Fury as tyrant Mugabe is made UN health tsar
THE World Health Organisation was condemned last night for appointing Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe as a global ‘goodwill ambassador’.
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.
WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus told a conference in Uruguay this week on non-communicable diseases that Mugabe had agreed to be a ‘goodwill ambassador’ on the issue.
The role will involve encouraging governments to introduce policies to reduce smoking and drinking, improve diets and increase exercise.
But the appointment drew immediate condemnation from 24 international health organisations, as well as Mugabe’s political opponents at home.
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.
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 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.
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.
‘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’.
WHO ambassadors are unpaid and initially appointed for two years to ‘raise awareness of health problems and solutions’.
‘Absolutely absurd’ news@dailymail.ie