<caravan99> US Tests Ethnically-Targeted Crowd Control Weapons

[Sergio <sergio.o at gmx.net>]

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 07:22:17 -0600
From: Edward Hammond <hammond at sunshine-project.org>
To: Multiple recipients of announce - Sent by <hammond at sunshine-project.org>
Subject: Sunshine: US Tests Ethnically-Targeted Crowd Control Weapons

The Sunshine Project
  News Release - 19 February 2002
  http://www.sunshine-project.org


  **  Pentagon Tests Ethnically-Targeted **
  **           Crowd Control Weapons          **


US Army documents released under the Freedom of Information Act 
(FOIA) reveal disturbing efforts to design crowd control weapons that 
target people on an ethnic basis. The weapons, a group of 
foul-smelling chemicals called malodorants, are being developed for 
US soldiers to use overseas.

According to the Sunshine Project, the US has crossed a dangerous 
line. Successful or not, development of any ethnic weapon is 
intrinsically racist, and the international community should consider 
their development, stockpiling, or use by any country a violation of 
international law.

  The Research

  The Sunshine Project has obtained US Army Soldier and Biological 
Chemical Command contracts that detail testing of malodorant 
chemicals on human subjects. Malodorant weapons are used to provoke 
vomiting and psychological effects including fear and panic.

Almost sixty years ago, the US developed a nauseating 'bathroom odor' 
chemical for use as a weapon. But according to the Army, the old 
malodorant will not work outside of the US and Western Europe, 
because "it was found that people in many areas of the world do not 
find 'fecal odor' to be offensive, since they smell it on a regular 
basis."  Therefore, according to the Army, new agents are needed for 
overseas missions. These new malodorants are to be specifically 
adapted for their victims. According to a 1998 document: "The 
objective of this work is the development of a comprehensive set of 
[malodorants] that can be applied against any population set around 
the world to influence their behavior."

  The documents describe the Army research procedure. A group of 
subjects selected "based on a diversity of geographic origins and 
cultural heritage" is systematically exposed to candidate malodorants 
to develop "culture-response data" based on ethnic categories. That 
data is aggregated into "odor response profiles" that suggest the 
types and quantities of malodorants necessary to "elicit a favorable 
behavioral response" (i.e. incapacitation, panic, or flight) when 
used for crowd control on a particular ethnic group.

Malodorants themselves generally do not cause serious injury or 
death; but their physical and psychological effects can be very 
powerful. They can be loaded in shells, grenades, mortar rounds, and 
other devices. Malodorants can be used to control civil unrest (e.g. 
to halt protests), and in combination with lethal weapons as a 'force 
multiplier' in counterinsurgency and close combat in urban and 
enclosed areas.

The documents generally do not include details about research 
subjects and how researchers categorize them. Some experiments have 
been conducted outside the United States, or on immigrants. A 
February 2000 draft report refers to testing on "a group of South 
Africans". Another Army document contains unexplained images of 
indigenous women and girls from Panama or Colombia and southern 
Africa. Additional pictures appear to be from Africa and Asia, and 
one shows a boy dressed as a typical US high school student.

Not Since Apartheid

Past research on ethnic weapons has been rare. The last known attempt 
to create ethnic weapons was a widely condemned program conducted in 
the 1980s by the apartheid regime of South Africa, which tried to 
develop an agent to selectively sterilize black women.

The new US malodorant program began in 1998 and is the first known US 
work on population-specific weapons since "Project Agile" in 1966. In 
Agile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) 
commissioned the Battelle Institute to assess the possibility of 
making malodorants to specifically target Vietnamese people. Agile 
was short-lived and did not reach a laboratory phase.

The Army's Partners

The US Army Soldier Chemical and Biological Command (Aberdeen Proving 
Ground, Maryland) has important partners in the malodorant research. 
The US Marine Corps-managed Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP, 
Quantico, Virginia) is funding the research. Contracts signed with 
the Monell Chemical Senses Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 
include DAAD13-99-M-0071 ("Behavioral Odor Study") and 
DAAD13-98-M-004 ("Establish Odor Response Profiles").

By Pentagon standards, the research is a small program, with five 
scientists. Contracts between SBCCOM and Monell total US $195,000. 
The overall budget is unclear because the Marine Corps and Army also 
conduct work internally, whose details have not been released. JNLWP 
is, however, very active developing new delivery technology for 
malodorants including chemical mortar rounds and payload systems for 
unmanned aerial vehicles.

Ethnic Weapons: Prima facie Evidence

Whether the malodorants work or fail, research on any ethnic weapon 
raises serious legal questions and could set a very dangerous 
precedent. If the Pentagon saw any major legal barriers to ethnic 
weapons it would not have approved the malodorant research. The 
Pentagon's conclusion that ethnic weapons are permissible must be 
challenged. All such weapons should be universally considered 
intrinsically racist and to repudiate international law. To do this, 
governments should establish that the development, stockpiling, or 
use of ethnic weapons is prima facie evidence of intent to violate 
international law prohibiting racism, including prohibitions on 
genocide.

Inside the US, the malodorants research program must be cancelled, 
and the secretive Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program opened to public 
scrutiny and transparency. Among the questions that the Joint 
Non-Lethal Weapons Program must publicly discuss is how its focus on 
building weapons systems that primarily target civilians is legally 
and ethically justified.

About the Sunshine Project's Research on Malodorants

Early last year, the Sunshine Project began investigating US military 
work on malodorants and calmatives (another type of crowd control 
agent). The Project's underlying concern is that some of these 
weapons may violate treaties prohibiting chemical and biological 
warfare.

In July 2001, the Project published "Non-Lethal Weapons Research in 
the US: Calmatives and Malodorants". In the course of preparing that 
paper, cryptic language in Army documents caused the Project to 
become concerned that some crowd control research was designed to 
develop population-specific weapons. Some Army documents indicated it 
was pursuing a single 'one-size-fits-all' malodorant that would 
affect people equally, regardless of ethnic background. But other 
Army papers showed a disturbing preoccupation with ethnicity. After 
publishing the first paper, the Sunshine Project filed additional 
FOIA requests, the results of which are first reported here.

The information (and all double " " quotes) in this news release is 
>from the Army response to a FOIA request from October 2001, which was 
not answered (and then only partially) until February 2002. 
Additional FOIA requests on this topic are pending, the results of 
which will be presented in Sunshine Project publications.

-- 

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