Decades of Suspicions: Did German Companies Aid Syrian Chemical Weapons Program?
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 weaponslast year.
Berlin immediately classified the list and has since kept it under lock and key. The government says that releasing the names would “significantly impair foreign policy interests and thus the welfare of the Federal Republic of Germany.” It also argues that doing so would be akin to releasing “trade secrets” and as such would violate the German constitution.
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