The pandemic rages on — not by accident, but by design. As we enter the third year of the Covid-19 crisis, two battles are underway. One is led by the carers of the world in overcrowded hospitals, fighting to end the pandemic. Another is by corporate executives in closed boardrooms, fighting to prolong it.

The question at the very center of both is this — who will control medical recipes worth billions of dollars, and millions of lives?

As some countries roll out booster programs, less than 6% of Africa’s more than a billion people have been fully inoculated. Big pharmaceutical companies are letting the pandemic go on — and why not, according to a recent estimate, Pfizer is expected to make astronomical profits —$107bn in cumulative sales by the end of 2022 on its Covid-19 vaccines, now being dubbed a “megablockbuster.” Key to this is complete control over production, price, and profit. If more of our factories, wherever they might be, could start producing vaccines for the people in their countries, companies like Pfizer would lose their monopoly. They know this.

Right now, the World Trade Organization is considering a proposal that would temporarily waive patent protections on vaccine recipes. Over 164 countries have supported it. But the pharmaceutical industry is fighting back, hard —through the governments it lobbies. The European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, and Singapore have successfully blocked it for over a year.

But as the ministers convene, once again, in Geneva on November 30, a new global movement is readying its fight: 2.5 million nurses are taking these Covid-19 criminals to court. In an unprecedented move, unions from 28 countries, coordinated by the Global Nurses United and the Progressive International — have filed a complaint with the United Nations alleging human rights violations by these countries during the Covid-19 pandemic, whose end, they write “is nowhere in sight.”

In a closed-door meeting about how to get more vaccines to the world’s poorest people, the chief executive of Pfizer attacked Dr. Tedros, the head of the World Health Organization for speaking “emotionally” when he called for greater balance in the global distribution of vaccines. From Brazil to India, the United States to Taiwan, nurses are bringing their emotions to bear. They have been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic response and witnessed the staggering numbers of deaths and the immense suffering caused by political inaction. From the frontlines, they prepare to hold these countries to account with a rallying cry: We, who care — we bear witness. Now, we testify.

The nurses’ complaint is not simply a legal fight: it is radical call to expose and defeat the governments that have been holding the lives of peoples’ hostage in order to service corporate super profits.

The leaders of these nations have been explicit about the world they seek to build: Early in the pandemic, the UK parliament’s foreign affairs select committee called for a “G20 for public health.” This is a revealing analogy.  Much like the G20, these countries have, in effect, hijacked international institutions and actively undermined the sovereignty of other nations, while enjoying complete impunity for their actions.

Consider the principal opponent to the waiver proposal at the WTO: the EU. In May 2020, European Parliamentarians, the only members directly elected by citizens in the EU system, voted to back the waiver to “address global production constraints and supply shortage.” Yet, for the next six months, the European Commission, which negotiates on behalf of Europe at the WTO has stubbornly resisted the waiver. This is entirely unsurprising if we look at who the European commissioners and their cabinets meet: Since March 2020, they have had 161 meetings with Big Pharma in the same timeframe that they managed to meet one NGO in favour of the waiver.

Nothing stood in their way as they throttled democracy and gave free reign to a deadly virus. Not global health organizations, two-thirds of which are headquartered in the US, UK, and Switzerland. Not international institutions, whose austerity agendas, have over decades, decimated public health systems in developing nations even as 83% of all government health spending occurred in the affluent world. Not the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — which it turns out, urged Oxford to reverse their decision to share their vaccine technology with the world.

The Covid-19 criminals have made their disregard for universal human rights and international law clear. It is now up to us to reclaim the enormous power that the UN charter, the WTO, WHO, and international law hold and deploy them as tools. That is why this transnational coalition is moving the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council — to investigate — and find against the governments in question.

In the complaint addressed to Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN Special Rapporteur for Physical and Mental Health, we articulated our demands:

First, undertake an urgent mission to the World Trade Organization: For too long, these countries have been wholly unaccountable, disguising their submission to corporate interests behind technical jargon. Their days of impunity are over.

