The Myanmar military has been accused of using chemical weapons for decades, but definitive evidence has remained out of reach, partly due to bureaucratic deadlock and a lack of international support.

By ALLEGRA MENDELSON | FRONTIER

In the last year, several armed groups fighting against military rule have come forward with stories that have stood out even amid the everyday carnage of war.

“After they exploded, the smoke smelled very bad and everybody vomited,” said Khun Bedu, chairman of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, a pro-democracy militia formed after the 2021 military coup, which largely operates in Kayah State.

“The smell is very strong – you can smell the smoke before you see it. It smells like dead bodies and it stays in your lungs for a long time,” he said of the substance from the exploded shells.

Lway Yay Oo, a spokesperson for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, made similar allegations. Various armed groups have fought for political autonomy for the Ta’ang ethnic minority since the 1960s, but the goal is closer than ever with the TNLA seizing huge swathes of northern Shan State in recent months.

But the victories came with a toll – Yay Oo described the military using weapons that deployed “poisonous fumes”, which left fighters “suffering from a lack of oxygen, fatigue and nausea”. “Many are still struggling with psychological symptoms today,” she added.

Reports of chemical weapon attacks are nothing new in Myanmar, which is commonly described as having the longest running civil war in the world. In the 1990s, the Karen National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army both claimed that the military had dropped chemical bombs on their fighters. In 2005, the Karenni Army came forward with similar claims, publicised in an investigation by the United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide. This uncovered “strong circumstantial evidence” but was unable to definitively confirm the use of chemical weapons.

Decades later, the story remains much the same – widespread allegations, but no definitive proof.

The global body that would normally investigate these allegations is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Formed in 1997, the OPCW’s main mission is to oversee the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. This global arms control treaty prohibits the development, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, and has been signed and ratified by all United Nations member states except Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan and Israel. Myanmar was one of the first countries to sign the CWC in 1993, although it didn’t become legally bound by the convention until it ratified it in 2015.

Without a formal investigation, experts say the more recent allegations won’t be taken seriously. But a number of bureaucratic hurdles stand in the way, compounded by a lack of local expertise and international support.

The OCPW did not respond to Frontier’s requests for comment.

Making sense of the substances

The National Unity Government, a parallel administration appointed by lawmakers deposed in the coup, has been trying to document the alleged chemical weapons attacks in more detail.

A Myanmar medical doctor working with the NUG’s Ministry of Health on this documentation work said they have flagged four incidents with the most evidence. These include two attacks against the TNLA in northern Shan in November last year and another earlier this month, and a fourth against the KNLA in Kayin State in April.

Details surrounding the two more recent attacks remain murky. The NUG has not been able to identify what chemical agents may have been used, but the symptoms experienced, even from those farther from the scene, were extreme, said the NUG doctor, speaking to Frontier on the condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

“In these events, people who were not at the epicentre, but a little farther from the bomb strike, suffered strange smell and transient paralysis. Then they were knocked out and carried to a health facility and a few hours later regained consciousness. After resting for 24 hours, they began to recover,” said the doctor, who had little experience with harmful chemicals before the coup, other than mandatory basic toxicology training.

“We are looking into possible agents that could have been used. If [the military] was using sarin or other gas agents, there would be some fatalities without any obvious injury but luckily I haven’t heard of any fatalities from these events.”

The NUG has a more concrete theory for the attacks in November last year. The doctor said that eyewitness accounts “most likely” point to the use of chlorine “because of its smell” and the injuries sustained.

“For chlorine attacks, most victims suffer difficulty breathing, they have shortness of breath and their oxygen saturation is low,” he said. 

However, chlorine is not explicitly listed as a chemical weapon in the CWC given its “dual use potential”, explained Dr Alexander Kelle, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg. He is also a network coordinator at CBWNet, a project aimed at strengthening international norms against chemical and biological weapons.

“The reason is simply because it is a commodity chemical, an industrial chemical, that has such widespread use that it was simply deemed impractical,” said Kelle, offering an example in the use of chlorine as a water purifier.

However, its use can be considered a chemical weapon attack, depending on the context. The OPCW determined that chlorine was used as a chemical weapon during the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. That conflict included an incident where over 40 people were killed in a chlorine attack.

At the same time, some common compounds like tear gas can be considered chemical weapons. While legal for crowd control purposes, tear gas is banned in warfare. The Myanmar military notably used riot control agents against protesters after the coup and several groups, including the KNDF, have also alleged its use on the battlefield since. 

