EFF condemns USA’s shameful attempts to remove Dr Tedros Abhanom as Director of WHO

9 April 2020

The EFF condemns the president and govemment of the USA for their shameful campaign to remove Dr. Tedros Adhanom as Director of the World Health Organisation(WHO). The USA has gone to the extent of threatening to withdraw its funding of the WHO, claiming that the WHO is China-centric.

The international community must unite against Donald Trump and his government's attempt to destabilise the WHO during what is evidently an international crisis threatening the very existence of humanity. There is absolutely no evidence, whatsoever, that Dr. Tedros Adhanom has committed any wrong doing or has been incompetent in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. In view of the whole world, the WHO under his leadership, has led the world excellently in cooperating to fight against the global spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The incompetent USA government, with their obviously ignorant president, refused to comply with all the early warnings and directives by the WHO. Trump, like Boris Johnson in the UK, downplayed the significance of the coronavirus and its ability to cause irreparable fatal harm to countries. This simple fact is the sole reason why the virus is claiming more lives in the USA than it should. Had the Trump's administration headed to the early warnings, including implementing a federal lockdown in time, many lives would have not been lost.

Therefore, there is no Dr. Tedros Adhanom or the WHO that ever downplayed the significance of the Covid 19. If anything, the WHO has been sufficiently clear and those that heeded to its wamings have managed to contain the spread of the virus.

It is clear that the USA imperialist conquest attitude denies them the ability to be humble and accept leadership from others, particularly when fighting against an enemy that is facing humanity as a whole. Seeing that Covid 19 does not require guns and drones which is what the USA is good at, Trump's administration is proving completely under prepared and incompetent at fighting it.

As the WHO and UN head have constantly indicated, the fight against Covid 19 requires a collective human spirit, which is what the Trump administration and USA government in general is deprived of. All they know, after many years of unjust wars and spreading death across the globe, is divide and rule; this is how they thrive and why it is hard for them to fight an enemy whose defeat requires international cooperation.

We therefore join the international community in calling for more international cooperation in the fight against the Covid 19. This is not the time for "us against them". The enemy is not a foreign country or people; it is a virus that will certainly kill us all. In this fight, no boarder wall, however tall or strong, can keep the virus away. Only international cooperation of all humanity can defeat the virus. No country, acting on its own, however strong its health institutions maybe, will succeed. As long as the virus exists in other countries, it will surely land on anyone's door step. The USA imperialist divide and rule attitudes of conquests will not work in this crucial hour; the whole world must unite against Trump and his efforts to cause divisions by his attempts to weaken the WHO and its excellent director Dr. Tedros Adhanom.

Hands Off Dr. Tedros Adhanom!

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, EFF, National Spokesperson, 9 April 2020