Second, make a determination that the obstruction of the waiver constitutes a continuing breach of these governments’ obligations to guarantee the right to physical and mental health of everyone. Healthcare is our right. What we’re witnessing cannot be defined as an inefficiency in our system, or the failure of our politics — it is, in no uncertain terms — a crime against us all.

The nurses have given their testimony: “These countries have violated our rights and the rights of our patients — and caused the loss of countless lives —  of nurses and other caregivers and those we have cared for.”

Today is the day the historic case of the Carers of the World vs. Covid-19 Criminals begins.

A coalition of Ethiopian opposition forces is approaching the gates of the capital, Addis Ababa, following a long, arduous offensive against forbidding odds. The Ethiopian army has effectively disintegrated, partly from major battlefield losses and partly from self-inflicted attrition as the high command weeded out and disarmed troops with ethnic ties to the Tigrayan and Oromo rebels. Addis is expected to fall in a matter of weeks, if not days.

The recent capture of Debre Sina – a town some 200 kilometres north of Addis – by the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) and Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) triggered alarms in Addis and beyond. The Ethiopian capital is one of Africa’s vastest metropolises and has a population estimated at over 5 million. Western governments issued a flurry of advisories urging their citizens to leave Ethiopia, while numerous embassies, the African Union and United Nations ordered non-essential staff and dependents to quit the country. The US deployed special forces to nearby Djibouti as a contingency. The Ethiopian government, bizarrely, denounced such measures as malicious neo-colonial propaganda, an affront to national sovereignty, and called for pan-African solidarity in quashing the manifestly domestic insurgency.

Late last week, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced he was heading to the front lines to lead combat operations and transferred executive powers to Deputy Prime Minister, Demeke Mekonnen. Two celebrity athletes, Feyissa Lelissa and Haile Gebreselassie, declared they would join the fight to defend the city. The Prime Minister’s apparent willingness to seek martyrdom in battle has inspired tens of thousands of volunteers, drawn from his hard-line “One Ethiopia” support base, to undergo hasty military training and dig trenches around the capital in anticipation of a ferocious – but familiar – grand finale. The war-unto-death martial paradigm has a long pedigree in Ethiopia’s blood-drenched political history. Emperors waged war without quarter and died in battle. It was either conquest or death. PM Abiy’s politics, rhetoric, posture, and self-belief seem almost eerily designed to reprise the country’s dark history.

The conflict in Ethiopia, undoubtedly, is entering its most dangerous phase. But fears of pitched battles in the capital between rival ethnic militias, accelerating the country’s violent slide towards chaos – or even collapse –  may yet prove to be overblown. Abiy’s boastful appetite for battlefield glory was taken down a notch when he appeared in staged videos on state television, supposedly leading troops in Ethiopia’s desolate Afar region, far from the fiercest fighting. Ill-trained and lightly armed volunteers, even in the thousands, are no match for disciplined, battle-hardened TDF troops equipped with heavy weapons and armoured vehicles. OLA units stationed around the capital, though less well-trained or equipped, could diminish any numerical advantage Abiy’s last minute recruiting drive might have achieved. A brief, orderly take-over of Addis Ababa is still possible.

The war-unto-death martial paradigm has a long pedigree in Ethiopia’s blood-drenched political history.

If so, then the battle for Ethiopia’s future will begin in earnest. Abiy and his supporters claim to be fighting to prevent the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) from ever ruling Ethiopia again. Ironically, seizing power is the last thing the Tigrayans want. On the contrary many – if not most – have been so horrified by Abiy’s genocidal military campaign, and the enthusiastic support that it received from so many of their compatriots, that they seek even greater autonomy for Tigray, or possibly even secession from Ethiopia altogether. For the TPLF, the seizure of Addis Ababa is a limited strategic objective: a necessary evil to unseat Abiy, lift the devastating siege on Tigray, and secure their population against future threats. With Abiy gone, that will mean the TDF returning to Tigray to confront the Amhara militias occupying Western Tigray and the very real prospect of renewed conflict with Eritrea. The gravest danger to post-Abiy Ethiopia is not that the TPLF will reclaim the reins of government, but rather that they might abandon the capital, leaving the ill-equipped OLA alone to manage a perilous political and security vacuum. Likewise, Abiy loyalists in each of the regional states are also likely to be ousted, cascading uncertainty, instability and, tragically, violence down to the provincial level.

