CONGO: the CIA and the fall of Congo

CIA’s program initially focused on removing Lumumba, not only through assassination if necessary but also with an array of nonlethal means.

Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first democratically elected prime minister of Congo.

"The inquiry concluded that Belgium wanted Lumumba arrested and, not being  particularly concerned with his physical well-being, took no action to prevent his death even though it knew he probably would be killed. ."

 From 1960 to 1968, CIA conduct­ed a series of fast-paced, multifaceted covert action (CA) operations in the newly independent Republic of the Congo (the Democratic Republic of the Congo today) to stabilize the government and minimize communist influence in a strategically vital, re­source-rich location in central Africa. The overall program—the largest in the CIA’s history up until then—com­prised activities dealing with regime change, political action, propaganda, air and marine operations, and arms interdiction, as well as support to a spectacular hostage rescue mission. By the time the operations ended, CIA had spent nearly $12 million (over $80 million today) in accom­plishing the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations’ objec­tive of establishing a pro-Western leadership in the Congo. President Jo­seph Mobutu, who became permanent head of state in 1965 after serving in that capacity de facto at various times, was a reliable and staunchly anticommunist ally of Washington’s until his overthrow in 1997.

 Some elements of the program, particularly the notorious assassi­nation plot against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba that was exten­sively recounted in 1975 in one of the Church Committee’s reports, have been described in open sources. However, besides the documentary excerpts in that report, limited releas­es

 releas­es in the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, and random items on the Internet and in other compilations, a comprehensive set of primary sources about CIA activities in the Congo has not been available until now. FRUS, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo, 1960–19681 is

 the newest in a series of retrospective volumes from the State Department’s Office of the Historian (HO) to compensate for the lack of CA-related material in previously published collections about countries and time periods when CIA covert interventions were an indispensable, and often widely recognized, element of US foreign policy.

After scholars, the media, and some members of Congress pillo­ried HO for publishing a volume on Iran for 1951–54 that contained no documents about the CIA-engineered regime-change operation in 1953,2 Congress in October 1991 passed a statute mandating that FRUS was to be “a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant United States diplomatic activity” and ordering “other depart­ments, agencies, and other entities of the United States Government…[to] cooperate with the Office of the His­torian by providing full and complete access to the records pertinent to United States foreign policy deci­sions and actions and by providing copies of selected records” older than 25 years.

Not with standing the new law and DCI R. James Woolsey’s pledge in 1993 to seek declassification review of 11 covert actions, including in the Congo, the two FRUS volumes published in the early 1990s on that country for 1958 through 1963 con­tained very few documents about the Agency’s CA operations there—even on the Lumumba assassination plot.4 In the case of the first volume, the FRUS editors decided not to delay publication by seeking additional records under the access require­ments of the just-enacted FRUS law. In the second, HO and CIA were still working out how to implement those requirements, taking into account the Agency’s concerns about protecting sources and methods and the fact that its records management prac­tices were not designed to facilitate scholarly research. Serious interagen­cy difficulties over HO access to and CIA review of CA-related documents arose over the next few years but were mostly resolved by the early 2000s in an interagency agreement.

The new procedures in that agree­ment facilitated the completion of the volume discussed here, which was held up after HO’s outside advisory committee in 1997 questioned the completeness and accuracy of the previous collections on the Congo. HO originally conceived Congo, 1960–1968 as a volume document­ing US policy during the Johnson presidency, but, at the committee’s suggestion, it postponed publication to incorporate relevant CA material missing from previous compendia.

The collection is well worth the wait, and specialists are making use of it already.a In no other single source will scholars find a richer compilation of intelligence and policy documents that, when used in conjunction with the two earlier volumes, helps underscore why the fate of the Congo, as well as the other newly independent nations in Africa, drew so much attention from US na­tional security decisionmakers then. Before 1960, when, in British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s famous phrase, “the wind of change” began blowing over the continent, the So­viet Union, China, and their proxies had paid little attention to it.

By early 1965, however, commu­nist countries had established over 100 diplomatic, consular, and trade missions; extended over $850 million in economic grants and credits; set up front organizations, cover entities, agents of influence, and clandestine assets; and provided assistance to anti-Western groups directly and through their allies. 

The Congo—for­merly a Belgian colony, one-quarter the size of the United States, with immense natural wealth and strate­gically situated in a now-contested region—was a Cold War prize of the first order. “If Congo deteriorates and Western influence fades rapidly,” the chief of CIA’s Africa Division (AF) wrote in June 1960, 10 days before the Congo gained its independence, the “Bloc will have a feast and will not need to work very hard for it.”

