U.S. says it has chemical proof of poison warfare

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 6

U.S. says it has chemical proof of poison warfare

NZPA Washington A senior American State Department official told Congress yesterday that the United States had chemical proof that lethal toxin weapons had been used inside Laos, in addition to Kampuchea. Richard Burt, director of the department’s bureau of politico-military affairs, said the mounting evidence of biological warfare by Sovietbacked regimes had “grave implications” for future arms-control efforts. Testifying before a Senate foreign relations sub-com-mittee, Mr Burt said American officials were “certain” that chemical weapons including nerve gas were being used .in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. But he said the United States did not yet have “physical evidence” to

confirm such reports scientifically. For Indo-China, however, Mr Burt said that “we have confirmed the use of toxin weapons in Laos as well as Kampuchea.” The Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig) disclosed on September 13 that tests on a foliage sample brought out of Kampuchea had shown abnormally high levels of mycotoxins — poisonous substances produced by certain types of fungus not indigenous to the region. American officials subsequently appealed to the United Nations for aid in investigating the biologicalwarfare issue. A United Nations team arrived in Thailand last week to conduct investigations among Kampuchean refugees there. Mr Burt said that during

the last few weeks tests had been completed on three additional samples — one from the same Kampuchean village as the original sample, and two others consisting of yellow powder scraped off rocks in Laos. “All three of these samples reveal high quantities of trichothecene mycotoxins, quantities even higher than in the first sample,” he told the Senate panel. Mr Burt said one of the Laos samples was shown to contain 150 parts per million of a particular kind of mycotoxin called T2. “This is almost 50 times higher than the level of T2 in the original sample of Kampuchea,” he said. Symptoms typical of exposure to such mycotoxins, he said, include violent itching, dizziness, distorted vision,

vomiting blood, then death from shock and heavy blood loss. Mr Burt said that in addition to direct Soviet involvement with chemical weapons in Afghanistan, “the Soviets are advising and controlling chemical warfare activity in South-East Asia.” He also said the Soviet Union was known to have microbiological plants capable of producing mycotoxins for military use. “The use of toxins as warfare agents in South-East Asia has grave implications for present and future arms control arrangements,” Mr Burt said, particularly because existing accords banning biological and chemical weapons did not include effective provisions for verification or sanctions against violators.