Appointing Tedros Adhanom essentially represents disrespect for the values of humanity

By Dimetros Birku

Albeit incautious optimism, retrospectively, about better prospect of peace and human rights, among other things, what happened in the world since the fall of the Berlin wall proved, arguably, that the international system and the so called the “international community” is rather a façade.

In stead of being better than its predecessor, the League of Nations, the United Nations descended into a new low point of uselessness. Whether what happened in the Balkan in the 90’s or the reduction of Iraq from one of the strongest states in the region to what it is now – weak, unstable and divided – because of US unilateral war based on false information or the way Libya was reduced to its current state after its leader was brutally killed by major powers led “Humanitarian War” show how the UN has become what it is not supposed to be. Apart from inability to avert wars, this multilateral institution is not making serious efforts to uphold principles and conventions that were adopted by member states many decades ago.

No surprise that UN agencies can only be as good as the United Nations itself. It is now public that the World Health Organization has short listed three candidates -David Nabarro, Sania Nishtar and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – to replace the outgoing Dr. Margaret Chan, Chinese-Canadian, who served two terms.

The case of Tedros Adhanom as a shortlisted candidate is a quintessential example to show how World Health Organization is divorced from the values and principles that it is meant to uphold by virtue of being a UN agency. Because the UN itself is essentially a failure, it is hard for the agencies to be a success when it comes to adhering to international values and principles.

It is axiomatic that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is nowhere near the other two candidates in terms of experience. David Nabarro is a medical doctor with over forty years of experience including in a multilateral organization; he revealed in his campaign website that he has been preparing himself for this position for a good part of his life time. Sania Nishtar on her own right has a wealth of experience both in government (ministerial portfolio) and in a multilateral institution and as an activist.




Tedros Adhanom served in ministerial positions, Health and Foreign Affairs, with the current regime in Ethiopia. But how he got to his ministerial position is profoundly, in fact solely, a function of political affiliation with the minority ethno-chauvinist regime whose piles of egregious human rights violations is in the hands of reputable international human rights organizations. Not only that he is aware of killings of thousands of Ethiopians by the regime he served but also, he has been fiercely defending it. In fact, he employed his penchant for social media to promote the regime as something else but without success.

His alleged success as minister of health in Ethiopia is a misnomer as is the narrative of the double digit economic growth which many say was in a limelight in major media outlets in a suspicious way. Ethiopia has been the leading recipient of aid in Sub-Saharan Africa. Amid narratives of “double-digit” growth, up to 40 % of Ethiopian government spending, both capital and operating budget, was funded by donations from donor states. A big chunk of donors fund was allocated for programs in the ministry of health ,which was under Tedros Adhanom before he became foreign affairs minister, on grounds of fighting against HIV and AIDS.

Government explained the recent country wide anti-government protest in Ethiopia, over 1000 civilians were killed by government security, as protest over “bad-governance” which was in turn explained in terms of corruption and incompetence. Besides, it admitted colossal corruption within its ranks and pledged what it called “revival” to ease tension caused by popular protest. And ministry of health is one of the most corrupt government department.

For example, Pharmaceuticals Fund and Supply Agency, which is under the ministry of health in Ethiopia, admitted that more than US $500 million was wasted in unexplained and illegal purchases. From reports even by state media, it seems the case that much of that happened under the watch of Tedros Adhanom as Minister of Health. But this was not known until after the anti-government protest in February of this year.

Incompetence is a pervasive problem within the government that Tedros served. Recent example that could give a clue about it is garbage dump landslide in Addis Ababa which killed well over 120 Ethiopians. Conceivably, responsibility about it is related to the City Administration which is again part of the regime. But what has the ministry of Health done to address health concerns of residents who were complaining about garbage pile up for years?

