{"id":232355,"date":"2023-03-27T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=232355"},"modified":"2023-03-27T05:01:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T04:01:51","slug":"aaron-mate-at-un-opcw-cover-up-denies-justice-to-douma-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/03\/aaron-mate-at-un-opcw-cover-up-denies-justice-to-douma-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Mat\u00e9 at UN: OPCW Cover-up Denies Justice to Douma Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>At the United Nations, Aaron Mat\u00e9 debunks the OPCW\u2019s latest attempts to whitewash the cover-up of its investigation into the alleged April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/aaron-mate-unsc-syria.webp\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-232356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/aaron-mate-unsc-syria-1024x576.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>25 Mar 2023 &#8211; <\/em>On Friday March 24, I spoke to the United Nations Security Council about the OPCW\u2019s ongoing cover-up of its investigation into the alleged April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of the scandal are two veteran OPCW scientists who deployed to Syria in April 2018 for the OPCW\u2019s Douma probe. The pair have accused senior OPCW officials of manipulating the investigation to reach a conclusion that baselessly implicated the Syrian government in a chlorine gas attack. Their concerns are backed up by a trove of leaked documents, which I have extensively reported on.<\/p>\n<p>I addressed the latest efforts by the OPCW, in a new report put out by the watchdog\u2019s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), to whitewash the cover-up and the allegations against Syria. I wrote about the IIT report <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mate.substack.com\/p\/in-douma-cover-up-opcws-new-smoking\"  rel=\"\">in an article last month,<\/a> and will have a follow-up piece in the coming days.<\/p>\n<p>I will also have more coverage of Friday\u2019s meeting very soon. A very significant development emerged: for the first time, Brazil came out in support of accountability for the OPCW\u2019s Douma cover-up; criticized the IIT\u2019s \u201cpoor\u201d handling of the issue; and challenged the US and other member states for <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thegrayzone.com\/2020\/10\/05\/ex-opcw-chief-jose-bustani-reads-syria-testimony-that-us-uk-blocked-at-un\/\"  rel=\"\">blocking the testimony<\/a> of Jose Bustani, the OPCW\u2019s first Director General, who has also <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thegrayzone.com\/2020\/10\/18\/ex-opcw-chief-defends-syria-whistleblowers-and-reveals-he-was-spied-on-before-iraq-war\/\"  rel=\"\">criticized the cover-up<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>For now, here are my opening remarks:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"youtube2-v1BCtPgyxYI\" class=\"youtube-wrap\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;v1BCtPgyxYI&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}\">\n<div class=\"youtube-inner\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/v1BCtPgyxYI?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0\" width=\"728\" height=\"409\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscription-widget-wrap\">\n<div class=\"subscription-widget show-subscribe\">\n<div class=\"preamble\">\n<p>___________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/aaron-mate.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-217510 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/aaron-mate-e1679889276871.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>Aaron Mat\u00e9 is a journalist with<\/em> The Grayzone, <em>where he hosts<\/em> \u201cPushback.\u201d <em>He is also a contributor to<\/em> Real Clear Investigations <em>and the temporary co-host of<\/em> \u201cUseful Idiots.\u201d <em>In 2019, Mat\u00e9 won the\u00a0Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in<\/em> The Nation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mate.substack.com\/p\/aaron-mate-at-un-opcw-cover-up-denies?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=100118&amp;post_id=110607036&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;utm_medium=email\" >Go to Original \u2013 mate.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>25 Mar 2023 &#8211; At the United Nations, Aaron Mat\u00e9 debunks the OPCW\u2019s latest attempts to whitewash the cover-up of its investigation into the alleged April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":232356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1441,417,1749,1284,1126,1113,1050,1624,2571,112,413,70,1750],"class_list":["post-232355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-united-nations","tag-big-oil","tag-bullying","tag-chemical-weapons-attack","tag-false-flag","tag-hegemony","tag-hoax","tag-imperialism","tag-mafia","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-pentagon","tag-syria","tag-usa","tag-white-helmets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232355"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232358,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232355\/revisions\/232358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}