Post-Abiy Ethiopia will be a diabolically difficult country to govern. Abiy’s imperial conceit has unleashed even greater centrifugal forces. Having witnessed the hazards of federal overreach, regional states – with Tigray in the vanguard – are likely to demand even greater autonomy and devolution of powers – including security – to permanently weaken the centre. In some regional states, minority communities like the Qemant and Agaw may in turn demand some form of recognition or special status to protect them from domination and assimilation by ethnic majorities. The political, legal, and constitutional challenges involved in negotiating such radical decentralisation are almost impossibly complex and intensely emotive.

Abiy loyalists in each of the regional states are also likely to be ousted, cascading uncertainty, instability and, tragically, violence down to the provincial level.

International partners not only have a moral obligation, but also a pragmatic political stake in preventing Ethiopia’s descent into chaos. Rather than seeking to freeze the conflict with a ceasefire between implacable adversaries, the international community should concentrate on making the TDF/OLA takeover as orderly as possible, enabling the TDF to withdraw from the capital at the earliest opportunity, and helping to formulate a framework for national dialogue. International assistance will also be required in developing a credible mechanism for transitional justice for victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A robust transitional justice intervention may be the only way to prevent another full-scale war with Eritrea, holding Isaias Afwerki, his commanders and party officials to account for atrocities committed by their forces in Tigray. But given the sluggishness with which international justice is delivered, and the lack of adequate enforcement mechanisms, this is a problem that the TDF may decide to resolve on their own terms.

Abiy’s war is lost, but Ethiopia is not. This conflict has indisputably left the nation weak, traumatised, and polarised, but it has produced no victor nor left any spoils. And it has confronted all Ethiopians with one inescapable truth: they must acknowledge their diversity or risk disintegration.

We, the undersigned, write on behalf of ourselves, our members across the regions of the African continent and the Diaspora and on behalf of concerned Africans and humanity everywhere, to request you to provide leadership in taking urgent measures to prevent imminent genocide in Ethiopia. Absent such action, we believe that genocide is likely to happen under your watch as the Secretary-General which will be a blot not merely on your record in that capacity but also of our collective humanity at this time. To avert this, we urge you to initiate or take the following steps urgently: –

1. Work with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to make inventories of all internment centres in Ethiopia and ensure access, monitoring and oversight of conditions therein by the ICRC;
2. Deploy, without further delay, your Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide (SAPG), Ms. Alice Nderitu, on an urgent assessment mission into Ethiopia;
3. Take steps in liaison with Member States to convene a special session of the Human Rights Council on Ethiopia;
4. Secure a clear Security Council Statement of commitment to the prevention of genocide in Ethiopia and authorization of measures to follow up on that commitment; and
5. Provide a clear commitment by the Secretary-General to ensuring the prevention of genocide in Ethiopia.

Mr. Secretary-General,

As you may recall, on 21 May 2000, the International Panel of Eminent Personalities (IPEP) on the Rwandan genocide, chaired by Botswana’s former president, Ketumile Masire, submitted its Report to the United Nations through the Secretariat of the Organisation of African Unity. The title of the Report was “Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide”. The Panel transmitted the Report under cover of a letter part of which contained the following words: –

“Indisputably, the most important truth that emerges from our investigation is that the Rwandan genocide could have been prevented by those in the international community who had the position and means to do so. But though they had the means, they lacked the will. The world failed Rwanda.”

Specifically, the Report found that the United Nations “simply did not care enough about Rwanda to intervene appropriately.”