Congo, 1960–1968 provides essential material for understanding how the United States and its Congo­lese allies prevented the “feast” from happening. The volume contains 582 documents and editorial notes and is divided roughly into two sections. 

The first, covering 1960 to 1963, depicts the Congo’s political crisis and the extensive influence of CIA covert actions to remove Lumumba from power and then to encourage allegiance to the Leopoldville gov­ernment—especially the pervasive use of money to buy loyalties within leadership circles. The second part, covering 1964 to 1968, describes the continuation of the political action programs and the expansion of paramilitary and air support to the Congolese government in its effort to quell provincial rebellions, some of them communist-aided.

Over one-third of the sources in the volume are from CIA, and over 40 percent pertain to CA (the rest are about diplomacy, policy, and military matters). A number of the editorial notes usefully summarize heavily redacted documents or paraphrase intelligence information that other­wise might not have survived the review process in raw form. 

In both the documents and the notes, the editors helpfully have used bracketed insertions to indicate names, titles, or agencies in place of cryptonyms that were not declassified. Similarly, in cases when more than one individual whose name cannot be declassified is mentioned in a document, they have been designated as “[Identity 1],” “[Identity 2],” and so forth for clar­ity—a much better procedure than repetitively using “[less than one line declassified].” 

A More Nuanced View of the Situation

The documents from early 1960 at the inception of the covert program show CIA’s nuanced view of the Congo’s unsettled internal situation and the Agency’s fashioning of sensi­ble operational objectives to achieve the Eisenhower administration’s goal of regime change.6 President Dwight Eisenhower clearly expressed his dis­quiet over developments in postcolo­nial Africa at a meeting with senior advisers in August 1960:

“The President observed that in the last twelve months, the world has developed a kind of ferment greater than he could remember in recent times. The Communists are trying to take control of this, and have succeeded to the extent that… in many cases [people] are now saying that the Communists are thinking of the common man while the United States is ded­icated to supporting outmoded regimes”

CIA operations officers under­stood the challenges facing them as they dealt with a population of 14 million divided into over 200 ethnic groups and four major tribes, with fewer than 20 Congolese college graduates in the entire country, led by a government heavily dependent on the former Belgian colonialists to maintain infrastructure, services, and security, with an army that was poor­ly trained, inadequately equipped, and badly led, and a fractured political structure consisting of four semi-autonomous regions and a weak and factious “central” government in the capital of Leopoldville (Kinshasa today). The US ambassador in the early 1960s, Clare Timberlake, sym­pathized with the Agency officers he worked with: “Every time I look at this truly discouraging mess, I shud­der over the painfully slow, frustrat­ing and costly job ahead for the UN and US if the Congo is to really be helped. On the other hand, we can’t let go of this bull’s tail.”8

One of the most valuable contri­butions Congo, 1960–1968 is likely to make is moving scholarship past its prevailing fixation on Lumum­ba and toward an examination of CIA’s multiyear, multifarious covert program and the complexities of planning and implementing it.

 The volume provides additional detail about the assassination plot against Lumumba and his eventual death at the hands of tribal rivals abetted by their Belgian allies, substantiating the findings of a Belgian parliamentary inquiry in 2001.a9 Beyond that, for students of intelligence operations, the collection demonstrates the wide range of “soft” and “hard” covert initiatives CIA undertook in an often rapidly changing operational environ­ment

CIA’s program initially focused on removing Lumumba, not only through assassination if necessary but also with an array of nonlethal un­dertakings that showed the Agency’s clear understanding of the Congo’s political dynamics. The activities included contacts with oppositionists who were working to oust Lumumba with parliamentary action; payments to army commander Mobutu to ensure the loyalty of key officers and the support of legislative leaders; street demonstrations; and “black” broadcasts from a radio station in nearby Brazzaville, across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to encourage a revolt against Lumumba.

 CIA concen­trated on stabilizing and supporting the government of President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Ministers Cyrille Adoula and Moise Tshombe, with Mobutu as behind-the-scenes power broker

After Lumumba fled house arrest in the capital in late November 1960 and was tracked down and killed soon after,10  CIA concen­trated on stabilizing and supporting the government of President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Ministers Cyrille Adoula and Moise Tshombe, with Mobutu as behind-the-scenes power broker. CIA used an extensive assortment of covert techniques to accomplish that objective:

Advice and subsidies to political and tribal leaders.