Incendiary agents like white phosphorus are also not outright banned by the convention, but do have restricted uses.

“From a humanitarian perspective, incendiary weapons are extremely nasty and dangerous and they can be devastating, and these violations of the law deserve a strong response, but from a geopolitical perspective, they are not in the same category of the weapons of mass destruction like chemical weapons,” explained Dr Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University in the United States.

White phosphorus is typically used to create smoke screens to hide troop movements or mark targets, but is not meant to be fired at civilian areas due to its propensity to start fires.

The NUG doctor explained that there are also important differences in the injuries caused by the different types of weapons, which is important in telling them apart and treating patients.

“We can differentiate chemical weapons based on the symptoms alone. For the recipient, it causes blindness, red eye and respiratory discomfort and the patient will develop skin ulcers, but the onset is gradual,” he said. “For incendiary weapons, the burn injuries are very intense and appear at the scene. This is the key difference.”

Investigating the allegations

Experts told Frontier that to determine whether banned chemical weapons have been used – or whether chlorine and tear gas have been used in ways that are prohibited – the OPCW would need to conduct an investigation like it did in Syria.

Koblentz said that the first step in this process is to collect samples from the scene of the attack, either from the munitions that were used, the people who were exposed or the surrounding environment, and then send these samples to a lab for testing. 

But amassing this kind of evidence and testing for it is challenging in Myanmar. Yay Oo said that the TNLA has tried to collect samples but doesn’t have any labs to assess them.

“There are so many questions. How can we safely collect the specimens? Who will handle the specimens? Where do we send the specimens? Which lab will accept them?” the NUG doctor said.

He said regular electricity cuts make storing human specimens like blood samples difficult, and monsoon rains have destroyed a lot of environmental evidence. But while successfully collecting and storing samples could strengthen the allegations, it wouldn’t be enough for an international determination.

Kelle, who previously worked as a senior policy officer at OPCW, said the body would need to collect the samples itself and maintain an uninterrupted chain of custody.

“If there is not a chain of custody from where the environmental sample is taken or the chain of custody is broken, findings produced on the basis of an analysis of such samples will immediately be contested by those who have been accused,” he said.

A neutral investigation is also necessary because conventional weapons frequently used by the Myanmar military – including mortars and missiles fired from planes – can inflict damage and injuries that could cause them to be mistaken for chemical weapons. For example, Kelle said that if a conventional munitions attack were to strike chemicals, even household ones, “they can have nasty effects”. These could even resemble the dizziness and nausea experienced by fighters in Myanmar following alleged chemical attacks. 

Yet, despite the need for an objective third party, there has been limited international assistance. 

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, a UN body established in 2018 to investigate crimes under international law in Myanmar, told Frontier that they are looking into the allegations but cannot comment further at this time. 

The Karen Human Rights Organisation told Frontier they recently met with a UK-based organisation that tracks the supply of weapons and military equipment in conflict areas, but no investigations have been carried out yet. The NUG’s press office also told Frontier that the administration is “in coordination with international organizations regarding the junta’s use of chemical weapons” but would not comment further.

But the OPCW can only become involved under certain conditions. Kelle explained that, according to the convention, only state parties can appeal for an investigation.

“What a non-state actor would have to do is either convince their host government or another government that is a state party in a position to initiate such an investigation,” he said.

In Syria’s case, the OPCW started an investigation at the request of the Syrian, UK and French governments in early 2013, shortly before Syria ratified the CWC. But no state signatory has publicly called for an investigation into chemical weapons use in Myanmar, despite the US maintaining that the military is in “non-compliance” with the CWC. The US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Khun Bedu from the KNDF told Frontier that they simply “do not have capacity to connect with [foreign] governments” to call for an investigation. He added that his group has been discouraged by previous attempts to work with the international community, such as following the Christmas Eve Massacre in Kayah in December 2021, which drew condemnation but little action.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that Myanmar doesn’t have an internationally recognised government. NUG ally U Kyaw Moe Tun has retained his seat at the UN, as a temporary compromise while the country’s representation remains in dispute, but junta loyalists occupy most of the Myanmar embassies around the world.

Kelle said that the recognised state actor in this instance would be whichever side is represented in the OPCW. U Soe Lynn Han was appointed as ambassador to the organisation in 2019 while Myanmar’s elected civilian government was in power, but has remained in his post since the coup.

