Mugabe: World health tsar
Life expectancy drops, Zimbabwe in crisis, and UN anoints tyrant...
The 93-year-old – who oversaw plummeting life expectancy in his country – has been given the job of co-ordinating the UN organisation’s battle against heart disease, cancer and diabetes in Africa.
The role will be to encourage governments to introduce policies to reduce smoking and drinking, improve diets and increase exercise.
But the appointment drew immediate condemnation from the British government, 24 international health organisations including Cancer Research UK, as well as Mugabe’s political opponents at home.
A spokesman for the British government said: ‘President Mugabe’s appointment is surprising and disappointing, particularly in light of the current US and EU sanctions against him.
‘We have registered our concerns with WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Although Mugabe will not have an executive role, his appointment risks overshadowing the work undertaken globally by the WHO on non-communicable diseases.’
In addition to a UN-imposed embargo on arms deals with Zimbabwe, the UK, EU and US have separate financial sanctions. Britain says its measures will not be lifted until ‘progress has been made on democracy, human rights and the rule of law’ in Zimbabwe.
In a statement last night, the 24 health organisations including the World Heart Federation and Action Against Smoking said they were ‘shocked and deeply concerned’, citing Mugabe’s ‘long track record of human rights violations’.
Human Rights Watch said the dictator’s regime ‘continues to violate human rights [and] has intensified repression against thousands of people who peacefully protest human rights violations and the deteriorating economic situation’.
Mugabe came to power in 1980, overseeing the worst episode of hyperinflation and economic collapse ever seen in the world. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe dropped from 61 in 1985 to 44 in 2003, according to World Bank figures, largely down to the crumbling economy and widespread poverty.
Average life expectancy has since recovered, although it is still not as high as it was in the mid-1980s.
Mugabe is widely considered to have created the crisis by breaking up the agricultural industry that had provided the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy, seizing land from
‘Absolutely absurd’
white farmers and redistributing it to gain political support.
At the height of the crisis in 2009, the UN was feeding seven million Zimbabweans, more than two-thirds of the population.
Critics say the country’s health service is ‘in tatters’ and earlier this year the Zimbabwe Medical Association urged the reserve bank to provide urgent funds to tackle shortages of drugs including insulin for diabetics and anaesthetics for surgery.
Salani Mutseyami, of the campaign groups Zimbabwe Vigil and Restoration of Human Rights, described Mugabe’s appointment as a WHO ambassador as ‘absolutely absurd’.
She added: ‘It shows the lack of interest the UN might have towards what is really going on in Zimbabwe.
‘Mugabe travels to a foreign land where he gets medication on a regular basis. He does not get medication or go to the hospitals in Zimbabwe.
‘The whole health system is in tatters. So I don’t know what political games are being played by the United Nations when they give such a man a platform.’ Mugabe has suffered several health scares and regularly flies to Singapore and the Middle East for treatment rather than relying on hospitals in his own country.
Earlier this year his spokesman said he had an eye problem that could only be dealt with outside Zimbabwe because of ‘the level of sophistication of medical skills’.
The spokesman added the problem meant the president had to rest his eyes during meetings occasionally, which ‘sometimes gave the impression that he was sleeping’.
In 2008 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which his wife Grace, 52, attributed to ‘poor diet advised by enemies within the security department’.
Mugabe has pledged never to give up the presidency, telling the African Union last year: ‘I will be there until God says “Come”, but as long as I am alive I will head the country – forward ever, backwards never.’
Walter Mzembi, Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs minister, said his WHO appointment was a ‘major diplomacy coup’ for the country.
Dr Ghebreyesus said he was ‘honoured’ to announce the appointment, praising Zimbabwe’s health policies.
WHO ambassadors are unpaid and initially appointed for two years to ‘raise awareness of important health problems and solutions’.