Update on the OPCW-Douma Controversy, December 2023

Brazil again challenges the OPCW at the UN Security Council

Authors Note: The OPCW-Douma controversy concerns the issue of alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria (see here for a recent overview article). In 2018 the US, UK and France bombed Syria after accusing the Syrian government of having launched a chlorine gas attack that killed 43 civilians. Immediately controversial, it subsequently emerged that two whistle blower scientists involved in the investigation of the alleged attack reported that evidence and reports were being manipulated so as to reach a ‘preordained conclusion’. My work with the Berlin Group 21 (comprised of Hans von Sponeck, Professor Richard Falk, José Bustani and myself), along with that of Aaron Maté, the Working Group on Syria, Media and Propaganda, Wikileaks, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and Peter Hitchens, has now demonstrated that the West has effectively co-opted the Syria investigations, manipulating them to place blame on the Syrian government, as a part of a wider strategic ‘regime-change’ objective of overthrowing the Syrian government. I continue to work with the Berlin Group 21 which represents the issues raised by the whistleblower scientists.

In May 2023 the Berlin Group 21 published a 50,000 word review of the OPCW’s investigation into the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma on the 7th of April 2018. Drawing upon a substantial body of primary sources, and including testimony of the OPCW’s own inspectors, our review demonstrated that the OPCW’s investigation was fundamentally flawed, both scientifically and procedurally. Consequently, the claim made by the OPCW that there were reasonable grounds the alleged attack occurred was ‘untenable’.

In July, at the UN Security Council, Brazil challenged the OPCW to respond to the issues raised in our review:

Brazil received with deep concern the most recent report circulated by the Berlin Group 21 in the Hague on the process that led to the publication of the final report of the mission deployed to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma in April 2018. The document raises a host of extremely concerning issues that the OPCW should not ignore if it is to preserve the credibility of its conclusions, regarding not only the Douma incident but all aspects of non-verification missions. We expect the OPCW Director-General and the Secretariat to address the issues raised in the Berlin Group review in a transparent manner, preferably by the next session of the OPCW executive council.

They received no response. Then, at the recent OPCW Conference of States Parties (CSP28) in November, the Brazilian ambassador repeated the call, stating the following:

We remain extremely concerned with the questions related to the non-routine inspections in Syria, questions that must be properly and unequivocally addressed by the Organisation. Genuine efforts in this regards would demonstrate its commitment to transparency and evidence based rigour in its verification processes. These measures are even more necessary given the past episodes of political interference in OPCW, such as was the case with the dismissal on spurious grounds of its first Director General José Bustani in 2002.

At the end of this conference, in a contentious decision - C-28/DEC.12 - the US and its allies forced through a document on the Syria chemical weapons file.

At the December 22nd UNSC meeting in New York, the Brazilian government once again demanded that the issues raised about the OPCW’s Syria investigations be properly addressed. This meeting appears to have followed both China and Brazil refusing to allow the US and its allies to push discussions about Syria onto the agenda of the preceding two UNSC meetings (see extract below from a UN briefing journal).

Brazil, once again, reiterated its concerns that the numerous questions surrounding the Syria investigations were still to be addressed. Regarding C28/DEC.12, Brazil stated:

… the decision in question was adopted by a very contentious vote in which the majority of member states either voted against or chose to abstain or to be absent. This result clearly demonstrates how this decision failed to garner broad support … It represents another dangerous step towards the erosion of support in an organisation that was once based on consensus. Brazil abstained … out of the conviction that it runs counter to the mandate of the OPCW and works at cross purposes to our efforts to shore up the credibility of the organisation. The result of the voting also indicate that this concern is shared by a growing number of states and merits serious reflection.

The OPCW currently faces a crisis of credibility, as evidenced by the recurrent questions raised in relation to inspection activities in Syria. We believe that these issues must be properly and unequivocally addressed by the OPCW with a view to breaking the current cycle of counterproductive controversies and to preserving the credibility of the organisation. Throughout this year Brazil has been making concrete proposals to this end in the policy making bodies of the OPCW which thus far have not been heeded.

We deeply regret that instead of addressing these issues, the decision will contribute to furthering distrust and increasing divides … its [OPCW] credibility depends on the broad support from all of its 193 members as well as on the insulation of its technical activities from political interference. It is often said of judges that it is not enough to be impartial, the OPCW was also be seen to be impartial. We reiterate that the work of the OPCW in establishing the factual truth regarding the incidents of use of chemical weapons must be carried out with unequivocal commitment to transparency, impartiality and technical rigour. Only this will provide the basis for the attribution of responsibility by the UNSC .. repeated calls for criminal investigations or proceedings prior to attribution by the council take us further not closer to true accountability and to the resolution of this file. 

It is a sign of significant progress that the Brazilian government is continuing to press both the UNSC and the OPCW on this issue. The fact that a powerful state is now adding its voice to the many calls that have been made by, for example, the Russian Federation, Iran, and China, and for several years now, means that the problems identified by the courageous whistleblower scientists are not going away any time soon.

Equally, it is remarkable that the response on the part of the US and its allies, as well as the OPCW’s senior management, has been to ignore Brazil’s proposals to resolve the crisis. As the Berlin Group 21 has repeatedly stated (see exert below), the response to the Douma controversy, from the start, has involved a dogged refusal to engage with any of the issues raised by the OPCW’s own scientists.

The question now is how long the OPCW senior management and its Western backers can maintain the pretence that nothing went wrong with the Douma investigation. The West’s belligerent regime change strategy, pursued for many years, is clearly coming to an end, with strategic failure in Ukraine and now an embarrassing stand down in the face of the Houthis rebels. In short, it is not unreasonable to surmise that the days are numbered for the US-led co-optation of the OPCW for the purpose of strategic deceptions.

We look forward to further developments on this issue, which is of significant geo-political importance, in 2024.