The Sunshine Project Rebuts USMC Censorship / New Video Available

Date:  Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:37:29 -0500

The Sunshine Project

News Release - 5 August 2004

http://www.sunshine-project.org

Sunshine Project Rebuts US Marine Corps Censorship

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New Video of US "Non-Lethal" UAV (drone) Tests Available

(Austin and Hamburg - 5 August 2004) - In a letter sent today, the

Sunshine Project has informed the US Marine Corps that it has

returned three US Army documents, describing "non-lethal" chemical

weapons research, to its website.

The documents, titled Anti-Personnel Calmative Agents, Anti-Personnel

Chemical Immobilizers: Synthetic Opiods, and Demonstration of

Chemical Immobilizers, describe US military research on chemical

weapons similar to those used to devastating effect by Russian

Special Forces in the Moscow theater in 2002. More than 120 innocent

hostages died from the effects of these "non-lethal" chemical weapons.

The Marines had insisted, on July 14th, that the Project cease to

distribute the papers, which the Sunshine Project obtained after

requesting them under the Freedom of Information Act. The Sunshine

Project temporarily agreed to the Marines' request, pending receipt

of further explanations of the Marines' claim that distributing the

papers posed a threat to Department of Defense weapons programs and

personnel.

But the Marines did not reply to the requests for a more adequate

explanation and, after three weeks, the Sunshine Project has placed

the papers online again.

"We were willing to comply with the Marines' request because they

suggested that the people identified in the papers could be hurt,"

says Sunshine Project US Director Edward Hammond. "Our investigation

of this issue, " says Hammond, "reveals nothing that suggests that

any person would be harmed by public release of these documents, and

the Marines' have refused to elaborate on their claims."

The Marines' other assertion is that the papers reveal information

about weapons research programs that could compromise them. The

Sunshine Project replied by writing:

"Here, the Sunshine Project and the Marine Corps will simply have to

disagree ... We believe that maintaining and strengthening the global

bans on chemical and biological weapons is a profound public

interest... [We] have no sympathy for your request that we assist you

in shielding these chemical weapons programs from public view, we

believe that it is our obligation to expose them."

The complete correspondence with the Marine Corps is available at:

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/usmccensor.html

The documents are available in the Sunshine Project's online

clearinghouse of US government documents on "non-lethal" chemical and

biological weapons research:

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/jnlwdpdf/

New Video of US "Non-Lethal" UAV (drone) Tests Available

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The Project has also posted a newly-released videotape of 1997 US

tests of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or "drone") equipped to

disperse chemicals. The tests involved a smoke payload and were

conducted at Fort Huachuca, Arizona and sponsored by the Joint

Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD).

The tape is one of two videos requested by the Sunshine Project under

the Freedom of Information Act in January 2003. After extensive

correspondence, the first tape was finally released on July 23rd by

the US Army's Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.

A second tape has, since early February 2004, been held up by the

Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, which has led Marine Corps efforts to

develop UAVs to carry "non-lethal" chemical payloads.

The tape represents one of the first public glimpses inside JNLWD's

"non-lethal" UAV program. The Sunshine Project is pressing the

Department of Defense to make available complete documentation of its

"non-lethal" chemical UAV research, among other chemical and

biological programs that raise questions about US treaty compliance.

A web version of the video may be viewed at:

http://www.sunshine-project.org/incapacitants/jnlwdpdf/hunter.html

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