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Aaron Maté·July 2, 2021 / thegrayzone.com - Facing growing outcry, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias went before the UN and told new falsehoods about his organization’s Syria cover-up scandal — along with more disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it.

Part one of two. Watch Aaron Maté and Piers Robinson discuss this article on Pushback.

In the two years since the censorship of a Syria chemical weapons investigation was exposed, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Fernando Arias, has vigorously resisted accountability.

Arias has refused to investigate or explain the extensive manipulation of the OPCW’s probe of an alleged April 2018 chlorine attack in Douma. Rather than answer calls to meet with the veteran inspectors who protested the deception, Arias has disparaged them. The OPCW Director General (DG) has even resorted to feigning ignorance about the scandal, recently claiming that “I don’t know why” the organization’s final report on Douma “was contested.”

Facing growing pressure to address the cover-up – most prominently in a “Statement of Concern” from 28 notable signatories, including five former senior OPCW officials – Arias came before the United Nations Security Council on June 3rd to answer questions in open session for the first time.

In a nod to the public outcry, Arias backtracked from a previous statement that the Douma controversy could not be revisited. But while appearing to suggest that the investigation could be reopened, Arias offered more falsehoods about the scandal, and new disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it.

Malcolm X as Relevant Today as 50 Years Ago PDF Print E-mail
Saturday, 21 February 2015 08:55

mxFifty years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was brutally murdered in New York City. With his assassination, the United States missed a chance to fully address some of the racial issues that persist to this day.

He was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Neb. He was raised mostly in Lansing, Michigan, where his father, Earl, an outspoken follower of the black self-determination proponent Marcus Garvey, was killed, allegedly by white supremacists. Earl’s death devastated the Little family and eventually led young Malcolm, an exceptional grade school student, to drift into a life of petty crime and drug abuse.

Malcolm went to prison in Massachusetts some years later. It was here where he found himself and his voice when he converted to the religion and worldview of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm X emerged from prison a changed man. He became the leading spokesman for racial separatism in America, but also against racism in a very different way from traditional civil rights groups. And he did more than speak out against racism in the abstract; he also spoke out on particular concerns, some of which remain with us.

In a May 1964 speech, he talked about police brutality in black communities.

 

“A black man in America lives in a police state,” he said. “He doesn’t live in any democracy. He lives in a police state.”

In February 1965, Malcolm X again responded in a speech in Detroit to the problem of police brutality. This time, he noted the role of the media. “The press is used to make it look like (the black man) is the criminal and (the police force is) the victim,” he stated.

This statement addresses the phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly in the past few years in incidents of police brutality involving black men killed in New York; Ferguson, Missouri; and other cities.

By the mid-1960s, Malcolm X was a major player in the civil rights struggles in America. His was an alternate view to Martin Luther King’s call for togetherness to achieve change.

Malcolm X visited Selma in early February 1965 during the campaign for voting rights at the invitation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was direct and confrontational.

“Since the ballot is our right,” he stated, “we are within our right to use whatever means is necessary to secure those rights.”

Considering all of the current attempts to curtail voting rights through voter ID laws and other such tactics, a voice like Malcolm X on this subject would be quite relevant today.

Malcolm X’s place in history continues to evolve. Fifty years ago, more than a life of a great leader was lost. The country also lost a chance to address racial issues that continue to divide the nation.

 

Poet Brian Gilmore is a public interest lawyer and law professor; his latest book is We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters. He can be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Last Updated on Thursday, 12 July 2018 03:20
 

RickRozoff/StopNATO

Keith Harmon Snow/Black Agenda Report

American Everyman

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