|
Kazakhstan, as an independent country, has never been engaged in an
offensive or defensive biological warfare (BW) program. However, its territory
was used extensively by the Soviet government for research, production, and
testing of biological warfare agents. Within the Soviet BW structure, Kazakhstan
housed four BW research, production, and testing sites that played a key role in
the development of the Soviet offensive BW program. These facilities reported to
different central authorities in Moscow and belonged to various parts of the
complicated Soviet BW structure, which was a network of numerous facilities
under military and/or civilian control. Since the break up of the Soviet Union,
the biological weapons program has been halted in Kazakhstan and BW facilities
have been either dismantled or converted. Unlike in Russia, where some former
Soviet BW facilities are alleged to be maintaining the capability to produce BW
agents alongside legitimate activities, the Kazakhstani government has been
remarkably open with respect to facilities on its territory. The four main
Soviet BW facilities in Kazakhstan directly or indirectly involved in the Soviet
offensive BW program were the Vozrozhdeniye Island Open-Air Test Site in the
Aral Sea; the Scientific Experimental and Production Base (SNOPB) in
Stepnogorsk; the Scientific Research Agricultural Institute (NISKhI) in
Gvardeyskiy; and the Anti-Plague Scientific Research Institute in Almaty.
History
The USSR conducted extensive research and development of its offensive
BW program in Kazakhstan, but Kazakhstan does not have a history of a BW program
as an independent country. Thus, the history of BW activities in Kazakhstan is
largely related to the Soviet BW developments.
The Soviet Union had the
world's largest BW program, which in the course of 20th century developed a
capability for wartime production of hundreds of tons of a range of biological
agents causing plague, tularemia, glanders, anthrax, smallpox, and Venezuelan
equine encephalomyelitis. Soviet BW activities took root in the late 1920s, with
the early Soviet BW facilities developing antipersonnel BW agents. Most elements
of the program were controlled by the Soviet military, including the following
facilities: the Scientific Research Institute of Microbiology in Kirov, (now
Vyatka) Russia; the Center for Military-Technical Problems of
Anti-Bacteriological Defense in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Russia; the
Center of Virology in Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad), Russia; the Scientific
Research Institute of Military Medicine in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg),
Russia. In addition to those Soviet BW facilities operating on Russian
territory, in 1936 the Soviet government established the Open-Air Test Site on
Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea, Kazakhstan. Vozrozhdeniye Island became
the major proving ground in the Soviet Union for the open-air testing of BW
agents developed at various Soviet facilities and was directly operated by the
Soviet Ministry of Defense (MOD). The other early Soviet BW facility on
Kazakhstani territory was the Scientific Research Agricultural Institute
(NISKhI) in Gvardeyskiy settlement, located in Zhambyl Oblast, which worked on
microbial agents harmful to livestock and plants. Though formally under the
control of the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture, the NISKhI, established in 1958,
was also likely supervised by the MOD.
In the early 1970s, the Soviet
authorities began creating a new network of BW facilities parallel to its
military system that were officially designed to conduct civilian research,
though they also served as a cover for military-related BW activities. In 1972,
the USSR Council of Ministers established a secret Interagency Science and
Technology Council on Molecular Biology and Genetics consisting of
representatives from the MOD, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of
Health, and the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1973, the All-Union Production
Association Biopreparat was created by the Decree of the Central Committee of
the Soviet Communist Party and the USSR Council of Ministers, which was tasked
with implementing the programs approved by the Interagency Council. Although
formally subordinated to the civilian Main Administration of Microbiological
Industry (Glavmikrobioprom), Biopreparat was funded by the MOD and the head of
the organization held the rank of lieutenant-general. Approximately forty
research, development, and production facilities were operating under
Biopreparat, many of which were actively involved in military BW programs in
addition to civilian biotechnological activities. The covert military BW
activities conducted in this new network of facilities were in obvious violation
of the Soviet Union's obligation to stop all offensive BW activities as
stipulated under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), signed by
Russia in 1972.
The leading Biopreparat facilities involved in an
offensive BW program included the State Scientific Center of Applied
Microbiology in Obolensk, Russia; the Institute of Immunological Studies in
Lyubuchany, Russia; the State Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology
(known as Vector) near Novosibirsk, Russia; the State Scientific Institute of
Ultrapure Biological Preparations in Leningrad, Russia; and the Scientific
Experimental and Production Base (SNOPB) in Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan. Like the
military biotechnological centers, the work at those Biopreparat facilities was
supervised by the 15th Directorate of MOD; the military and Biopreparat
facilities also shared some technologies and personnel.