• Funds to Mobutu to buy the alle­giances of army officers through salary subsidies and purchases of ordnance and communications and transportation equipment.

• Payments to agents of influence in the Adoula administration and to sources in the leftist opposition.

• Parliamentary maneuvering aided by covert money.

• Contacts with labor unions and student associations.

• Newspaper subsidies, radio broad­casts, leaflet distributions, and street demonstrations.

• Efforts to influence delegations from the United Nations (UN) to adopt positions that favored the Congolese government.11

The CIA’s program persisted through several political crises in the Congo during 1962–63 and at least can be credited with helping the government survive them. As of mid-1964, however, the US strategic goal of bringing about a broad-based governing coalition with national appeal remained unaccomplished. The replacement of Adoula with Tshombe, who led a different faction, in July 1964 prompted a suspension of political action efforts while the new government established itself and soon became preoccupied with putting down rebel uprisings. By August, insurgents controlled over one-sixth of the country, and the Agency redirected most resources to reinforcing and rebuilding tribal allegiances in contested areas and in­directly assisting the Congolese army by funding mercenaries in its employ.

For the better part of a year, CIA opted to promote unity rather than division by declining Tshombe’s and other politicians’ approaches for indi­vidual subsidies. By mid-1965, when Tshombe and Kasavubu seemed near­ly beyond reconciliation, the Agency tried to resume its previous political intriguing and buying of access and influence but became frustrated when the embassy resisted. US ability to affect Congolese leaders’ decisions “has never been lower since depar­ture of Lumumba,” Leopoldville Sta­tion wrote in late October. A month later, Mobutu—“our only anchor to the windward” and “the best man… to act as a balance wheel between the contending political leaders,” assert­ed CIA—staged a bloodless coup and took over the government.12

In Concert with US Policy

Documents in the collection show that CIA’s political program was strategically coordinated with overt policies and benefited from close co­operation between the chief of station (COS) and the ambassador, at least at first, and the COS’s back channel to the Congolese government, partic­ularly with Mobutu. Larry Devlin, COS from July 1960 to May 1963 and July 1965 to June 1967, had pro­ductive relationships with Timberlake and Edmund Guillon, less so with G. McMurtrie Godley, who disap­proved of the station’s machinationswith local leaders. 

Still, Devlin large­ly had a free hand, and his skill and connections were so valuable that he was brought back as an informal interlocutor with the Congolese gov­ernment between his tours. The State Department noted in 1965 that

“from the outset the Congo operation has had to cope with successive crises on a crash basis. The very nature of the problem has meant that great reliance had to be placed on close coordination between the Ambassador and the Station Chief in the expenditure of funds. Both Ambassadors Guillon and Godley appear to have had confidence in the CIA Station Chief and in his conduct of operations. Although courses of action have frequently been discussed between represen­tatives of the Department and CIA, the bulk of the day to day operational decisions were tak­en in the field without reference to the Department”

Devlin’s quasi-ambassadorial dealings with Mobutu underscored that the army chief was indispens­able to the Congo’s stability and, by extension, US policy in the Congo and sub-Saharan Africa. Devlin’s fascinating personal and profes­sional interaction with Mobutu, so evocatively described in his memoir, comes through in the official record as well, as does his indirect influence on policy decisions in Washington. The chief of AF wrote in 1967 that Mobutu had

“become accustomed and to some degree dependent on the informal channel to the U.S. Government thus provided [and] would interpret the ter­mination of this relationship— particularly if termination were more or less coincident with Devlin’s [second] departure— as evidence of a desire on the part of the U.S. Government to disengage from the close and friendly relations that have characterized dealings between the governments for most of the period since 1960.”

Story to be continued…

How African leaders subvert democracy to hold on to power for life

Many Africa leaders resist stepping down because they fear prosecution for their crimes in office

“We cannot allow Museveni to continue being president. We have to force him out of the office,”

  LOMÉ, Togo — Protesters in this west African capital have been burning tires and barricading roads to force political change in a country ruled by the same family for five decades.

“He must go! We don’t need him anymore,” demonstrator Henri Alifoe, 35, said of President Faure Gnassingbé, who succeeded his father in 2005. "We demand change. He must step down to give others opportunity.”

Such long reigns in Togo reflect a common problem throughout Africa, where ostensibly democratic societies seem stuck with aging leaders or family dynasties who cling to power through fraudulent elections or constitutional changes forced on their people.

That has been the case in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Cameroon, Mozambique, Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades despite laws prohibiting their leaders from holding power for so long.

