. 16, no. 7 (July 31, 1995); John H. F. Shattuck, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, in “U.S. Rights in Bosnia Official Is Told of Mass Killings,” Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1995; Michael Dobbs and Christine Spolar, “12,000 Muslims and a Trek Through Serb Killing Fields,” International Herald Tribune, October 27, 1995; and David Rohde, “Bosnian Serbs Poisoned Streams to Capture Refugees, Muslims Say,” Christian Science Monitor, October 24, 1995. Rohde later wrote a book about the events at Srebrenica in which he referred to reports by survivors about the possible use by Serb forces of a chemical agent: Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1997), pp. 266-73.
16 For the Canadian sample questionnaire, see Department of Foreign Affairs, Handbook for the Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Chemical or Biological Weapons (Ottawa: Government of Canada, November 1985).
17 Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Clouds of War: Chemical Weapons in the Former Yugoslavia.” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 9, no. 5, March 1997.
18 See Theodor Meron, Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), fn. 188, pp. 68-69. The possession and use of chemical weapons is also prohibited under the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (the Chemical Weapons Convention, CWC), which came into force on April 29, 1997, after the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The CWC, which prohibits not only stockpiling and use but also the development and production of chemical weapons, has been signed and ratified by Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Slovenia, but not—as the only hold-out in Europe—by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
19 The U.S., and also NATO, define a chemical agent as “a chemical substance, which, because of its physiological,
or pharmacological effects, is intended for use in military operations to kill, seriously injure, or incapacitate humans (or animals) through its toxicological effects. Excluded are riot control agents, chemical herbicides, and smoke and flame materials. Chemical agents may be nerve agents, incapacitating agents, blister agents (vesicants), lung-damaging agents, blood agents, and vomiting agents.” Headquarters, Departments of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, Treatment of Chemical Agent Casualties and Conventional Military Chemical Injuries, FM 8-285, NAVMED P-5041, AFM 160-11 (Washington, DC: February 1990), p. 3-2.
20 The Nuremberg Principles specify that all individuals involved in the commission of a crime against humanity, including its planning, will be held responsible. Charter of the International Tribunal, August 8, 1945.
21 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 42/37 C, November 30, 1987.
22 United Nations General Assembly, “Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons: Report of the Secretary General,” A/44/561 (New York: United Nations, 1989).