Yellow rain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Yellow rain" ( English "Yellow Rain" ) is a term that refers to one of the USSR of and Vietnamese People's Army allegedly in the Vietnam War and in the Second Laotian Civil War (1963-73) used a chemical weapon refers.

It is said to have been mycotoxins , including T-2 toxin . Soviet transport planes and helicopters are said to have sprayed poisons as "yellow rain" to kill US and South Vietnamese soldiers. Members of the Hmong people are also reported to have been targeted in order to punish them for their cooperation with the Americans. The use of such poisons would be a clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the Bioweapons Convention of 1972. These allegations could not be proven after a visit by a group of experts in 1987.

overview

In the 1960s, the CIA began to recruit members of the Hmong people in Laos to join them in combating the army of North Vietnam. This intervention escalated into a civil war in Laos , in which Hmong guerrillas took part in an attempt to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail and rescue downed American pilots. When the US had to withdraw from the Vietnam War due to domestic political pressure, the Kingdom of Laos was quickly taken over by the communists and the Hmong were forced to flee into the mountains. Many of them were deported to labor camps or murdered; others managed to flee to Thailand , where they lived in refugee camps.

In this context, it has been reported that aircraft with Soviet national emblems sprayed unknown substances over the camps, which are believed to have caused collapse and, in many cases, a painful death . This “yellow rain” is said to have also destroyed plants and animals. Over a period from 1975 to 1981 6,378 people are said to have been killed in this way. The assumption that the T-2 mycotoxin had been used as a biological weapon here was loud.

In 1978 and 1979 the same funds are said to have been used in the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan . The symptoms that occurred after contact with the agents used were said to have included drowsiness , fainting , coughing up blood , shock and often death .

T-2 mycotoxin

About 300 mycotoxins are known to be produced by about 350 species of fungi . The T-2 mycotoxin, which belongs to the Fusarium toxins , is secreted by the genera Fusarium , Myrothecium , Trichoderma , Trichothecium , Cephalosporium , Verticimonosporium and Stachybotrys .

The symptoms of poisoning are characterized by abdominal pain , diarrhea , vomiting , chills , myalgia and myelosuppression and overproduction of granulocytes and sepsis. The effectiveness of mycotoxin poisoning was demonstrated to the Soviet military when bread accidentally contaminated with Fusarium fungi killed many civilians, intensifying research into mycotoxins. Here their applicability as a weapon was discovered and corresponding species were bred.

Pronouncements

U.S. government

Alexander Haig announced the suspicion that the USSR had used biological weapons.

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Alexander Haig , in a speech in West Berlin in September 1981, stated that Laotian communists and the Vietnamese People's Army would use biological weapons against the Hmong with the support of the USSR. He repeated this in a detailed lecture to the American Congress in March 1982.

USSR

Moscow's TASS news agency later said the allegations were "malicious slander and [an] anti-Soviet farce".

Scientific investigations

In 1987, a group of scientists, led by Matthew Meselson , traveled to Laos to investigate the allegations. The team found some mycotoxins that were apparently naturally found in the area. The discovery of yellow pollen let the team announce an alternative hypothesis regarding the “yellow rain”: It could be massive deposits of bee droppings. The conclusion of the investigation was that there was no evidence of the use of chemical weapons.

CIA analysis

In 1981, CIA medics traveled to Southeast Asia and retrieved the bodies of victims of the "yellow rain" for autopsies. The victims' stomachs and small intestines were decomposed, suggesting a low molecular weight poison . Samples of vegetation and water confirmed the suspicion of mycotoxins.

A secret CIA document (“Annex B: Soviet Development of Toxins”) written in 1983 describes how the Soviet Union began to develop weapons based on trichothecene mycotoxins as early as 1941 and tested them on political prisoners. The document emphasizes the similarity of the symptoms to those described by the Hmong.

Press reviews

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial in 1981 which said, “[...] the evidence is conclusive: the Soviets have long been involved in the development and manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. They used these weapons in Yemen, and now in Cambodia and Afghanistan. "

consequences

In response to the allegations, the USSR began a disinformation campaign , code-named " Operation Infection, " which was intended to serve as revenge and at the same time to divert attention from the vast arsenal of biological weapons in the Soviet Union.

See also

literature

  • Gordon S. Seagrave: Yellow Rain. Yellow Rain. The terror of chemical warfare. 1987, ISBN 3800410354
  • Kao Kalia Yang: The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir 2008, ISBN 1566892082
  • Ines Peterson: The criminal liability of the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as a war crime according to the ICC Statute Berlin June 2009, ISBN 3830516711

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Karsunke, Xaver YZ, TU Munich:" Development of immunanalytical methods for the detection of low molecular weight toxic compounds in food "p. 11 Accessed on January 6, 2015.
  2. ↑ Cf. for example Ines Peterson: The criminal liability of the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as a war crime according to the ICC statute. P. 70.
  3. ↑ a b c d Yellow Rain. Der Spiegel of January 11, 1982, accessed November 26, 2014.
  4. ^ "TIME: Toxic Great Powers." Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  5. ↑ a b Philip M. Boffey: Declassified Cables Add to Doubts About US Disclosures on 'Yellow Rain' . In: New York Times . August 31, 1987 ( nytimes.com [accessed November 26, 2014]).
  6. ^ "Ryan M. Poe: Truth and What Matters: Yellow Rain" ( January 6, 2015 memento in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  7. ↑ a b “T-2 mycotoxins and Yellow Rain; the same destructive neurological agent that is found in indoor molds " Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  8. ↑ a b c “Burmese Army Chemical Weapon used --- Yellow Rain”. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  9. ^ A b "Conflicting Evidence Revives" Yellow Rain "Controversy" ( Memento of April 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved on November 26, 2014.
  10. ^ "The Yellow Rain Affair Lessons from a Discredited Allegation" Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  11. ↑ There is no respectable case left for the Administration's accusation of toxin warfare.
  12. ^ "" Yellow Rain "and the Future of Arms Agreements" Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Deadly mycotoxins were blamed as the source of South East Asia" Yellow Rain "by CIA 30 years later and we silently do not know the truth" Retrieved on November 26, 2014.