Many Africans unhappy with their leaders holding onto power for so long are pushing for term limits and free elections monitored by international observers to force out incumbents. These reformers chalked up a victory in Gambia in January, when Adama Barrow defeated Yahya Jammeh, who had ruled the small country on Africa's western coast for 23 years.

Gambia's political success has given hope to reformers elsewhere:

Democratic Republic of Congo: President Joseph Kabila, 46, who has been in power since 2001, sparked a backlash when he moved elections scheduled for December 2016 to 2019. The opposition has staged mass protests in the capital Kinshasa to push Kabila out of the office. The protest has left more than 100 people dead, according local human right groups.

“We will not accept Kabila clinging onto power. We are going to mobilize people to remove him from the office,” said Felix Tshisekedi, a Congolese opposition leader.

Uganda: President Yoweri Museveni, 73, could become president for life after lawmakers from his party introduced a bill in late September to abolish a constitutional provision that bars anyone 75 or older from running for president. Museveni has been president for 31 years and his current term ends in 2021.

The proposal has triggered civil unrest, including the fatal shooting by police of two protesters in a southwestern town this month.

“We cannot allow Museveni to continue being president. We have to force him out of the office,” said Hillary Bwire, 22, a student at Makerere University in the capital, Kampala. “We need change in our country.”

Liberia: Unlike many colleagues, this country's leader is abiding by constitutional term limits. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 78, who has been president since 2006 is stepping down following elections this month to replace her in the country's first democratic transition in 70 years. The winner will be announced after a runoff on Nov. 7.

Many other African leaders, such as Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe have successfully changed their constitutions to remain in power for life despite broad opposition in their countries.

Kagame, 59, has been in power since 2000 and Nkurunziza, 53, has ruled since

Mugabe, 93, who has run his country for 37 years as a virtual dictator, was embroiled in a new controversy over the weekend when the World Health Organization named him a "goodwill ambassador" and then rescinded the title after global protests about his poor human rights record and inferior health care in Zimbabwe.

“Although the democratization push seems to be paying dividends in some quarters, we are seeing reversals in several African countries,” said Peter Wafula Wekesa, a political scientist at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Many Africa leaders resist stepping down because they fear prosecution for their crimes in office, added Wekesa. That’s why many go into exile after they reluctantly quit.

Former Gambian president Jammeh went into exile in Equatorial Guinea after he lost re-election. Joyce Banda of Malawi has been in a self-imposed exile in South Africa since losing the presidential election to Peter Mutharika in 2014. Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali also has been in Senegal since he left the presidency in 2012.

“First is the fear of losing economic and political privileges associated with the presidency,” said Wekesa. “Secondly is the fear, real or imagined, of retribution from political opponents who they have mistreated when in power."

In Togo, President Gnassingbé is fighting back against his opponents, banning further protests across the country and shutting down the Internet at times to limit dissent.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the past month to demand that he re-impose presidential term limits and leave office when his term expires in 2020.

A 1992 law had limited the president’s term to two five-years terms, but Gnassingbe's father, the late President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled for 38 years, scrapped the limitation in 2002.

The protests are the largest against Gnassingbe's rule since his ascension to power. At least four people have been killed and hundreds injured in the rallies.

“We are going to continue demonstrating until the president steps down,” said Alifoe. “We are not going to get tired. No one needs him. He must go!”

SOMALIA: REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF SOOBE

The attack was the single deadliest in Somalia’s history

   In the aftermath of this devastating attack, Somalia is mourning but also demanding the answer to many questions.

On Saturday 14 October, a truck laden with explosives was detonated at Kilometre Five, also known as Soobe, a busy intersection in Mogadishu. It killed 358 people and injured over 400, burning some beyond recognition. The death toll is expected to rise even further as some 58 people are still missing.
The attack was the single deadliest in Somalia’s history. It eclipsed anything seen before and saw buildings collapse, cars and buses burnt (including a one full of school children), dead bodies incinerated, and body parts strewn across the apocalyptic, approximately 500-metre site.
In the aftermath of this devastating attack, Somalia is mourning but also demanding the answer to many questions.

The first is why no one has claimed responsibility. Part of the answer is that, as some researchers have pointed out, anonymous attacks are “actually the norm, as only about one in seven terrorist incidents are claimed”.

Given the fact that the Mogadishu bombing seemingly missed its target, led to the widespread civilian casualties and has ignited intense public outrage, it perhaps makes sense that no organisation wants to claim responsibility.

