Vanessa Beeley: OPCW Turned Into Accessory to West's War Crimes
Exactly 26 years ago, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) entered into force on April 29, 1997. However, over the years, the watchdog has lost its veneer of impartiality and transparency, becoming a convenient instrument in the West's geopolitical games. | "The OPCW was established in 1997 to effectively end the production, the stockpiling, and the transfer of chemical weapons and of course the use of chemical weapons in a war situation and the elimination of any existing stocks of these weapons over time," Vanessa Beeley, an independent investigative journalist who specializes on the Middle East and Syria, told Sputnik. "But in my opinion, what we see with the OPCW, as we see with the International Criminal Court (ICC), is even if these organizations were originally set up with the best intentions, eventually they are infiltrated, they are influenced, and compromised by the powerful countries, particularly among the neocolonialist Western blocs, into following an agenda or providing corroboration of an agenda. And of course, we've seen that on numerous occasions with the OPCW, and more recently with the ICC."