In December of 2020, David Steinman filed a complaint, or “Communication” as it’s formally known, with the International Criminal Court alleging that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom was guilty of crimes against humanity when he was a senior official of Ethiopia’s Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front dictatorship between 2012 and 2016.
Included in the complaint were four unmistakable instances in which Tedros tried to cover up serious threats to public safety. These included attempts to deny, downplay or otherwise conceal:
- a 2015 famine
- failed anti-poverty programs
- a massacre
- the unjust imprisonment of journalists
These Ethiopian events establish that Tedros’ effort to downplay the danger from Covid in the early days of the Wuhan outbreak was no isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of concealing embarrassing facts for political patrons.
In Tedros’ first election to lead the WHO in 2017, the World Health Assembly member states callously ignored vociferous protests by his fellow Ethiopians who knew him best. That refusal to see the obvious signs of poor character did themselves and the rest of the planet a grave disservice. For when, unsurprisingly, he continued the behavioral pattern he had demonstrated in Ethiopia, this time for China during the Wuhan outbreak, every member state shared in the painful catastrophe that resulted.
Experts predict a one in six chance of another pandemic during Tedros’ next term. Steinman’s previous publication of details of Tedros’ criminality and malfeasance put the World Health Assembly on heightened notice of the WHO chief’s unreliability. Yet, incredibly, as if the odds of a recurrence weren’t already bad enough, and despite such warnings and the stark, painful lessons of recent history, that body has needlessly exposed the world to an even higher risk of another pandemic with Tedros’ re-appointment.
Only a dysfunctional process detached from accountability, simple morality, and common sense can explain the irrationality of this decision.
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