Shock as Zimbabwe's Mugabe named WHO 'goodwill ambassador'

Robert Mugabe has been the leader of Zimbabwe since the 1980s. (AP Photo)

GENEVA – Shock and condemnation continued Saturday after Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was named a "goodwill ambassador" for the World Health Organization by the agency's first African leader.

The 93-year-old Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state, has long been criticized at home for going overseas for medical treatment as Zimbabwe's once-prosperous economy falls apart. Mugabe also faces United States sanctions over his government's human rights abuses.

"The decision to appoint Robert Mugabe as a WHO goodwill ambassador is deeply disappointing and wrong," said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, a major British charitable foundation. "Robert Mugabe fails in every way to represent the values WHO should stand for."

Ireland's health minister, Simon Harris, called the appointment "offensive, bizarre." "Not the Onion," tweeted the head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, in a reference to the satirical news site.

ZIMBABWEAN TALK ABOUT WHO WILL FOLLOW MUGABE GETS MURKIER

With Mugabe on hand, WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia announced the appointment at a conference in Uruguay this week on non-communicable diseases.

Tedros, who became WHO's first African director-general this year, said Mugabe could use the role "to influence his peers in his region" on the issue. He described Zimbabwe as "a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies." A WHO spokeswoman confirmed the comments to The Associated Press.

Two dozen organizations -- including the World Heart Federation, Action Against Smoking and Cancer Research U.K. -- released a statement slamming the appointment, saying health officials were "shocked and deeply concerned" and citing his "long track record of human rights violations."

The groups said they had raised their concerns with Tedros on the sidelines of the conference, to no avail.

The heads of U.N. agencies typically choose celebrities as ambassadors to draw attention to issues of concern. The choices are not subject to approval by the U.N. secretary-general or anyone else.

The ambassadors hold little actual power. They also can be fired. The comic book heroine Wonder Woman was removed from her honorary U.N. ambassador job in December following protests that a white, skimpily dressed American prone to violence wasn't the best role model for girls.

Zimbabwe's government has not commented on Mugabe's appointment, but a state-run Zimbabwe Herald newspaper headline called it a "new feather in president's cap."

The southern African nation once was known as the region's prosperous breadbasket. But in 2008, the charity Physicians for Human Rights released a report documenting failures in Zimbabwe's health system, saying Mugabe's policies had led to a man-made crisis.

"The government of Robert Mugabe presided over the dramatic reversal of its population's access to food, clean water, basic sanitation and health care," the group concluded. Mugabe's policies led directly to "the shuttering of hospitals and clinics, the closing of its medical school and the beatings of health workers."

The 93-year-old Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, has come under criticism at home for his frequent overseas travels that have cost impoverished Zimbabwe millions of dollars. His repeated visits to Singapore have heightened concerns over his health, even as he pursues re-election next year.

The U.S. in 2003 imposed targeted sanctions, a travel ban and an asset freeze against Mugabe and close associates, citing his government's rights abuses and evidence of electoral fraud.