Polish chemical weapons cover-up threatens US interests in Europe

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.

This article was originally published in New Europe.

Brussels and Warsaw may be at each other’s throats over the rule of law, but Poland’s slide into authoritarianism could also start rankling the US.

Recent allegations about a state-wide cover-up involving the Polish Ministry of Justice may deter US support for the ruling Law and Justice Party and damage what was once an unbreakable alliance.

It was just four days before the Polish presidential election in July, when the incumbent Andrzej Duda scored an invitation to the White House. Yet despite all the handshaking and back-slapping with Trump, a Biden administration is likely to have a dim view of this Polish government.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have abhorred the wave of brutal crackdowns on Poland’s judicial independence, abortion rights, ethnic minorities and the LGBTQ community. Since 2015, Poland has dropped 10 places on The Economist’s Democracy Index to below fellow “Illiberal Democracy” Hungary.

Yet a more left-field scandal could shatter US-Poland relations. In January 1997, Polish fishermen found five kilograms of Second World War mustard gas in the Baltic Sea. This was reasonably presumed to have been dumped by either Nazi or Soviet forces after the end of the war.

Following recent testimony given by lawyers and ex-army officials, these chemical weapons were taken to an army unit in Rozewie on the Polish coast and have since disappeared. The Polish Ministry of Justice had been informed as early as 2006 as to the disappearance of these weapons, yet no serious investigation has been conducted to this day.

Possible theories are that the Government actively sold these weapons off to less than reputable characters, or that they merely just tried to downplay the potential of an environmental catastrophe. While pressing charges against the Polish authorities, one of the fishermen, Karol Piernicki, found that he was up against the entire resources of Polish state. Key witnesses mysteriously lost all recollection of events and clear evidence of the fisherman suffering burns (sarcoidosis) were simply dismissed as pre-existing genetic conditions. The judge, Maciej Strączyński, brazenly concluded that even if there had been some contamination, there was a negligible amount anyway.

Strączyński in particular, epitomises the decline in standards amongst Polish judges. With his nickname ‘The Texas Guardian’, he is known for delivering brutally harsh sentences and having a laissez-faire approach in examining evidence. In explaining his decision to give a homeless man a life sentence of 40 years, he claimed that such people were “part of an inferior race” and that they “killed for pleasure”, so there was no point even trying to rehabilitate the defendant.

Yet investigative journalists at OKO.press have discovered that this environmental disaster is all too real. Of the 65,000 tonnes that were initially dumped in the Baltic Sea after the end of WWII, there are still around 40,000 tonnes of chemical ammunition off the Polish coast, containing at least 13,000 tonnes of toxic warfare agents. And not just in Poland, Danish trawlers off the coast of Bornholm regularly stumble across mustard gas from that era.

Failure to report the discovery of these weapons within 180 days would contravene international law under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yet unsurprisingly, neither country is prepared to deal with the negative PR. The supranational body supposed to keep a watchful eye on this, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has earned its reputation as a toothless regulator. According to Terrance Long, founder of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, the organisation was designed specifically to remove countries’ liabilities for dumping toxic munitions in seas throughout the 20th century.

30% of all fish tested in the Baltic Sea now contain warfare agents. This figure will only increase over time to almost 100% of the fish stocks, as such chemical weapons have a half-life of 5,000 years. EU consumers, plus the 16-20 million US citizens visiting Europe every year, would recoil in disgust, posing a serious financial problem as four of the seven largest European fish exporters come from the Baltic.

Although the Trump administration has not batted an eye-lid at any suspected cover-up, IDUM in collaboration with US environmental NGO Global Green have tried to address the stark situation in the Baltic Sea by raising public awareness. It appears they needn’t have gone through all that trouble given the actions of the Polish state via its troubling erosion of judicial independence.

And it doesn’t look like a punishment from the EU is coming any time soon. The European Parliament voted to trigger Article 7 back in December, starting the process of sanctions, including the removal of Poland’s voting rights. But with unanimous approval needed at EU Council level, Hungary’s veto threw a spanner in the works.

This September, in its first country-by-country assessment of rule-of law conditions, dubbed the Annual Rule of Law Report 2020, the Commission found over 30 “concerns” with the rule of law in Poland, almost double any other country. Something that was designed to show that Brussels was being more proactive on the rule of law, has proven how powerless it has been in its enforcement. The EU’s painstakingly long negotiated budget for the next 7 years has also not yet passed through the Parliament due to objections over the link of EU funds to how well countries respect the rule of law.

Since his reelection, Duda has predictably gone on an international charm offensive to quell any suspicions regarding the case. Yet his speech at the latest UN General Assembly raised more questions than it answered. Completely unprompted, he went on a peroration about how nations who violate a Convention on Chemical Weapons are “disturbing” and that “Poland did not accept and does not accept the fact that chemical weapons are still in use”.

To quote Francis Underwood, a fictional US presidential hopeful in Netflix’s House of Cards “The road to power is paved with hypocrisy”. Yet Duda’s brazen acts of doublethink may no longer wash with a Biden administration post-November. For Trump, of course, it would mean business as usual.