Dr. Sudershan Kumar
The recent incident of an apparent chemical attack on 10th April 2018 by the Syrian forces on the rival controlled Syrian City of Douma, a strong hold of Jaysh-al-Islam Coalition, has once again sent down shivers across the globe and highlighted the menace of it. Subsequently to the attack, the Union of Medical Care Relief organization, a human body supervising the medical services, confirmed 70 deaths with more than 500 people being treated for symptoms identical to exposure of Chlorine and Sarin gases. A stream of various agonizing videos added as a confirmation amidst the denial by the Syrian government which has invited organizations of prohibition of chemical weapon (OPCW) for inspection of the sites through their experts. The latest atrocity has drawn widespread condemnation and meanwhile amidst all the dilemma, US President Donald Trump along with its key allies United kingdom and France executed missile attacks on the Eastern Damascus, the capital of Syria on 14th April 2018 to cripple Syria’s chemical infrastructure. These attacks as claimed by Americans have crippled Syria’s chemical infrastructure but simultaneously been denied by Syrian experts. These retaliatory attacks can be foreseen to accomplish the following objectives: to deliver direct response towards chemical weapon attack , to hold Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad responsible for this brutality and most importantly is to send a stern message that any type of chemical attack will not be accepted by world community. However, the Syrian forces, time and again have materialized chemical weapon attacks in their own areas against the rival strong holds. As per the available reports, since the inception of this civil war the govt. is accused of repeatedly using chemical weapons in violation of international laws. Ironically the UN’s move for investigation of these cases has always been vetoed by Russia. But this time around, even before OPCW inspectors’ report, US and and its allies took to retaliatory measures against the atrocities committed on human beings.
But what is a chemical weapon? It is a specialized ammunition that employs chemicals to inflict death, affliction or incapacitation to human beings. They can configurate as cylinders or cannon balls filled with various hazardous chemical warfare agents. These chemical warfare agents are allocated into different categories. Prominent among them being: Nerve agents( eg, sarin, soman, cyclosarin tabun VX), Blistering agents (eg, mustards lewisite ),Respiratory agents( eg, chlorine phosgene diphosgene ) Blood agents (eg, cyanides), Vomiting agents (diphenylchlorasine (Da), diphenylecyanosarine (Dc), diphenyleaminearsine (Dm)).
These chemical warfare agents are absorbed and assimilated in the body through various routes viz inhalation, exposures to eyes, skin and intake through food and water. Their hazards and repercussions on human body are instantaneous and ensues within minutes of exposure. Moreover, their dispersion in atmosphere is governed by atmospheric conditions encompassing wind speed, temperature, humidity and wind direction. These are also called as weapons of mass destruction(WMD).
In fact the weapons of mass destruction(WMD) also include Nuclear warfare, Tactical nuclear warfare, Biological warfare and suitcase bombs. The chemical warfare are placed in between Nuclear/Biological and conventional ammunition. But ironically in spite of their detrimental and sinister effects, mankind has never learnt a lesson and have been using these WMD since ages. In 400BC, Greeks used sulphur mustard during Torjan war. Subsequently chemical warfare were used by both the parties during World War I (1914 -1918) to gain dominance against each other and inflicted heavy causalities on each other. During this period nearly 124000 tonnes of chemical war fare agents were used. Various reports have held these chemical weapons responsible for the casualties to the tune of 70%.Subsequently, in 1925, League of Nation approved the protocol for banning the use of chemical warfare against human beings. This led to constrained use of chemical warfare during World War II but ironically many countries incongruously piled up massive stock of chemical weapon arsenal for future use in spite of 1925 Geneva Protocol.
Therefore, the urgency of containing the storage and use of chemical weapons against human beings facilitated the ban on chemical weapons which was initiated in 1968 within the inter governmental 18 members disarmament Committee.This committee after numerous changes in name and composition renamed as conference on Disarmament (CD) in 1984. The conference on disarmament submitted the text of chemical weapon convention as one of the segment of their annual report to United Nation General Assembly on 3 September 1992 for approval, which was subsequently approved on 30 November1992 and then opened for signature on 13 January 1993. Till date out of 196 UN member states, 192 have already signed and ratified whereas only four states Egypt, North Korea, Sudan and Israel, have not signed/ratified it. A chemical weapons convention is a multi-lateral treaty which bans stock pile and use of chemical weapons/chemical war fare agents. It further asserts and certifies the extermination of already existing stock pile under the supervision of OPCW inspectors/ experts. This treaty has been found to be more comprehensive than 1925 Geneva Protocol. As a fallout of this treaty, a total of 72524 metric tones of chemical war fare agents, 8.67 million chemical weapons and 97 production facilities were declared to OPCW and nearly 90% were annihilated. Russia which declared around 40,000 metric tones of chemical weapon arsenal had completed destruction by 20th Sept. 2017, whereas United State of America which possesses around 27771 metric tonnes will meet the deadline by 2023. Even Syria had declared to OPCW about 1300 metric tones of their chemical warfare agents which were exterminated in August 2014.
However the recent incidents of chemical attacks by Syria have raised eyebrows about their tall claims suggesting them to be false and illusive. The author is of the view that the threat from chemical warfare is quite predominant in view of easy accessibility to pesticides, precursors and the chemicals Also the process for synthesis is not cumbersome. Therefore the need of the hour is to have stringent control over procurement /use of chemicals which have dual use impeding its transfer into hands of non state actors. Earlier there have been instances, where non state actors have used them with sole purpose of creating panic and causing injuries to human beings. A glaring example came from Japan; where the religious cult Aum Shinnikyo released the nerve gas agents Sarin simultaneously into five sub stated of Tokyo city near the hub of Japanese Government in the year 1995.This caused 12 deaths and around 1000 people were hospitalized, where as nearly 5000 reported to hospital.
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