A Hong Kong media, CUP Magazine, reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros is the leader of a leftist party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in Ethiopia, which in the 1990s the U.S. government identified as a terrorist group.
TPLF was established as a guerrilla group which, in 1975, had its base in Tigray, Ethiopia. Over time, it formed an Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front with other groups and it took power in the nation in 1991. However, since Tigrayans were only 6 percent of the total population in Ethiopia, TPLF ruled by terror and arrested and killed many people with different political views. It also took over the land from the Oromo people (about 34 percent of Ethiopia’s population). In 2005, Human Rights Watch criticized TPLF for several crimes against human rights. In the 1990s, the U.S. listed TPLF as a terrorist organization. This can still be seen in the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland.
Tedros grew up in Tigray. After he obtained a PhD degree from the U.K. in 2001, he became the Director of Tigray’s Health Bureau. Then in 2005, he became the Minister of Health. In 2013, the Africa Report, a French media, mentioned that Tedros could become the next leader of the TPLF. When Tedros was elected as the Director-General of WHO, he still held a Politburo member position in the TPLF.
In 2018, local media Kichuu News criticized Tedros for ignoring the lives of millions of Oromos who the government was persecuting, accusing him of being unworthy of the position of Director General. The U.S. Fox News quoted a local Ethiopian reporter as saying that Tedros was one of the three most powerful leaders of the TPLF and thus he must be responsible for the government’s murder, torture, excessive arrests, and land grabbing.
Related postings on Chinascope:
- WHO: G7 Countries Seek a Review and Reform at the WHO
- WHO: China Sent Its Internet Army to Help Tedros on His Attack on Taiwan
- WHO: WHO Official’s React to Taiwan Question and Response from U.S. and Hong Kong Afterward
- WHO: Criticisms Over Tedros for Being Too Supportive to the CCP
- WHO: Official Went to Wuhan but Didn’t Go to “Dirty Area”
Excerpt in Chinese:
譚德塞曾任埃塞俄比亞衛生部長、外交部長，他另一身份是國內左翼政黨「提格雷人民解放陣線」（Tigray People’s Liberation Front，簡稱提人陣）的重要成員，提人陣曾經以各種血腥手段統治埃塞俄比亞，在 90 年代，美國政府就曾經把提人陣列為恐怖組織。
提人陣則在 1975 年成立，初時是一支小游擊隊，紮根在埃國北部地區提格雷（Tigray），爭取建立「提格雷共和國」。提人陣打著土地改革的口號，80 年代一躍成為國內主要反對勢力，並成功拉攏其他種族派系共組「埃塞俄比亞人民革命民主陣線」（Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front），在 1991 年奪權。
可是，由於提格利尼亞人（Tigrayans）只佔埃國人口的極少數（約 6%），所以提人陣也奉行恐怖統治，濫捕殘殺異見者，強佔國內最大族群奧羅莫人（約 34%）的土地。在 2005 年，「人權觀察」的報告狠批提人陣在掌權期間，犯下多種人權罪行；1990 年代，美國一度把左傾的提人陣視作恐怖組織，到今天依然名列馬利蘭大學「全球恐怖主義資料庫」（Global Terrorism Database）。
譚德塞就在提格雷地區長大，1991 年門格斯圖倒台不久，他就遠赴倫敦衛生與熱帶醫學院讀免疫學碩士，2000 年在諾定咸大學完成社區衛生博士學位。由於他學歷高，而且具提格雷成長背景，2001 年立刻就成為提格雷區衛生局局長，2005 年更一躍成為衛生部長，那年譚德塞才剛滿 40 歲，他還是該國第一位沒有臨床醫學背景的衛生部長。
2013 年的時候，法國媒體 The Africa Report 曾點名譚德塞，認為他有力成為提人陣的新生代領導人。他就任外交部的 4 年間，也是奧羅莫人起義最激烈的階段，自 2014 年示威不斷，換來政府血腥鎮壓，數以千計示威者死亡，這時譚德塞就操控政府的官方喉舌，為政權洗白。在譚德塞當選世衛總幹事之時，他依然是提人陣的政治局委員，享有黨政大權。2018 年，當地媒體 Kichuu News 批評譚德塞不理數以百萬計受迫害的奧羅莫人生死，指他不配總幹事之位。美國「霍士新聞」引述埃塞俄比亞當地記者指，譚德塞是提人陣權力最大的三位領袖之一，他絕對要為政府的謀殺、酷刑、濫捕、搶地等暴行負上責任。然而，可幸的是，埃國現時由奧羅莫民主黨阿比艾哈邁德掌權，跟譚德塞算是敵對派系，但譚德塞的世衛路還能走多遠，始終還有中國因素。
Source: CUP Magazine, April 15, 2020