Lockdowns Are 'Colonialist': Coalition of African Scientists Accuse WHO of 'Classical Western Imperialism Through the Backdoor' With Sweeping New Pandemic Treaty
Tuesday, May 14 2024
It is known that lockdowns harm developing countries most and it is clearly understood that they are a means of impoverishing these countries further and drawing them deeper into debt to predatory institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. African scientists are claiming that the WHO is being used as a new form of colonialism over their nations, where foreign, mostly privately-funded entities yield enormous control over the lives of their subjects.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been accused of being 'colonialist' over plans for a new pandemic treaty.
A coalition of Africa scientists fears that the agreement could see nations plunged into lockdown at the whim of the UN agency.
The WHO — heavily criticised for how it handled Covid — is considering up to 300 amendments to its legally-binding rulebook.
But one measure floated by the UN agency, the group worries, opens the door for member states to be made to comply with advice issued during future pandemics, such as enforcing vaccine passports and border closures.
The Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued lockdowns were a 'class-based and unscientific instrument'.
It said they caused 'significant harm' to low-income nations.
Instead, African nations should be able to prioritise tackling their own major health needs, including diseases like cholera, yellow fever, malaria, the group said.
The coalition... said the plans threaten 'health sovereignty' and 'economic independence'.
Specifically, the group is calling for a review of the amended agreement, which empowers the WHO to declare a disease is a public health emergency of international concern, or a pandemic.
They said: 'These new powers should not be considered. 'Instead, an Africa sensitive approach should replace the increasingly colonialist approach of those who now control WHO’s agenda.
'The lockdown regulations, which were imposed during Covid and which are still being reinforced in the draft instruments, were a class-based and unscientific instrument, causing significant collateral harm to lower-income people and useless for crowded informal settings as in urban parts of Africa.'
Reginald Oduor, senior lecturer at the department of philosophy, University of Nairobi, Kenya, added: 'This is a perpetuation of classical western imperialism coming through the backdoor.
'It is health imperialism to subjugate knowledge from other parts of the world and think medical innovations and knowledge about Covid or other pandemics have to come from Geneva or the developed countries.
'This is the reason why we must advocate for multiple centres of knowledge... Every society has a right to have its own innovations.'
Daily Mail — 7 March 2024
Source: Daily Mail
