By Jun Sheng

While the tension between Russia and Ukraine is protracting, Russia, in the middle of its military operations, has discovered the US-sponsored military biological program carried out in Ukraine and obtained a host of evidence thereof. In face of the increasing doubts and accusations from the international community, the US simply denied them all without giving a comprehensive clarification or accepting multi-lateral verification, which has further aggravated the world’s concerns over its biological military activities and once again proved Washington to be a destroyer of global bio-safety.

Since taking effect in 1975, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological(Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, generally known as Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), has played an important role in eliminating the threats of bio-weapons, prohibiting their proliferation, and promoting the peaceful use of biotechnology.

However, for all these years, the US, a contracting party to the convention, has been the only country obstructing the establishment of a verification mechanism for it and refusing any verification of its bio-facilities either at home or abroad. This has made the international community even more concerned.

On the diplomatic front, the US is in the habit of pointing fingers at other countries on the grounds of “compliance with conventions” or “verification”, but it neither cares nor dares to face up to doubts directed at itself. The White House has brushed off the evidence obtained by Russia in Ukraine, including files, photos and physical items, with a simple “disinformation”.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, the US has been providing technical support for the construction and renovation of some of its bio-labs since 2005. What’s surprising – or not – is that in face of the international community’s worries and concerns about its sponsorship for bio-labs overseas, US media, the self-claimed paragon of the freedom of the press, has kept quiet except repeating what the US government said without doing field investigations on their own.

As a matter of fact, the US carries out the most biological military activities with the least degree of transparency, and what’s found in Ukraine is just the tip of an iceberg. The US Department of Defense controls 336 bio-labs in 30 countries worldwide, whose activities it has kept secret while claiming they are used for “peaceful purposes” and “coordination and cooperation”. In conducting these “biological cooperation and participation programs” overseas, it is the US Department of Defense that is engaging with the health authorities in the host countries.

These American-supported or funded labs are conducting biological military activities in the disguise of “R&D for peaceful purposes”. The Fort Detrick (US Army Medical Command installation) in Frederick, Maryland of the US, which inherits the monstrous legacy from Unit 731 of imperialist Japanese troops, has been and remains the research center for America’s bio-warfare, and it has continued to develop and stockpile biological agents of warfare even after America joined the BWC.

Fort Detrick is home to a huge amount of viruses that seriously threaten human security and it is prone to many security hazards and loopholes. Having seen multiple security events, the fort was shut down in July 2019, and its connection with the leak and spread of novel coronavirus remains a mystery today.

Analysis by experts shows that the global distribution of America’s bio-labs coincides with the origins of some dangerous diseases and viruses that have been spreading in recent years. But the US government is determined to play dumb in front of the intense concerns and questions posed at home and abroad and refuses an investigation by the international community.

But truth must come out. Abiding by the BWC is the obligation of all contracting parties. The US should respond to the doubts directed at it, make clarifications, and accept multi-lateral verification. Its stubborn insistence on standing against the international community and its unscrupulous damage of global bio-safety will cast a shadow over the future of the human community.