The United Nations, the United States and other NATO members have known of the production of chemical weapons in the former Yugoslavia since at least 1991, when the Yugoslav Federal President’s office released a document on Yugoslav chemical weapons production.59 In 1993 the U.S. Department of Defense prepared an internal handbook on Bosnia, which has not been publicly released but a copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch. It states: “Indigenous to the former Yugoslavia is a chemical warfare agent production capability that includes lethal and nonlethal chemical agents.”60 The handbook was updated in 1995.61 Despite the existence of this handbook, neither the United States and its allies, nor the United Nations and other former members of UNPROFOR and IFOR, have ever publicly acknowledged the existence of chemical weapons in the region. Moreover, Human Rights Watch has learned through interviews with officials of the U.S. government and international organizations that member states of UNPROFOR have carried out at least three separate investigations into some of the numerous allegations of chemical weapons use during the war in Bosnia. The results of none of these investigations have been made public.62 Although several U.S. officials agreed to discuss the issue of chemical weapons production in the former Yugoslavia with Human Rights Watch, they did so strictly off the record. Human Rights Watch believes that greater transparency on the part of the United Nations and the international community generally, including and especially the United States, on the presence of chemical weapons in the former Yugoslavia would be a vital and effective first step to eliminating them

The silence of the U.S. government regarding the disposition of the chemical and biological weapons arsenals of the former Yugoslavia is even more puzzling given the high profile “counterproliferation” program initiated by the Department of Defense at the beginning of the Clinton administration. Part of the program includes “cooperative threat reduction” efforts in the former Soviet Union to bring nuclear weapons and materials under safe control. These efforts—and the attempt to freeze the North Korean nuclear program—have been a high priority of Clinton foreign policy. Military elements of counterproliferation, however, are equally receiving attention. Existing programs seek to create the means to prevent or counter the use of weapons of mass destruction (e.g., effective detection, human protection, preemptive destruction, and active defenses). One component is the planning and training of U.S. “special operations” to take on the mission of seizing or recovering weapons of mass destruction. The former Yugoslavia has been systematically ignored in the public dimension of these efforts, if not altogether.

In the beginning of 1997, as the U.S. was poised to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention,63 the U.S. government had yet to take any action indicating that it intends to adhere not just to the letter but also the spirit of thetreaty. As the principal sponsor of the Dayton peace accords, the U.S. has a special responsibility to prevent any one party to the accords to act as a spoiler. The U.S. also has the capability to do so, first by making public the information it has on the chemical weapons production capabilities that exist in the former Yugoslavia, and secondly by placing pressure on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to dismantle its chemical weapons production facilities. It is critical, also, that the U.S. itself ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.