We write because 21 years later, under your leadership, the United Nations does not appear to have taken any of these lessons to heart and the world could be auditioning for yet another preventable genocide in Ethiopia. The evidence is all too glaring: –

1. A rebel army defined mostly by ethnic identity is marching relentlessly towards the capital city (Addis Ababa).
2. An incumbent regime, enabled by trappings of international recognition, precariously clings to power through appeals to narrow identity and is programming its populations for a campaign of extermination against populations almost exclusively defined by ethnicity.
3. Around Addis Ababa, the Federal Government and the Amhara Regional Government are distributing crude arms to neighbourhood and popular militias and programming them for the extermination in the name of self-defence.
4. At the beginning of November 2021, the Federal Government in Addis Ababa promulgated a state of emergency empowering themselves to intern almost exclusively people of Tigrayan identity. Around Addis Ababa, tens of thousands of Tigrayans have been rounded up and interned in makeshift detention centres – malls, shops, police units, construction sites – just for the crime of who they are or where they come from. The numbers are ambulatory but best reliable estimates indicate the numbers now interned or disappeared could be close to 40,000 and rising rapidly. This is happening also in other major cities around the country controlled by the Federal Government and its allies. These internees are denied basic dignity and are not afforded access to visitation. The internment centres and conditions are equally not under the oversight or monitoring of any independent institutions.
5. While all these happen, the United Nations and the African Union as a regional arrangement under Article 52(1) of the UN Charter, have failed to take any concrete steps to prevent the real likelihood of imminent mass extermination, beginning with all the internees.

Mr. Secretary General,

• On 5 February 2021, your own Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (SAPG), Ms. Alice Nderitu expressed “alarm” at “the continued escalation of ethnic violence in Ethiopia and allegations of serious violations of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in the Tigray region”, including “attacks against civilians based on their religion and ethnicity as well as serious allegations of human rights violations and abuses including arbitrary arrests, killings, rape, displacement of populations and destruction of property in various parts of the country.”
• On 30 July 2021, your own SAPG, Ms. Alice Nderitu, “condemned inflammatory statements used by top political leaders and associated armed groups. The use of pejorative and dehumanizing language like ‘cancer’, ‘devil’, ‘weed’ and ‘bud’ to refer to the Tigray conflict, warning that “hate speech, together with its propagation through social media is part of a worrisome trend that contributes to further fuel ethnic tensions in the country.”
• In their Joint Investigation Report issued on 3 November, 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that a number of (…) violations may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
• On 8 November 2021, your own SAPG, Ms. Alice Nderitu, communicated that she is “gravely concerned at the deterioration of the situation of Ethiopia, where escalation of violence, increased incidence of ethnically and religiously motivated hate speech, displacement of populations and destruction of property display serious indicators of risk of commission of atrocity crimes.”

It is quite clear that if Addis Ababa should come under threat of falling to the rebel army, the internees – wherever they are held – would, under current conditions, be liable to be exterminated. This is easily foreseeable. It can also be prevented.

We further note the alarming evidence of the likelihood of (continued) perpetration of other serious crimes under international law on populations including extermination, torture, rape and persecution.

The United Nations under your leadership can surely stop history from repeating itself. You have the means to do so but time is running out and posterity will be brutal in its judgement of your tenure if, despite the clear notice with a calendar, this genocide is not prevented.

Yours Sincerely,

Signed by the following institutions and individuals as at 5.00 p.m. (East African Time) on Friday 26th November 2021

