The State Department has ceased their funding to the Syria Civil Defense, aka the White Helmets. This is much to the chagrin of the mainstream media, which has championed the organization’s volunteers as selfless heroes.
Trump announced a $200 million freeze on recovery funds in March, catching the White Helmets in his crosshairs. The policy was enacted shortly after the President’s statement that the U.S. would withdraw from Syria “very soon,” though before the Douma chemical incident that triggered U.K., U.S. and French air strikes around Damascus.
The White Helmets are a volunteer organization that captured the hearts of the Western media with videos apparently depicting humanitarian missions in Syrian rebel-held areas. The self-proclaimed “neutral and impartial” organization narrowly missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize, but did manage to win an Oscar thanks to a Netflix documentary depicting the volunteers as heroes. While the funding freeze has roots going back to March, April has been a bad month for the White Helmets, with real questions emerging about their “good guy” narrative.
It was the White Helmets who alerted the West to the Douma chemical attack, however Russia and Syria allege that the video evidence supplied by the organization was fabricated, and have brought 15 witnesses to testify at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) headquarters.
Funding Freeze
It appears that the State department has frozen funding to the White Helmets, though they have not confirmed it. Spokesperson Heather Nauert reluctantly admitted in April that the organization’s funding is “under review,” though she said that as far as she was aware, their work was continuing. Another official reportedly told Newsweek that they expect White Helmets operations to continue “as a result of additional multilateral donations,” adding that “the President has been clear that partners and allies should assume a larger role in stabilizing Syria.”
Heather Nauert
Syria Civil Defense Chairman Raed Saleh stated that the organization had received no official notice that U.S. funding would end, though he appeared to confirm a funding freeze with dismay, telling CBS News that, “If this is a long-term or permanent halt, it would have a serious impact on our ability to provide the same intensity and quality of services that we currently provide to civilians.”
Strangely, Saleh later denied that the White Helmets received any funding from the U.S. or other governments, telling Al Jazeera that they “did not receive any direct funding from the US or any other country” and that “The White Helmets receives funding from organizations and associations.” This is a clear untruth, as USAID claims to have provided “over $32 million in assistance to the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD).” The White Helmets website also says that “Syria Civil Defence receives funding (through Mayday Rescue and Chemonics) from the governments of the UK, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA.”
Did the White Helmets Fabricate Douma?
Russia and Syria have repeatedly denied any involvement in the Douma chemical attack, but they have now gone further to allege that no chemical attack took place at all and that the episode has been a White Helmet hoax. In an event largely ignored by the mainstream media, Russia brought fifteen unharmed Douma residents as witnesses to testify at OPCW headquarters at The Hague. Russian OPCW delegate Alexander Shulgin called the white Helmet footage a “sloppily staged” video used for a “groundless” attack on Syria before introducing the witness.
According to doctors and medical staff working at the hospital, the patients seen in the White helmets footage were in fact suffering from moderate asphyxiation symptoms after inhaling dust and smoke as a result a nearby air strike. While treating the patients, one doctor alleged that White Helmet volunteers entered, spreading hysteria, claiming that there had been a chemical attack and dousing people in water. Doctor Khalil al-Jaish alleged that there was no evidence of chemical injuries and that nobody died as a result of a chemical attack or the nearby bombings that day.
Among the witnesses was 11-year-old boy Hassan Diab, who indeed bears a striking resemblance to an alleged victim in the White Helmet footage of the chemical attack. Diab stated that he and his mother were sheltering from bombings in a basement, before hearing people shouting they needed to go to the hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital, he claims that he was inexplicably doused in cold water and then released.
The testifiers denied that they were under any government pressure to come forward, with one responding to questions that, “We came here not because we were under pressure. Nobody told us what to say, we came here to tell the truth.”
Western OPCW ambassadors boycotted the briefing, which French envoy Philippe Lalliot derided as an “obscene masquerade.”
Are the White Helmets Truly Impartial?
Russia and Syria have repeatedly claimed that the White Helmets are working with Islamist terrorist groups ranging from Al-Qaida to ISIS. No definitive evidence has emerged to support those accusations, although a variety of photos and videos have triggered alarm bells, including footage of a man in a white helmets t-shirt assisting militants to dump the corpses of Syrian soldiers and a staged “mannequin challenge” video that brought into question the credibility of the organization’s rescue efforts.
The OPCW has completed an initial fact-finding mission in Douma, where it collected samples to be analyzed over the coming weeks. Although it is not within their remit to attribute blame for any chemical attack, the OPCW should at least be able to settle the matter of whether a chemical attack took place, and thus hold the reputation of the White helmets in their hand.
Trump’s desire to leave Syria prompted the U.S. funding freeze for the White Helmets, but with the Douma narrative being questioned even by U.S. public officials, is it also possible that the State Department senses bad press up ahead and is preparing to distance itself from this enigmatic organization?