In addition to
aforementioned facilities, other Soviet facilities were involved in defensive
developments. The Soviet Union developed the system of anti-plague research
institutes and field monitoring stations under the Soviet Ministry of Health
(one such institute was operated in Almaty, Kazakhstan). Some institutes were
also under the control of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Although those
facilities were mainly responsible for civilian scientific or epidemiological
investigations and did not have direct links to MOD or Biopreparat BW
facilities, on many occasions they were involved in supportive research
activities to well-funded military projects.
In 1991-1992, Russia halted
funding to the former Soviet BW centers in Kazakhstan, closed their military
programs, and abandoned the sites. As a result, all Soviet offensive and
defensive BW programs on Kazakhstani territory were terminated and the four
major BW facilities were either dismantled or converted.
Status
Following a number of decrees by the Russian and Kazakhstani
governments issued after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Vozrozhdeniye
Island facilities were dismantled, the site's infrastructure destroyed, and its
military settlement abandoned; this was confirmed by experts from the U.S.
Department of Defense assessing the site in 1995.
Since 1991, the
Kazakhstani government has committed itself to the civilian conversion of the
former Soviet facilities, particularly the SNOPB and the NISKhI. Due to lack of
funds and necessary expertise, the initial efforts were unsuccessful. In 1993,
the Presidential Edict of the Republic of Kazakhstan founded the National Center
for Biotechnology (NCB), which brought together most of the former Soviet
military and civilian biotechnology facilities in Kazakhstan, among them the
SNOPB and the NISKhI. The NCB did not initially include the Anti-Plague
Scientific Research Institute in Almaty, which was put under the authority of
the Kazakhstani Ministry of Health. Because a substantial amount of equipment
was dismantled or destroyed in the SNOPB, its civilian conversion has required
considerable financial and material resources. On the other hand, the NISKhI,
which had fewer and much smaller items of military-related equipment to
dismantle and convert, made the transition to civilian production on its own.
For Almaty Anti-Plague Institute, most of its equipment was already suitable for
civilian applications. The task of converting weapons-related expertise to
peaceful production required considerable effort at all of the former Soviet BW
facilities in Kazakhstan.
In December 2004, Astana and Washington signed
an agreement designed to eliminate the biological weapons proliferation threat
or the use of related technology or know-how by terrorists. This was an
amendment to the 1995 bilateral agreement that is part of the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction program designed to prevent the proliferation of
biological weapons technology, pathogens, and expertise. The $35 million in U.S.
assistance has been used to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons
through cooperative research efforts, strengthen biosafety and biosecurity at
Kazakhstani facilities, consolidate dangerous biological agents at secured
central repositories, eliminate BW-related equipment and infrastructure, and
bolster Kazakhstan's ability to detect biological agents and to deter or respond
to an attack.
In August 2005, the National Center for Biotechnology was
reorganized into the state enterprise "National Center for Biotechnology
of the Republic of Kazakhstan" and placed under the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of Education and Science. At present, NCB is a leading organization
that carries out applied research on multiple projects, including avian
influenza, with a mission to transform Kazakhstan's biotechnology sector
into a profitable high technologies sector.
In August 2006, Kazakhstani
officials indicated that the country planned to expand its biological weapon
nonproliferation measures. Specifically, the country intends to create a disease
surveillance system by constructing and modernizing diagnostic laboratories,
improving the physical protection at biological facilities, and expanding joint
research between Kazakhstani and U.S. scientists.
Key Sources:
[1] Gulbarshyn Bozheyeva, Yerlan Kunakbayev, and Dastan
Yeleukenov, "Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past,
Present and Future," Occasional Paper, No. 1, Center for Nonproliferation
Studies, June 1999.
[2] Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, "The
1971 Smallpox Epidemic in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Biological Warfare
Program," Occasional Paper No. 9, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 2002.
[3] Anthony Rimmington, "The Biopharmaceutical Industry in Kazakhstan:
Opportunities for UK Companies," Report of the DTI OSTEMS 'Scout' Mission to
Kazakhstan, University of Birmingham, July 1995.
[4] Official web site of the National Center for Biotechnology under
the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science, accessed 3 March 2008,
<http://www.biocenter.kz/ncb.htm>.
 |
| |
Updated March 2008 |
|
|