It is this same government that submitted the nomination of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for World Health Organization Director General position. No question that his appointment, if it happens, to the position will have a symbolic and psychological significance for an ethno-chauvinist regime like TPLF which explains why it is spending, apparently, huge sum of money to fund lobbyists on behalf of Dr Tedros Adhanom, not to mention spending in Africa as part of his team. The party that Tedros defended and is a member of, Tigray People’s Liberation Front, is ethnic based party with propensities superstitious belief about the uniqueness and bravery of Tigraeans – which constitute less than 6 % of Ethiopia’s hundred million population.

True, the African Union endorsed Tedros but the decision has a lot to do with the AU as a corrupt club than an entity with principle that prioritize merit and the dignity of Africa and Africans.

But again, on the layer of competence, Tedros Adhanom was a failure as a minister of Foreign Affairs Ministry. The experiences of Ethiopians in countries like Saudi Arabi where dozens were savagely attacked by Saudi government securities and Saudis on grounds of illegal presence is fresh in our memories. He or his government never challenged Saudi authorities.

Another example, when 28 Ethiopians were hacked to death by ISIS extremists and hundreds were stranded in Libya, Tedros Adhanom was telling Ethiopians that his government is investigating if they were Ethiopians or not. It took the government of Egypt to rescue the rest of Ethiopians stranded in Libya and to coordinate their return to Ethiopia.

Whatever the priorities of World Health Organization are, Tedros Adhanom is not the right person to execute them. That is what his track record shows.

Besides the issue of competence, to appoint Tedros to WHO Director General is tantamount to betraying UN values that relate to human rights. The WHO as a UN agency must put itself in the shoe of Ethiopians that have been brutally repressed by the government Tedros Adhanom served and championing to date, and thousands and thousands of Ethiopians who lost a family member due to Tedros Adhanom government’s killing. In fact, it was a surprise to so many of us that Tedros was even shortlisted considering those competence and human rights issues. Maybe it tells a story of the power of lobby but constitutes another dark spot in the history UN agencies.

Is it too much to ask or naïve to think that WHO should give precedence to universally cherished values, like human rights – which is in a way a measure of progressive values –, and to competence over anything else? People who worked for and supported corrupt dictators with bad human rights records need to learn that counting on lobbyists and financial power to win positions in multilateral institutions is a bad idea.

Source:http://www.borkena.com/2017/03/28/world-health-organization-tedros-adhanom/

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ELECTION OF THE NEXT DIRECTOR-GENERAL: PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY NOW BY ERIC A. FRIEDMAN

I believe that human rights, and the right to health in particular, should be a top priority of and guiding principle for the next WHO Director-General, whom the world’s health ministers will choose at the World Health Assembly in May. Human rights, after all, encompass the values needed to achieve health for all and health justice, such as equity, non-discrimination, universality, participation, and accountability. They are legally binding precepts. Above all, they embrace human dignity, and the utmost respect for all people in health systems and health-related decisions. They embody the notion of people-centered health services.

This importance demands electing to the post a credible and strong leader on human rights, someone with a history of fighting injustice, of opposing human rights violations, of standing up for the marginalized and oppressed, of resisting political, corporate, or other interests that stand in the way of human rights. This centrality of human rights means electing an individual willing to stand against forces and policies that tolerate or even perpetuate discrimination, or that let political or other concerns override the rights of women, minorities, immigrants, political opponents, or anyone else. It entails appointing a person who views organizations fighting for human rights as partners, even when their own governments may oppose them.

Three candidates remain in the race to be the next WHO Director-General: Tedros Adhanom, David Nabarro, and Sania Nishtar. All candidates should be accountable for their past support of human rights, and outline their plans for furthering human rights around the world if chosen to lead WHO. While it is important for all candidates to do this, one candidate in particular ought to provide a detailed public account of where he stands, and has stood, on human rights. Having spent more than a decade as a cabinet minister in a government that has committed large-scale human rights abuses, Dr. Tedros must make clear his position and intention.

Dr. Tedros served as Minister of Health of Ethiopia from 2005 through 2012, when he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, remaining in the post until a cabinet reshuffle last November. He was, and remains, a member of the Central Committee of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), long the country’s dominant political party, of the more select, nine-member TPLF Executive Committee, and of the Executive Committee of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the ruling coalition.

