Russian Duma OKs Chemical Weapons Ban

The lower house of the Russian parliament voted overwhelmingly Friday to ratify an international treaty that bans the manufacture and storage of chemical weapons and commits Russia to destroying its huge stockpile--the world’s largest--over the next decade.

By joining more than 80 other nations in ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, Russia will be agreeing to dispose of 40,000 tons of chemical weapons. The decision by the Communist-dominated Duma, which came on a 288-75 vote, was based not so much on foreign policy as on domestic need: Russia’s aging chemical weapon stocks--some dating from the 1940s--are deteriorating and badly in need of disposal.

The Duma had put off a decision on the treaty for six months, largely because the government does not have the estimated $5 billion it will take to destroy its chemical weapons and production capability. The cost of destroying the chemical weapons will be prohibitive for the Russian government, which estimates that its revenues for all of next year will be less than $60 billion.

The major world powers have supported the ban on chemical arms because such weapons are risky to use and dangerous to store. In battle, shifting winds can blow toxic gases back on the soldiers using them. And when stored for long periods, the chemicals can leak and pollute the environment.

“The storage of chemical weapons cannot be endlessly safe, and little time is left before these weapons start leaking,” Col. Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, told the Duma. “This convention should not be a hostage of political interests when we are talking about the health and safety of the nation.”

*

By ratifying the treaty, Russia expects to receive at least $100 million in aid from the United States. But, at best, foreign aid will be enough to dispose of only 5% of the Russian stockpile, Duma member Yuri P. Shchekochikhin said.

“Finding the means to dispose of chemical weapons is going to be a tremendous problem for the Russian government,” Shchekochikhin said. “But despite all the hardships, Russia did not have any other alternative. Chemical weapons have to be eliminated anyway.”

The treaty, which took effect in April, must also be ratified by the upper house of parliament--the Federation Council--where it is expected to win broad support. In addition, President Boris N. Yeltsin, who favors the convention, must give his formal approval.

Nationalist deputies in the Duma have held up ratification of another arms-control accord, the 1993 treaty known as START II, out of opposition to the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which they contend threatens Russia’s security.

In 1987, the Soviet Union proclaimed that it would unilaterally halt the production of chemical weapons. Nevertheless, experts say, the military has done nothing in the past decade to prepare for the disposal of its aging chemical arsenal.

“Today, Russia has no know-how, no technology, no means and no facilities to eliminate, dispose of or process thousands of tons of lethal weapons stockpiled by the Soviet Union,” said environmental chemist Lev A. Fyodorov, president of the Union for Chemical Security, an organization of people who live near chemical weapons storage sites. “We have signed up for a very noble and praiseworthy undertaking, but we have no idea of how on earth we are going to implement it.”

Russian arms experts agree that the government is years behind schedule in developing methods of disposing of the chemicals safely. Anatoly D. Kuntsevich, one of Russia’s foremost chemical weapons experts, said Russia lags in part because it refuses to adopt methods developed by the United States for chemical weapons demolition.

Experiments are scheduled for next year, he said, that will allow scientists to draw up blueprints for the construction of the facilities where the weapons will be destroyed--a process that alone will take four or five years.

“The only way we can somehow try and speed things up is by adopting the U.S. technology, because it has proved itself reliable and workable,” he said. “But we prefer to invent a wheel ourselves, claiming that we have our own two-stage technology.”

The U.S., which ratified the treaty earlier this year, owns the world’s second-largest chemical weapons stockpile at 31,000 tons. It began incinerating some of its chemical arsenal more than a year ago.

In the eyes of generals and military strategists, nuclear weapons are a more effective and manageable deterrent than chemical arms. “Chemical weapons ceased to be a means of deterrence after nuclear arms were created,” Gen. Kvashnin said.

Experts say the greatest danger from chemical weapons is their potential use by terrorists, such as the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway by the Aum Supreme Truth sect that killed 12 people. Some Tokyo media reports suggested that the gas came from the Russian military stockpile.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Spread of Chemical Weapons

The Russian Duma’s vote to ratify the international chemical weapons treaty obliges the Kremlin to destroy a hugh stockpile of weapons within a decade. Experts say the greatest danger such weapons pose is that they will fall into the hands of terrorists.

*

Confirmed states possessing chemical weapons: 1. Iran, 2. Iraq, 3. Russia, 4. United States

Probable possessor states: 5. Afghanistan, 6. Myanmar, 7. China, 8. Egypt, 9. Ethiopia, 10. Israel, 11. Kazakhstan, 12. North Korea, 13. Syria, 14. Taiwan, 15. Ukraine, 16. Vietnam

*

Suspected of having chemical weapons programs:17. Chile, 18. Cuba, 19. France, 20. South Korea, 21. Libya, 22. Pakistan, 23. Somalia, 24. South Africa, 25. Thailand

Source: Stockholm Int’l Peace Research Institute Yearbook