A – Institutions

1. Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG)
2. African Initiative for Peacebuilding, Advocacy and Advancement (AfriPeace), Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria
3. African Union Watch, Banjul, The Gambia
4. Atrocities Watch Africa (AWA), Kampala, Uganda
5. Cameroon Women’s Peace Movement (CAWOPEM)
6. Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Nigeria
7. Coalition burundaise des defenseurs des droits de l,home (CBDDH), Burundi
8. Coalition des Defenseurs des Droits Humains du Benin, Benin
9. Coalition Malienne des Défenseurs des droits de l’homme, Mali
10. Coalition Togolaise des Défenseurs des Droits Humains (CTDDH), Togo
11. Coalition Burkinabè des Défenseurs des droits humains (CBDDH), Burkina Faso
12. Coalition Ivoirienne des Défenseurs des Droits de l’Homme, Côte d’Ivoire
13. Coalition for an effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACC), Arusha, Tanzania
14. Le Forum pour le Renforcement de la société civile (FORSC), Burundi
15. Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED)
16. Hope Advocates Africa (HADA)
17. Human Rights Defenders Network Sierra Leone
18. Institut des Médias pour la Démocratie et les Droits de l’Homme (IM2DH)
19. International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), Kampala, Uganda
20. Mouvement des Femmes et Filles pour la Paix et la Sécurité au Burundi, Burundi
21. Mozambique Human Rights Defenders Network
22. Nawi – Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective, Nairobi, Kenya
23. Network of Independent Commissions for Human Rights in North Africa
24. Nigerian Human Rights Defenders Focal Point, Nigeria
25. Pan African Citizens Network (PACIN), Nairobi, Kenya
26. Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), Arusha, Tanzania
27. Réseau des Citoyens Probes (RCP), Burundi
28. Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale
29. Réseau Nigérien des Défenseurs des droits de l’homme
30. Réseau Ouest Africain des Défenseurs des Droits Humains
31. Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (Southern Defenders)
32. Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), Nairobi, Kenya
33. Victim Advocates International (VAI), Nairobi, Kenya
34. Youth Forum for Social Justice

B – Individuals 

1. Achieng AKENA, Executive Director, International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), Kampala, Uganda
2. Ida BADJO, Togo
3. Joseph BIKANDA, Cameroon
4. Professor Danwood CHIRWA, Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa
5. Maître Francis DAKO, Lawyer Benin
6. Caryn DASAH, Cameroon
7. Donald DEYA, Chief Executive Officer, Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), Arusha, Tanzania
8. Adaobi EGBOKA, Human Rights Lawyer, Nigeria
9. Chibuzo EKWEKUO, Lawyer, Abuja, Nigeria
10. Hannah FORSTER, Chairperson, CSO Coalition on Elections, Banjul, The Gambia
11. Immaculée HUNJA, Mouvement des Femmes et Filles pour la Paix et la Sécurité au Burundi, Burundi
12. James GONDI, Human Rights Lawyer, Nairobi, Kenya
13. Ibrahima KANE, Lawyer, Senegal
14. Naji Moulay LAHSEN, Morocco
15. Bonaventure N’Coué MAWUVI, Togo
16. Alvin MOSIOMA, Executive Director, Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), Nairobi, Kenya
17. Vera MSHANA, New York, United States of America (USA)
18. Salima NAMUSOBYA, Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), Kampala, Uganda
19. Stella W. NDIRANGU, Human Rights Lawyer, Nairobi, Kenya
20. Dismas NKUNDA, Executive Director, Atrocities Watch Africa (AWA), Kampala, Uganda
21. Bahame Tom NYANDUGA, Chairman ad interim, African Union Watch, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
22. Professor Chidi Anselm ODINKALU, former Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria
23. Gladwell W. OTIENO, Nairobi, Kenya
24. Charles Donaldson OGIRA
25. Dr. Feyi OGUNADE, Executive Director, African Union Watch
26. Silas Joseph ONU, Convener, Open Bar Initiative, Nigeria
27. Caylen SANTOS, The Shalom Foundation, Franklin, TN
28. Crystal SIMEONE, Nairobi, Kenya
29. Mélanie SONHAYE KOMBATE, Togo
30. Arnold TSUNGA, Lawyer, Zimbabwe
31. Rosalie Wakesho WAFULA, Lawyer, Kenya

With copies to:

Ms. Michelle Bachelet Jeria
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Geneva, Switzerland

Mr. Peter Maurer
President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Geneva, Switzerland

Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu
United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (SAPG)
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
New York, United States of America (USA)

Ms. Karen Smith
United Nations Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
New York, United States of America (USA)

Mr. Parfait Onanga-Anyanga
United Nations Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa
Office of the Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa

Ms. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh
Special Representative of the United Nations to the African Union and Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia