PRESS RELEASE
President Mugabe is welcomed by his Uruguayan counterpart President Tabaré Vázquez, while Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Walter Mzembi looks on in Montevideo, Uruguay, yesterday. — (Picture by Presidential Photographer Joseph Nyadzayo)
Human Rights Activists Decry “False Legitimacy to Brutal Regime”
GENEVA, October 19, 2017 – The non-governmental human rights group UN Watch joined NGOs worldwide in expressing “grave concern” at the U.N. health body’s appointment of Zimbabwe’s dictator as a goodwill ambassador on health, even as his policies have devastated Zimbabwe’s once-prosperous economy, leaving a crumbling health system while Mugabe obtains his own medical assistance outside the country.
“The government of Robert Mugabe has brutalized human rights activists, crushed democracy dissidents, and turned the breadbasket of Africa — and its health system — into a basket-case. The notion that the U.N. should now spin this country as a great supporter of health is, frankly, sickening,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
“Amid reports of ongoing human rights abuses, the tyrant of Zimbabwe is the last person who should be legitimized by a U.N. position of any kind,” said Neuer. Over the past decade, UN Watch has brought numerous Zimbabwean human rights activists to testify on the sidelines of UN conferences.
Speaking on October 18 in Uruguay, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “honored to announce that President Mugabe has agreed to serve as a goodwill ambassador.” He praised Zimbabwe for “placi[ng] universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all.”
Tedros in August also thanked Mugabe for his “strong commitment to health.”
Rights activists are outraged.
“Given Mugabe’s appalling human rights record, calling him a Goodwill Ambassador for anything embarrasses WHO and Doctor Tedros,” Iain Levine, program director at Human Rights Watch, commented on Twitter.
A coalition of 24 NGOs present at the conference are “shocked and deeply concerned to hear of this appointment, given President Mugabe’s long track record of human rights violations and undermining the dignity of human beings. Given these systematic abuses and his approach to NCDs and tobacco control in the past,” said the coalition, “President Mugabe’s appointment as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for NCDs cannot be justified.”
“When Mugabe flies to Singapore for special medical treatment, he leaves behind poorly funded health services, which most of their citizens have to rely on,” said Neuer. “It’s a disgraceful show of support — and a terribly-timed award of false legitimacy — for a brutal, corrupt and authoritarian regime.”
In Zimbabwe, state-run hospitals and clinics often run out of basic medicines like painkillers and antibiotics, according to Zimbabwean health watchdog Citizens Health Watch. It says that the public health care system “continues to deteriorate at alarming levels” with lack of money being the main problem.
“Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, like many of its public services, has collapsed under Mugabe’s authoritarian regime, with most hospitals out of stock of essential medicines and supplies, and nurses and doctors regularly left unpaid,” reports AFP.
1/3 @DrTedros announced that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe agreed to serve as a Goodwill Amb. on NCDs for Africa http://bit.ly/2yyR1wH
Shame on you, @WHO, for legitimizing brutal tyrant Mugabe, who devastated the health system of Zimbabwe & flies abroad for his health care.
FM HAILS COUP FOR ZIMBABWE”
Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi hailed the appointment as “a major health diplomacy coup for Zimbabwe.”
“New feather in President’s cap,” blared the headline of Zimbabwe’s Herald, one of many local newspaper to extol the U.N. appointment.
“It’s outrageous that the UN is allowing itself to be used like this as a propaganda tool,” said Neuer, “The decision to honor Mugabe despite his long history of human rights abuses brings discredit upon the UN.”
“The good name of the world body is being used to legitimize Mugabe’s massive abuses of civil liberties which contravene U.N. human rights conventions. How can someone who violates core U.N. principles be elevated as a kind of example to the world?” Neuer asked.
He added: “If this is the stance of the United Nations, then where else can Zimbabweans turn to for human rights protection?”
UN should investigate ‘suspect’ appointment of Mugabe, WHO chief should meet Zimbabwe victims & apologize
Robert Mugabe, left, and Dr. Tedros of WHO.
GENEVA, October 22, 2017 – The non-governmental human rights group UN Watch welcomed the WHO’s cancellation of its “absurd, immoral and insulting” appointment of Robert Mugabe as goodwill ambassador but called for a full, independent and international inquiry into any possible deals made between the WHO chief—Ethiopia’s former foreign minister—and Zimbabwe’s ruler.
“There must be more to the story. How could Dr. Tedros, a sophisticated political figure, have chosen to honor a man who has brutalized human rights activists, crushed democracy dissidents, and turned the breadbasket of Africa and its health system into a basket-case?” asked UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
“We regret that Dr. Tedros’ statement shows no remorse, nor any mention of Mugabe’s gross human rights abuses. On the contrary, he seems to double down and justify his decision by speaking of the need to ‘include everyone’, presumably tyrants as well.”
“We ask Dr. Tedros to agree to a meeting in Geneva of victims of Mugabe, which we will gladly organize, giving the WHO chief a chance to compensate for the damage he has done to the cause of human rights in Zimbabwe. He should now honor the victims, instead of the perpetrator.”
“The tyrant of Zimbabwe is the last person who should have been legitimized by a U.N. position of any kind,” said Neuer. “Something is very ill at the U.N.’s world health agency.”
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UN Watch has been a leading voice at the United Nations for Zimbabwe’s victims and in combating Mugabe’s abuses:
- UN Watch led the international coalition of NGOs that challenged the Mugabe regime’s massive human rights abuses, in a major address to the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in 2005.
- UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer debated Mugabe’s rep on CNN to oppose their UN human rights commission membership.
- UN Watch brought Zimbabwe dissident Jestina Mukoko to testify at its renowned Geneva Summit for Human Rights, as it hosted Dewa Mavhingha and other Zimbabwe activists.
- UN Watch was the NGO to confront Zimbabwe in the 2008 UPR debate at the UN.
- UN Watch hosted the first NGO debate on human rights and “Zimbabwe’s New Deal”, with -Arnold Tsunga of the International Commission of Jurists and Daniel Molokele of the Global Zimbabwe Forum.
- UN Watch led the campaign opposing Mugabe’s appointment as Chair of the World Summit on Tourism
- Click here for original UN Watch protest against Mugabe’s appointment by WHO.