Beholden to China . . . WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - Part 1

Reprinted by permission from Rodef Shalom 613.

At a time when the WHO seeks complete global control over what it decides are pandemics and reserves for itself the authority to “punish” non-compliant countries, the way the WHO really works should be of extreme concern to everyone. All is not right at the WHO.

How a “Terrorist” Became Head of the World Health Organization

An unlikely background for a director general of the WHO

• Tedros Ghebreyesus (or Tedros as he prefers) is not a medical doctor despite the appellation. He is the first WHO director-general not to have a medical degree.
• As Ethiopia’s health minister, he is accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks, calling them cases of watery diarrhea.
• He was the third most important person in the terrorist organization, Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and is said to have played a key role in the kidnapping of a prominent dissident as well as other atrocities.

Tedros Strange Praise of China

Did you ever wonder why Tedros praised China’s transparency at the start of the outbreak and said that China’s response to COVID was a model for other nations? At that time everyone else had been criticizing China’s handling of the epidemic, hiding it from the rest of the world, and silencing whistleblowers.

Consider the following.

Tedros Helped Indebt Ethiopia to China

Ethiopia has borrowed billions from China, reportedly including more than $13 billion during Tedros’ tenure as foreign minister between 2012 and 2016.

An editorial published by the Hill in mid-March pointed out:

We note China’s connections to Tedros’s homeland of Ethiopia, now called East Africa’s ‘Little China’ because it has become China’s bridgehead to influence Africa and a key to China’s Belt and Road initiative there. Indeed, China has invested heavily in Ethiopia[fn]Mora, Edwin. “5 Shocking Facts About WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ”, Breitbart, 2020, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/10/5-shocking-facts-about-who-chief-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus/#[/fn].

According to Yaakov Apelbaum of The Illustrated Primer, Tedros's personal wealth had also been enhanced by China via foreign bank accounts[fn]"When Tedros Moves His Lips, Beijing Speaks", The Illustrated Primer, 2020, https://www.yaacovapelbaum.com/2020/03/23/when-tedros-moves-his-lips-beijing-speaks/[/fn].                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

China helped Tedros win the post of WHO Director-General

"Chinese diplomats had campaigned hard for the Ethiopian, using Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget to build support for him among developing countries,” Washington Post columnist Frida Ghitis similarly noted at the time that China “worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help Tedros defeat the United Kingdom candidate for the WHO job, David Nabarro. Tedros’s victory was also a victory for Beijing, whose leader Xi Jinping has made public his goal of flexing China’s muscle in the world[fn]"China Helped Put This Man In Charge Of The World Health Organization—Is It Paying Off?", The National Interest, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-helped-put-man-charge-world-health-organization%E2%80%94-it-paying-136002[/fn].”

China garnered support for Tedros from developing countries

According to Sunday Times columnist, Rebecca Myers, Chinese diplomats campaigned for the then-Ethiopian Foreign Minister, using Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget to build support for him among developing countries. There were suggestions China would be pleased with any African or Asian heads for any UN agency because of the difficulties of dealing with more critical Westernized director-generals[fn]"How The West Gets The WHO And Tedros Wrong", Ethiopia Insight, 2020, https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2020/06/21/how-the-west-gets-the-who-and-tedros-wrong/[/fn].

This is why, shortly after his appointment to the position of director-general, he tapped Zimbabwe dictator and human rights abuser, Robert Mugabe, to become the UN's "Goodwill Ambassador".

Diplomats said his appointment was a political payoff from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — the WHO’s first African director-general — to China, a long-time ally of Mugabe, and the 50 or so African states that helped to secure Tedros’s election earlier this year[fn]Myers, Rebecca. “Mugabe’s New Role As UN Goodwill Ambassador Is ‘Payoff For China’”, The Times, 2020, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mugabes-new-role-as-un-goodwill-ambassador-is-payoff-for-china-x2l2cd3g6[/fn].

This is also why, shortly after the pandemic was declared, with all eyes pointing to China as the source of the virus, Tedros called it "misinformation". At the Munich Security Conference, in mid-February 2020, when the majority of the cases of COVID-19 were in China and very few elsewhere, he said:

“We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous.” And if we don’t tackle this, he went on, “we are headed down a dark path that leads nowhere but division and disharmony[fn]Apelbaum, Yaacov. "When Tedros Moves His Lips, Beijing Speaks", The Illustrated Primer, 2020, https://www.yaacovapelbaum.com/2020/03/23/when-tedros-moves-his-lips-beijing-speaks/[/fn].”

What happened in China with the discovery of the virus and how did the WHO respond?

Chinese authorities forced scientists who discovered the virus in December to destroy proof of the virus, U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times reported. The Chinese regime also punished doctors who tried to warn the public in the outbreak’s early stages and suppressed information about the virus online. A Chinese real estate mogul who criticized his government’s response has since gone missing. Approximately seven million people left Wuhan in January, spreading the virus all over China and all over the world, before China restricted travel to Wuhan on Jan. 22, The New York Times reported Sunday. One study found that “if interventions in [China] could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”

Tedros, however, had nothing but praise for the way China handled the pandemic, using it as an example that the rest of the world should follow. On February 14, the WHO tweeted: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.” 

On January 30, shortly after returning from a trip to Beijing and meeting with Xi, he tweeted: “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response”[fn]Hasson, Peter. "China Helped Put This Man In Charge Of The World Health Organization—Is It Paying Off?", The National Interest, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-helped-put-man-charge-world-health-organization%E2%80%94-it-paying-136002[/fn]. That was certainly true, but it wasn't the standard the world wanted to see

In mid-February, members of the WHO emergency committee expected to be able to go to China to discover the source of the outbreak.

“If we don’t know the source then we’re equally vulnerable in the future to a similar outbreak,” Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergency director, had said that week in Geneva. “Understanding that source is a very important next step.” What the team members did not know was that they would not be allowed to investigate the source at all. Despite Dr. Ryan’s pronouncements, and over the advice of its emergency committee, the organization’s leadership had quietly negotiated terms that sidelined its own experts[fn]Gebrekidan, Selam, et. al., “In Hunt For Virus Source, W.H.O. Let China Take Charge”, NY Times, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/world/who-china-coronavirus.html[/fn].

In an effort to deflect criticism from China, the WHO may also have enabled the spread of the virus. Tedros permitted flights between Ethiopia and China, saying that closing travel can increase fear and stigma with little public health benefit. This was at a time when 59 other air carriers from 44 different countries halted flights to and from China.[fn]"When Tedros Moves His Lips, Beijing Speaks", The Illustrated Primer, 2020, https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/when-tedros-moves-his-lips-beijing-speaks [/fn]

– End of part 1 of reprint – 

China wasn't the only global player whose interests a corrupt Tedros considered rather than global welfare; his close relationships with others who had ties with both the WHO and China made him their perfect candidate also. 

Part 2 will examine one of these influencers whose interests Tedros would look after, even though they undermined the mission of the WHO.