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The London Times writes that an American economist, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, David Steinman, accuses Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of being one of three officials in charge of Ethiopia’s security services between 2013 and 2015.
The current WHO director was Minister of Health in Ethiopia from 2005 to 2012 and Minister of Foreign Affairs until 2016, when the political party of which he was a member, the Tigray Communist Liberation Front (TPLF) was the main member of the coalition. to turn on.
On the terrorist list
Several analysts, including US government officials, have included the TPLF on the global list of terrorist organizations.
The Times writes that Steinman, an economist and activist who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
It claims that Tedros “was a key decision maker in relation to the actions of the security service, including the murder, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and torture of Ethiopians.”
The complaint, directed at ICC prosecutors, comes after General Berhanu Jula, the Ethiopian army chief of staff, asked the WHO director to resign last month.
The general accused Tedros of trying to acquire weapons for the Tigray region, where the Ethiopian army is fighting local forces.
What does the complaint say
In his complaint, Steinman cited a 2016 US government report on human rights in Ethiopia that stated that “civil authorities sometimes do not exercise control over local security forces and police in rural areas and local militias sometimes they act independently. “
Steinman added that the US document cited “other undocumented crimes” and accused Tedros of being involved in “intimidating opposition candidates and their supporters,” including “arbitrary arrests” and lengthy pre-trial detentions. “
According to the Times, the complaint also states that Tedros supervised “the murder and serious bodily and psychological injury to members of the Amhara, Konso, Oromo and Somali tribes, with the intention of destroying them in whole or in part.”
Tedros denied these accusations and any objectionable actions. Last month, he issued a statement on the current situation in Tigray.
“There have been reports that suggest that I support part of this situation,” said the WHO director. “This is not true and I want to say that I am on one side, and this is peace.”
Mugabe’s friend
This is not the first time that Tedros has been at the center of controversy.
In October 2017, he appointed Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean dictator, as a “goodwill ambassador” for his contribution to the fight against non-communicable diseases in Africa, sparking outrage among health professionals and advocacy groups. human rights.
At the time, the New York Times wrote:
“The role of the goodwill ambassador is largely symbolic, but human rights groups have been surprised by the symbolism of offering it to a man whose leadership, they say, has led to the collapse of his health service and widespread abuses in Zimbabwe. . “
Later, Tedros resigned from Mugabe’s appointment.
This year, President Donald Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from the WHO in July 2021, after accusing Tedros of not doing enough to hold China accountable for hiding and manipulating data on the existence of COVID-19.