That does not mean there is ambiguity over the identity of the perpetrators however. The government immediately pointed the finger at al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgency group waging a guerrilla war against the Federal Government.

How could this happen?

The question of responsibility may be the first question, but it is far from the only one. There are countless questions over how this attack could be allowed to happen in the first place.
For instance, with Mogadishu’s roads littered with security checkpoints manned by members of the Somali National Army, how was it possible that a truck the size of two double-decker buses could manoeuvre through the city laden with such heavy explosives undetected? Why aren’t there sniffer dogs and adequately trained bomb disposal units that can deal with suspected vehicles?
Could the internal squabbling of Somalia’s security elite and subsequent resignations of the Defence Minister and Army Chief just days before the blast have contributed to this glaring security lapse?
How can an attack of this magnitude be planned and orchestrated in the country hosting 22,000 African Union troops? With all the international support and billions of dollars spent in Somalia, why is there only one ambulance service?
With all its destruction and loss of life, why is it that no one has taken responsibility for this security failure and resigned?
The Somali government must answer these questions with clarity and­ must answer them now.

 

Needed reforms

 

The government must also address underlying weaknesses that may have allowed such an attack to take place.
For example, Somali Troops had recently withdrawn from several towns including Bariire, a mere 45km away from Mogadishu, and a major route to the capital. The withdrawals allowed al-Shabaab to capture these areas and are believed to have resulted from a rift between the Federal Government and the leaders of the Federal Member States.

President Farmaajo’s call for a national unity meeting in Mogadishu on 28 October is a positive step in trying to re-establish a united front, which will be essential to defeat militancy.
Although impossible to prove, it is also commonly believed that some institutions and organs of the federal government have been infiltrated by al-Shabaab. Fundamental reform of Somalia’s security agencies is therefore imperative. The Somali National Army (SNA), National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) and Somali Police Force (SPF) must be overhauled.

Robustly addressing these issues will be encouraging. It will signal to the Somali people, whose attitudes towards al-Shabaab are already changing, that their government means business and that change is possible.

A shift in attitudes

In America, the attack on September 11th 2001 had a dramatic effect on the public’s attitude towards its government. The American people were more willing to trust it in deciding the best response towards the perpetrators. Meanwhile, studies conducted after the incidents showed that attitudes towards the use of violence and war became more positive.
These shifts helped President George W Bush sell war to Congress without much opposition. Americans believed that the 9/11 attack was targeting their way of life and values, and overwhelmingly supported their government in response.
The Soobe incident was Somalia’s 9/11. There has been a similar shift in attitude. Mogadishans overcame their fear of al-Shabaab and protested against the group for the first time. Thousands of protesters came out on 18 October shouting “down al-Shabaab” and donning red bandanas, marking a truly watershed moment. It suggested that the long silence towards al-Shabaab’s actions and complicity of some residents might be over.
Like Americans after 9/11, Somalia’s protesters, whose anger was palpable, saw the recent attack as an existential assault on the Somali people.

Never forget

The most positive thing that can come out of this horrendous incident is for Somalia’s leadership to seize the moment in galvanising the Somali people towards a common goal.
The government has plenty of questions to answer still and actions to carry out to prevent further attacks, but to maintain the current public awakening, it must ensure the victims and the incident will never be forgotten.

Mayor of Mogadishu, Thabit Abdi Mohammed, has already proposed naming the site of the blast ‘the 14^th October Junction’. A memorial site displaying the names of the departed should also be built, while an annual service should be held every 14 October in which the names of all who perished are read aloud.

Taking tangible steps to re-examine the security sector, and providing answers to the aforementioned questions will not only restore the public’s confidence in their government that such attack will never happen again, but will also keep the crucial new found public engagement in denouncing al-Shabaab alive. This is something the government should do its best to maintain and never lose the sight of.

 

East Africa: Drug Trafficking "THE NARCO STYLE"

Many of these products, sometimes imported without authorization, are sold by hawkers in street-markets.

  There are two important international airports in the region, servicing the capitals' of Ethiopia and Kenya, which are used as transit points for illegal drugs.

 In the period 1995-2006, reported seizures of heroin, cannabis and cocaine in the region covered by UNODC Eastern Africaare comparatively few and do not reflect the extent of trafficking, availability and growing abuse in the region. The region is attractive to international drug trafficking syndicates as they are quick to exploit non-existent or ineffective border (land, sea and air) controls, limited cross border and regional cooperation as well as serious deficiencies in the criminal justice systems. Hence, the low seizure figures are more an indication that few resources are allocated to drug control and that international border controls are weak than a sign that no drugs are being trafficked through the region.

