Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 18.Commentary: Opaque, Insecure, Illegal – How Many Secrets Does the U.S. Department of Defense Hide in Over 300 Biological Laboratories Controlled Worldwide?
Xinhua News Agency reporter Qiao Jihong
Recently, the US Department of Defense’s biological laboratory in Ukraine has attracted great attention from all parties. Over the years, there have been endless news about the massive bio-militarization activities carried out by the United States inside and outside its borders. These activities are opaque, unsafe and illegal, causing serious concerns and doubts in the international community.
The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have recently stated that Russia has discovered a military biological program funded by the United States and implemented in Ukraine during military operations, and has obtained a large amount of evidence. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov said on the 10th that the U.S. biological laboratory in Ukraine has conducted experiments on bat coronavirus samples. White House spokesman Psaki denied it on social media. According to the data released by the United States itself, the United States has 26 biological laboratories and other related facilities in Ukraine, and the US Department of Defense has absolute control. All dangerous viruses in Ukraine must be stored in these laboratories, and all research activities are led by the United States. No information is allowed to be disclosed without the permission of the US side.
In the face of mounting questions and accusations, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has simply admitted that Ukraine has “biological research facilities.” However, according to statistics, the US Department of Defense controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world in the name of “cooperating to reduce biosecurity risks” and “strengthening global public health“. Such a large number, yet little is known to the outside world, has been widely questioned by the international community: U.S. biomilitary activities in Ukraine may be just the tip of the iceberg.
The U.S. approach is not transparent. The US biological laboratory has been covered with a thick layer of fog for a long time. The US official has repeatedly argued that these laboratories are used for so-called “peaceful purposes” and “cooperation”, but why are they kept secret? It’s not Uncle Sam’s style to do good deeds anonymously. In many overseas “biological cooperation participation plans” of the United States, the agency that contacts the health department of the host country is the US Department of Defense. In other words, institutions under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon directly fund, manage and operate biological laboratories overseas, rather than neutral civilian scientific research institutions.
In Ukraine, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, the United States has provided technical support for the construction and modernization of some biological laboratories since 2005. Strangely, the U.S. embassy in Ukraine urgently deleted relevant documents on its official website at the end of February. Gatangieva, a Bulgarian investigative journalist, said the U.S. response showed that they were concerned about the outside world knowing what the U.S. was doing in those labs.
In the United States, the Fort Detrick Biological Base is also full of doubts, and even the American media has called it “the center of the darkest experiments conducted by the US government.” The base has experienced multiple security incidents and was shut down in July 2019. However, in the face of strong concerns and doubts at home and abroad, the U.S. government has always chosen to avoid talking about it and is unwilling to accept the investigation of the international community. What is the hidden secret behind this, and what is the hidden purpose?
The U.S. approach is not safe. The US biological laboratory may pose a serious threat to the safety of people in the relevant areas. In September 2021, the Russian Satellite News Agency reported that the South Korean group took the biochemical laboratory of the US military stationed in South Korea and the Fort Detrick base to court, saying that Fort Detrick had sent the biochemical laboratory of the US military stationed in South Korea 15 times. The anthrax germ, a biological weapon, provokes fear. Francis Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois who drafted the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, said about 13,000 scientists in hundreds of U.S. labs inside and outside the country are working on developing vaccines that are resistant to vaccines. , New strains that are aggressive to humans.
In terms of location, most of the new biological laboratories in the United States are located in Asia and Africa, including some former Soviet republics. Why aren’t these labs located on American soil? Anna Popova, director of the Consumer Protection and Public Welfare Supervision Bureau of the Russian Federation, once said that the distribution map of the Central Asia region where new epidemics broke out in the world is highly consistent with the distribution of overseas biological laboratories deployed by the US Department of Defense.
What the US does is illegal. U.S. biological laboratories often wear the guise of “peaceful research and development” and engage in biological military activities. The United States has a long history of using biological and chemical weapons. The Fort Detrick base inherited the devilish legacy of the Japanese invading “Unit 731” and was historically the center of the U.S. biological weapons program. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency in September 2021, U.S. historian Jeffrey Kay said that the documents released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in recent years have “solidly hammered” the U.S.’s use of biological weapons in the Korean War. “Fort Detrick was and is still the research center for biological warfare in the United States.” After the United States joined the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975, the base continued to develop and store biological warfare agents. Even more puzzling is that if the United States does abide by the BWC, why has the United States exclusively opposed the establishment of a multilateral verification mechanism for 20 years?
Biological militarization is a major issue concerning international peace and security and the security interests of all countries. Under the current situation, from the perspective of the health and safety of people around the world, the United States should announce the relevant details as soon as possible, including which viruses are stored in which biological laboratories around the world and which research has been carried out.
Life comes first, morality first. The United States should respond to the concerns of the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner, earnestly fulfill its obligations as a state party to the Convention, make comprehensive clarifications on its domestic and foreign biological laboratories, stop all biological militarization activities and accept multilateral verification. The US should return the truth to the world and not blindly cover it up. This cannot be dealt with in a sentence or two.