Plot to Oust WHO Chief, Tedros Ghebreyesus

When Tedros Adhanon Ghe­breye­sus ascend­ed to the top of lead­er­ship at the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) in 2017, my col­league, Raevyn Goates wrote about it at Africa Agen­da.

Ghe­breye­sus won the vote in 2017 by 63 %, which was an over­whelm­ing 133 votes out of 185 votes cast. He was the first direc­tor-gen­er­al of the WHO elect­ed in an open process to all mem­ber states. Also, he was the first African, ever, to lead the orga­ni­za­tion in its 72-year his­to­ry. His term of office is for five years, which means there will be an elec­tion in 2022.

Ghebreyesus’s expe­ri­ences in health­care are vast, hav­ing served as min­is­ter of health in Ethiopia before becom­ing direc­tor-gen­er­al at WHO.

Since the elec­tion in 2017, his lead­er­ship has been unques­tioned and unchal­lenged, until the coro­n­avirus began spread­ing out­side of Wuhan in China.

After the orga­ni­za­tion issued ear­ly warn­ings, much more than many nation­al gov­ern­ments, about the dan­gers that the virus posed to glob­al health, accord­ing to The New York Times, the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment ignored the warn­ings. More than 100,000 peo­ple have now been killed by Covid-19 in Amer­i­ca alone.

Pro­jec­tions about what is com­ing are dire.

Who’s Mess­ing with Ghebreyesus?

The scape­goat­ing of what is hap­pen­ing is not with failed lead­er­ship at the very top of the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment, but instead with the lead­er­ship at the WHO, led by Ghebreyesus.

First, the U.S. gov­ern­ment cut off fund­ing to the WHO in April. Lat­er in May, it said it would restore par­tial fund­ing to the organization. 

After mis­man­ag­ing the U.S. response to the dis­ease, Trump and his asso­ciates quick­ly turned their ire toward Ghe­breye­sus, and then toward the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment, accus­ing them of a slow response to the dis­ease which has crip­pled life around the world.

Accord­ing to Africa Con­fi­den­tial, which has been report­ing about the African con­ti­nent since 1960, after fail­ing to remove Tedros Adhanon Ghe­breye­sus, an Ethiopi­an who is at the head of the WHO, Wash­ing­ton is now focused on pro­tect­ing its com­mer­cial rights to a pos­si­ble Covid-19 vaccine.

Africa Con­fi­den­tial reports that there has been an effort from the U.S. to under­mine Ghe­breye­sus out of his lead­er­ship role at WHO. The pub­li­ca­tion says African diplo­mats have pushed back against these efforts.

“In a state­ment of 13 May seen by Africa Con­fi­den­tial, African ambas­sadors in Gene­va con­demn the cam­paign ‘from cer­tain polit­i­cal quar­ters’ seek­ing to dis­cred­it Tedros and the WHO. Giv­en that he is Ethiopi­an, it adds that there is an ‘unfor­tu­nate racial under­tone to the criticism’.”

The firestorm brew­ing over WHO lead­er­ship in rela­tion to Covid-19 got heat­ed in Gene­va, where the WHO is head­quar­tered, ahead of the May 18 Gen­er­al Assem­bly meet­ing. Dur­ing that assem­bly, this report from Ari­rang News talked of fierce exchanges between the U.S. and Chi­na about who is to blame for the spread of the coronavirus.

What Are the Consequences?

As this issue con­tin­ues, I checked out some of the lead­ing pub­li­ca­tions of news, com­men­tary and analy­sis, and opin­ion in the Unit­ed States and around the world to sam­ple the vary­ing perspectives. 

1. The News

First, there is jour­nal­ism. Some of the jour­nal­is­tic report­ing I checked out can be read online via orga­ni­za­tions such as Bloomberg News, the Los Ange­les Times, with links that can be seen below.

• Bloomberg News: African Nations Back WHO’s Tedros After Attacks by Trump, U.S.
• LA Times: UN. health agency chief unbowed amid attacks, Trump criticism

2. The Analysis

Some of the finest analy­ses I gath­ered can be seen through the lens of Reuters News Agency, Time Mag­a­zine, and The Econ­o­mist, with links provided.

• Reuters News Agency: Caught in Trump-Chi­na feud, WHO’s leader is under siege
• Time Mag­a­zine: Why We Need the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, Despite Its Flaws
• The Eco­nom­ic Times: WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghe­breye­sus unbowed amid attacks, Trump criticism

3. The Opin­ion and the Blame Game

And then there is a load of opin­ion on this mat­ter, seen through the lens of the usu­al con­ser­v­a­tive sus­pects; Nation­al Review, Fox News, and For­eign Policy.

While it is clear that not all the pub­li­ca­tions which spout con­ser­v­a­tive opin­ion that often aligns with the U.S. Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment, it’s also clear many of the so-called right-lean­ing pub­li­ca­tions buy into the same false nar­ra­tive, that the WHO col­lud­ed with the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment to let the coro­n­avirus spread by with­hold­ing information.

• Nation­al Review: WHO Chief Tedros Has Got to Go
• For­eign Pol­i­cy: How WHO Became China’s Coro­n­avirus Accomplice
• Fox News: WHO chief’s ques­tion­able past comes into focus fol­low­ing coro­n­avirus response