 FIGURE (1) MAJOR DRUG TRANSIT ROUTES IN THE East REGION

The region covered by UNODC Eastern Africa is accessible by sea to heroin and cannabis resin producer countries in South West and South East Asia through the ports in Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya and Tanzania. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Somalia, currently in the process of establishing a central authority, is host to widespread illegal transactions, including drug and arms trafficking. There are two important international airports in the region, servicing the capitals' of Ethiopia and Kenya, which are used as transit points for drugs. Both airports have connections between West Africa and the heroin‑producing countries in South West and South East Asia. There is also an increasing use of postal and courier services for cocaine, heroin and hashish.

" A review of drug seizures from 1998 to date indicates an increase in the trafficking of heroin to eastern African countries from Pakistan, Thailand and India. Increased seizures of heroin with Nigerian connections bound for Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya through Ethiopia have been noted as well. Seizures and arrest statistics show that more Tanzanians and Mozambicans are becoming involved in the trafficking of heroin from Pakistan and Iran."

 
West African syndicates, with their experience in cannabis and heroin smuggling, are actively networking in Latin America, and are responsible for the emergence of cocaine trafficking and abuse in eastern Africa. As shown in graph (3), although the volume of cocaine seized in Africa is still relatively small, the situation is changing as trafficking groups extend their highly-organised networks. In most countries in the ROEA region it is possible to purchase pharmaceutical products on demand without presenting a valid prescription. Many of these products, sometimes imported without authorization, are sold by hawkers in street-markets.

Unfortunately, the situation has been worsening in the last 10‑15 years. In the majority of the countries in the UNODC Eastern Africa region, control and monitoring of the national drug supply and distribution channels, including precursors, are inefficient. This results not only in the ineffective control of pharmaceutical products, but also in the circulation of counterfeit medicines. Together these pose serious health and socio‑economic problems, they undermine law enforcement activities and confidence in public health services.

The emergence of Mandrax in the region has gone hand in hand with the diversion of licit drugs and essential chemical precursors into the illicit market. The control of essential chemical precursors that are either being trafficked through the UNODC Eastern Africaregion to countries producing cocaine and heroin or used in the illegal production of Mandrax, is an important part of the battle against drugs in the region. It is feared that illegal trafficking, importation and use will continue as long as there are no effective control mechanisms in the countries of the region.

Zimbabwe: WHO cancels Robert Mugabe ambassador role

The World Health Organization has revoked the appointment of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador following a widespread outcry.

  Zimbabwe's healthcare system had collapsed under Mr Mugabe's 30-year rule.

"I have listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns," WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
He had previously praised Zimbabwe for its commitment to public health.
But critics pointed out that Zimbabwe's healthcare system had collapsed under Mr Mugabe's 30-year rule.

Staff often go without pay, medicines are in short supply, and Mr Mugabe, who has outlived the average life expectancy in his country by three decades, travels abroad for medical treatment.

• Africa's 'medical tourist' presidents
• Profile: Robert Mugabe

Mr Tedros said he had consulted with the Zimbabwean government and decided that rescinding Mr Mugabe's position was "in the best interests of" the WHO.
He said he remained "firmly committed to working with all countries and their leaders" to build universal health care.

Mr Tedros, elected in May under the slogan "let's prove the impossible is possible" had said he hoped Mr Mugabe would use his goodwill ambassador role to "influence his peers in the region".
But the appointment was met by a wave of surprise and condemnation. The UK government, the Canadian prime minister, the Wellcome Trust, the NCD Alliance, UN Watch, the World Heart Federation, Action Against Smoking and Zimbabwean lawyers and social media users were among those who criticised the decision.

The BBC's Andrew Harding in Johannesburg reports that Mr Mugabe's supporters are likely to see this episode as Western meddling in Africa.

Questions follow PR disaster

 Following the storm of criticism from human rights groups and expressions of dismay from many member states, the WHO had little choice but to cancel its plan to make Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador.

 The about-face will raise questions over the leadership of the WHO's new director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The decision to honour Mr Mugabe is likely to have been taken several weeks ago, and at no point did Mr Tedros seem aware that appointing as goodwill ambassador a man who has been accused of human rights abuses, and of neglecting to the point of collapse his own country's health service, might be controversial.

The WHO was supposed to be embarking on a new era of reform. Instead, it is mired in a public relations disaster.