The WHO: a mouthpiece for Beijing
(Xinhua/Chen Junxia)
Over 80,000 have died in this global pandemic and a gloomy economic forecast looms. A quarter of the world population is under some form of quarantine. Yet, this crisis could have been avoided, or significantly minimised, if not for the incompetence at the core of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general throughout the Covid-19 crisis, is a symptom of the incompetence at the heart of this UN agency, which has placed the lives and livelihoods of billions at risk. What’s more, the WHO has allowed itself to become a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.
Tedros is the first WHO director-general who is not a trained medic. Having gained his PhD in Community Health from the University of Nottingham, he then began his career as a bureaucrat back in Ethiopia. Some improvements were recorded during Tedros’s time in the ministry, but numerous scandals came to light in 2017, as Tedros campaigned for his current role.
The health ministry under Tedros was at the centre of a disagreement over cholera outbreaks in 2006, 2009 & 2011. The ministry declined to diagnose the outbreak as cholera, claiming that test results were outstanding at the time. Opponents accused the government of keeping the outbreak under wraps by labelling it as “ acute watery diarrhoea ” — a symptom of cholera — to downplay its severity. This is not to mention the generally abysmal human rights record of the Ethiopian administration that Tedros served, which has routinely misdirected funds, including for the construction of unsuitable medical facilities.
The African Union delegation to the UN dismissed a 2017 New York Times expose on Tedros’s track record, as “ an unfounded and unverified defamation campaign .” There was never an investigation.
During Tedros’s term as Ethiopian foreign minister, the Kenyan president and his deputy faced crimes against humanity charges for the alleged orchestration of a killing spree in the aftermath of a disputed 2007 election. Amid the international controversy in 2013, Tedros said “Sitting heads of state and government should not be prosecuted while in office. We have resolved to speak with one voice to make sure that our concerns are heard loud and clear.”
Holding office does not absolve a politician of moral or legal consequences. By refusing to pressure sitting politicians to face trial, especially in regimes where term limits are already subject to abuse, alleged illegal activities are able to flourish. It also leaves the apparatus of government in the hands of authorities that may seek to suppress opposition to the ongoing abuses.
Tedros’s political instincts have also been apparent in his handling of the Covid-19 outbreak. He allowed the WHO to accept China’s denial of human-to-human transmission of Covid-19 in the virus’s early stages — it is usual for the WHO to take account of evidence provided by its member states. The WHO accepted China’s account of the disease despite Taiwan’s evidence to the contrary. Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. As a direct result, the world lost a window of time in which a pandemic may have been averted.
Meanwhile, 5 million people were permitted to leave Wuhan in the early stages of the Coronavirus outbreak, negating the international benefits of the quarantine. Despite this, Tedros and the WHO have continued to praise Beijing’s cooperation and transparency . This is despite the fact that Chinese authorities have imprisoned citizen journalists reporting on the virus , along with banning countless foreign correspondents . The Chinese government undoubtedly continues to manipulate infection and death figures.
This continued cowardice in the face of Chinese imperialism led to an awkward exchange between a Hong Kong journalist and a WHO epidemiologist. The epidemiologist refused to discuss Taiwan’s response to the pandemic. When the interviewer raised the prospect of Taiwan joining the WHO — a notion that China strongly opposes — the WHO official “claimed not to be able to hear the question properly, after which the line disconnected.” The WHO has even caved in to promoting pseudoscientific Chinese herbal remedies as a measure against the virus.
No political career is blameless, but Tedros’s efforts at the WHO have been cause for deep concern. He is now no longer just a threat to Ethiopia. He is a threat to the world.
