Ousted Whitney Trustee Warren Kanders Reneges on Promise Not to Sell Tear Gas
Warren Kanders, who in 2019 resigned from his place as vice chair of the board of New York’s Whitney American Museum of Artwork over his ties to protection provider Safariland, continues to be promoting chemical weapons regardless of his promise to divest from them, The Intercept reviews. Kanders, who stays the chairman and CEO of Safariland, stepped down from the Whitney board within the wake of widespread calls within the artwork world for his departure. The outcry culminated in a scathing Artfroum.com essay written by Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett by which the authors questioned why collaborating artists had didn’t boycott the Whitney Biennial given Kanders’s profiteering off the tear gasoline used in opposition to protesters at Standing Rock, demonstrators responding to the murders of Freddie Grey in Baltimore and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, respectively; and people marching in opposition to austerity in Puerto Rico, whose numbers included youngsters. A slew of artists subsequently withdrew their work from the Biennial and Kanders left the board. Almost a 12 months later, after its merchandise had been deployed in opposition to civilians protesting the loss of life of George Floyd by the hands of Minneapolis police, Safariland introduced that it could dump Protection Expertise and Monadnock, the 2 firms accountable for making tear gasoline.
Nonetheless, in keeping with The Intercept, Kanders didn’t spin off Protection Expertise however as a substitute reorganized his holdings, with Protection Expertise and Safariland each registered as belonging to Cadre Holdings, which Kanders has owned since 2012. Although Cadre Holdings doesn’t point out Protection Expertise on its web site, it claimed in an SEC submitting final 12 months to depend the chemical weapons producer as among the many twenty-three firms it owns. Cadre in its March 2022 annual shareholder report listed Protection Expertise as a subsidiary, noting that the corporate used poisonous compounds in its “crowd management merchandise” and warning buyers that “personal events might carry claims in opposition to us based mostly on alleged hostile well being impacts or property harm brought on by our operations.” The Intercept moreover factors out that Cadre, Safariland, and Protection Expertise share the identical Jacksonville, Florida, mailing deal with; the publication additional notes that its calls to Protection Expertise had been met with a recorded greeting from Safariland.
Tear gasoline, regardless of its frequent use in opposition to protesters within the US and different areas across the globe, is prohibited on the battlefield beneath the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which bans chemical warfare.