The NUG’s press office told Frontier that unlike Kyaw Moe Tun at the UN, Soe Lynn Han is now the junta’s ambassador. The parallel government “does not recognize [him] as a country representative” but hasn’t yet appointed an alternative.

Earlier this month, Soe Lynn Han met with the OPCW’s deputy director Ms Odette Melono at its headquarters in The Hague, according to the junta-run Global New Light of Myanmar. Soe Lynn Han – who is also the regime ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – declined to comment on the specifics of the meeting or his political affiliation.

“Myanmar has been accused of using chemical weapons for years while all of these are based on unverified information gathering from the media or other open sources,” he told Frontier via email.

‘Non-compliance’

The allegations of chemical weapon use in Myanmar also beg the question of where the materials might be coming from and their manufacture. Since the 1980s, rumours have circulated that Myanmar is stockpiling chemical weapons at a production facility in the small town of Tonbo in Bago Region’s Taungoo Township. 

The US State Department first declassified information about this programme in a 2019 report, alleging that the Tonbo facility had produced sulphur mustard, more commonly known as mustard gas, a blister agent banned by the CWC. The report also vaguely said that other unspecified chemical weapons were manufactured there, and at two more unnamed facilities elsewhere in the country.

In 2014, a media frenzy kicked off once again when journalists from the since-shuttered Unity Journal reported that another chemical weapons facility had been built in 2009 in Pauk Township in Magway Region. Suspicion only escalated when five staff members of the news outlet, including its chief executive officer, were arrested for trespassing into the facility and then prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act, which criminalises exposing state secrets.

Site of the alleged chemical weapon facility in Pauk Township, Magway Region, sourced from Google Earth by Airbus on January 11, 2023.

Satellite images of the Tonbo site from last year viewed by Frontier show four structures overgrown with foliage with no discernable roads in or out. Images of the Pauk site – listed as “No-24 Military Weapon Factory” on Google Maps – show several green-roofed structures and two roads leading east and west out of the compound. The junta’s Ministry of Information did not respond to phone calls from Frontier regarding whether the Tonbo or Pauk sites are still functioning.

Whether or not the alleged production is real, experts said it wouldn’t be difficult for Myanmar to obtain certain raw materials, given many also have commercial or industrial uses. According to UN Comtrade, the largest global trade database, Myanmar’s reported imports of one of the leading chemicals used in tear gas increased more than 20 fold between 2021 and 2022 and remained high in 2023. However, reported imports of chlorine and sulphur mustard have dropped. 

But Koblentz said the military wouldn’t need particularly large stockpiles to use chemical weapons to devastating effect.

“When you’re fighting against rebel groups with no protective gear or you’re going after civilians, you don’t need a lot of chemical weapons to have a big impact both in terms of causing casualties and the psychological impact,” he said. 

For now, the use and production of chemical weapons in Myanmar remain subjects of speculation. Proper investigations are needed to rule out alternative explanations, and to compel a stronger international response.

However, even concrete proof might not elicit the desired outcome. UN sanctions related to Syria’s chemical weapons use were blocked by Russia and China in 2017. Both are allies of the Myanmar military and have similarly vetoed or watered down UN statements on Myanmar.

Other countries came out with their own individual restrictions against Syria, as they’ve already done in Myanmar, though more sanctions could be forthcoming if the military were found to be using chemical weapons. 

Meanwhile, largely symbolic criminal proceedings against Syrian officials continue in several European countries, including an arrest warrant issued by a French court against President Bashar al-Assad. These are reminiscent of international justice efforts against the Myanmar military, including a petition for a warrant in Argentina to arrest junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, which have already ground on for years with no end in sight.

Nonetheless, observers say a credible investigation to rule out alternatives is an important first step in any possible international response.

“There are definitely sincere reasons why a group might think they are being attacked by a chemical weapon even if they’re not and there are also strategic reasons to make those types of allegations even if you know they are false because they do get media attention,” said Koblentz. 

“That’s why we need to have an international entity that can investigate these claims [and] adjudicate them, and that’s the role of the OPCW.”

Correction: A sentence reading “even if chlorine was confirmed to have been used, this would not necessarily qualify it as a chemical weapons attack under international law” has been deleted because it is potentially misleading. Although chlorine is not listed in the Chemical Weapons Convention, if it were used to cause harm this would be considered a chemical weapon attack.