| « The
United States is quite content with the results obtained today here. We believe that the
decision that has just adopted unanimously the Conference represents a program of work
constructive and realistic for the States left... a realistic judgement with regard to
what one will be able to reach with success in this forum during next the années. »
Thus the super power it is expressed officially on work of the 5th Conference of
examination of the Convention against the biological weapons, which sat last week in
Geneva.
If the United States could be satisfied of it, it is that they managed to sabotage the
protocol of control of Convention while saving the face, and this while making adopt a
program of work which aims at voluntary measurements, therefore nonverifiable. In fact,
the controls envisaged by the protocol would have put the light on what is becoming the
most important program of biological weapons ever conceived.
NETWORK OF CHECKING
The year spent, when the super power put disorder in the
conference of examination, while calling with a renunciation of the protocol (in building
site since 1996 and almost completed), the other countries signatories had decided to
suspend the conference during one year, time to allow discussions and consultations
between them.
The NGO (no-government organisation), they, quickly felt
from which the wind came, and they engaged to set up a nongovernmental international
network of checking. This network, Bioweapons Prevention Project (Project of prevention
against the biological weapons) was launched to Geneva on November 11, day of the
resumption of the conference.
Supported by eleven NGO, including Pax Christi
International, the Office of the Quakers at the United Nations and Physicians for Social
Responsibility (Doctors for the social responsibility), this network proposes to do what
the governments of the world did not dare make : an international monitoring of the
developments in the fields of biotechnology, the intrigues of the governments, the
transparency with regard to the products with double uses (soldier and civil). The results
will be published in a specific way and will aim at the extension of the network
throughout the whole world to imply there as many ONG, researchers, experts, citizens that
possible.
Co-ordinating based in Geneva, Ditta Ciganikova, explains
that the possibilities of monitoring are vast, in spite of the secrecy which surrounds
military research. Professor Malcolm Dando, of the University of Bradford (GB) and expert
of world reputation in the field of the biological weapons, add : « More of
what is woven in the civil field passes between the hands of the soldiers, and vice versa.
It is enough to be vigilant and to know to read between lines, so to speak. There will be
never all the precise data, but one can have some to paint enough with confidence a
picture rather detailed. »
WORK OF THE MEDIAS
Then, begins again Mme Ciganikova, it is necessary to
disseminate information with possible general public so that people realize of the danger.
It will be the work of the NGO, according to their possibilities, and, of course, that of
the medias. Is the threat of the biological weapons really so real that one cannot await
the next
conference of examination of the treaty on these weapons, envisaged into 2006, as the
States-Unis wish it? The response on behalf of the civil company is unanime :
one could not exaggerate the urgency of the situation
Professor Steve Wright of Omaga Foundation, of Manchester
(GB), NGO which follows the evolution of anti-riots measurements developed by the
governments to use them against their own populations, produced a
report/ratio which makes cold in the back - « Future Technologies not-lethal
able to put out of state to harm and of paralyser : their role in the future in the
production of mass of torture, and the cruel, inhuman treatment and degrading. »
One sees from the start which there exists in truth two
shutters of the problems, for the biological weapons are complémentées by the chemical
weapons, they also in full rise. Thus, beside rifles with microwaves, which gives
in a few seconds to the victim a fever of 40° celsius (developed by the British) or of
the « calmants » who induce the coma or the total paralysis (in study a little
everywhere), one finds stocks of bacteria (developed by the Israelis) able to stick to a
gene characteristic of a particular ethnique group (in fact those of certain Arab
communities of the Middle East, especially Iraqis) and able to kill more quickly than the
plague.
PRODUCTS « ORPHANS »
Good number of the biological weapons are pharmaceutical
products « orphans ». Developed with great costs by the pharmaceutical
companies, it proved too toxic to be used like drug. The pharmaceutical companies thus try
to make profitable their investment by selling them for their offensive properties.
Microbiologist Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, which defrayed the
chronicle the year spent while indicating a military laboratory like origin of the stock
of the bacillus of the coal (Carbuncle) which terrorized the United States, has also a
very clear opinion. It estimates that research is much more advanced than think the
majority of the experts and than there is already a new generation of biological
weapons which will be tested in the future war against Iraq.
« Ce which perhaps frightened me more in the
history of the use of gas in the theatre of Moscow, notes it, it is the speed to which the
subject disappeared from the medias, without debate. People swallowed the assertion that
the gas was used to protect the hostages and that the 118 dead ones and the hundred
patients always at the hospital were only collateral damage. That lets fear that the
United States is not useful itself of this business to legitimate the use of gas in Iraq,
by affirming that the neutralization of the civil populations by this
means draw aside them from the engagements, therefore protect them...»
This article was initially published by the Mail of
Geneva, November 21 2002, and is reproduced with its pleasant authorization.
Robert-James Parsons
Journalist, administrator of Réseau Voltaire
|