Some background on human rights in Ethiopia is in order. It is a country where the ruling coalition won all 547 seats in its most recent (2015) parliamentary election, which surely says much more about the state of democracy than the government’s popularity. Freedom House rates Ethiopia as “not free,” ranking it below than many other of the “not free” countries (p. 18) and with one of the world’s largest declines in freedom over the past decade (p. 10).

In its World Report 2017, Human Rights Watch calls the media in Ethiopia “under government stranglehold,” with at least 75 journalists fleeing into exile since 2010, and others arrested. A 2009 law “continues to severely curtail the ability of independent nongovernmental organizations.” Security forces “frequently” torture political detainees, of whom there are many. Over the past decade, Ethiopia has denied entry to all UN human rights special rapporteurs, other than on Eritrea.

The Ethiopian government’s repressive ways gained international prominence at the Rio Olympics last summer. As he crossed the finish line, winning the silver medal, Ethiopian marathon runner Feyisa Lilesa crossed his arms as a symbol of protest against the government’s violent response to protests in the Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Two months earlier, Human Rights Watch had released a report detailing the government’s violent response to the protests, the most recent round of which began in November 2015. They broke out in response to the government clearing land for an investment project. This fed into wider fears about farmers being displaced without adequate consultation or compensation as part of a master plan to massively expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa, the capital, into the neighboring Oromia region. Adding fuel to the protests were environmental and other local concerns, and longer-standing grievances among members of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, of political, economic, and cultural marginalization. Amnesty International reported that least 800 protesters had been killed by the end of 2016.

Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a blog on its official website in October 2016 (when Dr. Tedros was still Foreign Minister) in response to Human Rights Watch’s reporting on Ethiopia. The piece accuses Human Rights Watch of baseless allegations, intentionally misleading its audience, and propagating “scare stories.” It focuses on the NGO’s response to an October stampede during an anti-government protest at an annual festival in Oromia, though addresses Human Rights Watch’s reporting in Ethiopia more generally. Yet Human Rights Watch is widely recognized to employ a gold standard of research. The above-mentioned report, for example, was based on more than 125 interviews, “court documents, photos, videos and various secondary material, including academic articles and reports from nongovernmental organizations, and information collected by other credible experts and independent human rights investigators.” All material in the report was verified by two or more independent sources.

In light of Ethiopia’s severe human rights abuses and Dr. Tedros’s prominent position within the ruling party and the government, a natural question becomes: What was his role in the country’s systematic abuses of human rights?

I do not know the answer, or the veracity of other charges that Ethiopian diaspora organizations have lodged. In his role in the TPLF and ERPDF power structures, is it possible that he tried to change things from the inside, using his position of power within the government to oppose the government’s repression?

What we do know, though, based on the independent reports of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the U.S. State Department, and others, is that the human rights situation in Ethiopia is dire. And Dr. Tedros has long been an important member of the government.

Dr. Tedros has committed to an open and transparent approach to running WHO. Now is the time for him to demonstrate this commitment, publicly addressing the concerns about human rights during his time in the Ethiopian government, and his role, including as a member of the power structures of the ruling party and coalition. States should evaluate his answers carefully and in light of other evidence.

States should also consider whether regardless of Dr. Tedros’s actions within the government – perhaps unless he vigorously fought against rights-abusive policies from the inside – the mere fact of having served (particularly for a considerable length of time) in a high-level post of a government that perpetuates such severe human rights abuses should be an automatic disqualifier from any international leadership position. Would electing someone put forward by such a government, particularly someone who has long served in that government, in some way represent the international community endorsing, accepting, the legitimacy of that government and its policies, and diminish the importance we ascribe to human rights?

We live in an era where human rights remain under great threat. Especially at such times as these, it is vital that states vote for a candidate whose record and integrity will enable them to lead WHO into a new era of health and human rights.

Source:http://www.oneillinstituteblog.org/human-rights-and-the-election-of-the-next-director-general-public-accountability-now/#.WMyT7W4U_Lo.twitter