Chemicals in warfare, an overview

The use of chemical weapons is not a recent discovery. In the middle ages this use was already in practice: wells used to be poisoned and dead animals catapulted into besieged towns to force surrender through starvation and pestilence. In more recent years, mustard gas was used extensively by the Germans in World War One as immortalised in the poignant lines of the war poet Wilfred Owen. In the 1960's Vietnam war, Agent Orange, napalm was also widely used, causing the death or incapacitation of an estimated one million persons mainly civilians. This pictur is taken to be an iconic representation of the horrors of chemical warfare. Prof Emanuel Sinagra, a chemicals expert at the University of Malta explained that chemical weapons can be of various types. There are the 'haressing agents'  such as tear gas, 'incapacitating ' agents such as anaesthetic, biological weapons such as those which spread virus and 'lethal' agents which caus death through asphyxia, burnning, etc. Prof Sinagra said that it is not really complicated to produce a chemical weapon. He said that a basic knowledge of chemical reactions can be supplemented by materials commonly available from household goods stores. He said that some terrorist attacks were perpetrated through the use of unsophisticated materials and skills. He said that governments, with their resources can produce much more sophisticated weaponry. The use of chemical Weapons is considered as an act of total war since it involves the death of civilians. This form of warfare was prohibited through international conventions to which Malta is also a signatory. So far 189 countries adhere to this convention. Syria, Egypt, South Sudan, North Korea, Namibia and Myanmar are not bound by this convention, countries which are frequently in the news for internal turbulence or external belligerence. It is estimated that about 11 countries are storing chemical weapons illegally.