WHO Chief Tedros Faces Calls for 'Genocide' Charges
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus facing calls for prosecution
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The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) chief, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is facing calls for prosecution over alleged involvement in directing Ethiopian security forces.
David Steinman, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated economist, accused Tedros of being one of the three officials who controlled the Ethiopian security services between 2013 to 2015, The Times of London reports.
Tedros was the health minister in Ethiopia from 2005 to 2012, then its foreign minister until 2016, when his communist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was the ruling coalition's primary member.
The TPLF has been listed in the Global Terrorism Database by American government officials and analysts.
According to The Times, Steinman lodged a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
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He alleged Tedros “was a crucial decision-maker in relation to security service actions that included killing, arbitrarily detaining and torturing Ethiopians.”
The complaint comes after Ethiopia’s army chief of staff, General Berhanu Jula, called for the WHO leader to resign last month.
Tedros is accused of attempting to procure weapons for the Tigray region.
Steinman points to a 2016 U.S. government report on human rights in Ethiopia that discovered “civilian authorities at times did not maintain control over the security forces, and local police in rural areas and local militias sometimes acted independently.”
Steinman said the report cited “other documented crimes."
He also accused Tedros of being involved in the “intimidation of opposition candidates and supporters,” including “arbitrary arrest . . . and lengthy pre-trial detention”.
The complaint then alleges that Tedros oversaw the “killing, and causing serious bodily and mental harm to, members of the Amhara, Konso, Oromo and Somali tribes with intent to destroy those tribes in whole or in part.”
But Tedros denied the allegations and any wrongdoing.
Tedros issued a statement last month addressing the current situation in Tigray.
“There have been reports suggesting I am taking sides in this situation,” he said.
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“This is not true, and I want to say that I am on only one side, and that is the side of peace.”
This is not the first time Tedros faced controversy.
He named Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe a “goodwill ambassador” to assist combat non-communicable diseases in Africa in 2017.
The move provoked massive outrage from medical professionals and human rights groups.
The New York Times noted:
The role of a good-will ambassador is largely symbolic, but rights groups were scathing in their reaction to the symbolism of giving it to a man whose leadership, they say, has led to the collapse of its health service and major rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
Earlier this year, Neon Nettle reported that an international group of lawyers was preparing a massive lawsuit against the WHO that seeks damages for populations negatively impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns, citing "crimes against humanity."
The attorneys, led by California-based German lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, demanded the public receives "full compensation for their losses" if they have been "harmed" by coronavirus lockdown measures.
Dr. Fuellmich explains the case in a lengthy video released on October 3:
"Under the rules of civil tort law, all those who have been harmed by these PCR test-induced lockdowns are entitled to receive full compensation for their losses," Fuellmich says.
