Decades of Suspicions: Did German Companies Aid Syrian Chemical Weapons Program?

[Surya Gayatri]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/


Chemical weapons were used in the Syrian civil war in 2013. German companies may have helped build up the country's production facilities.

Government documents and information from the Assad regime indicate that German companies may have helped Syria produce chemical weapons over the course of decades. So far, the Merkel administration has shown no willingness to investigate.

When it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the German government is unyielding -- particularly when it comes to finding excuses for why it should do nothing when it comes to potential German perpetrators.

For more than 16 months, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has been in possession of a list containing the names of German companies thought to have helped Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his father Hafis build up Syria's chemical weapons arsenal over the course of several decades. Ultimately, it became one of the largest such arsenals in the world.

The German government, a coalition between Merkel's conservatives and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel's center-left Social Democrats (SPD), received the list from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its "extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons." Together with experts from the United Nations, the OPCW organized and carried out the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons last year.

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Excellent 'j'accuse' by Der Spiegel Int'l on the German government's 'forked tongue' in respect to chemical weapons.