{"id":58730,"date":"2021-04-02T06:58:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T10:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=58730"},"modified":"2021-04-02T07:03:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T11:03:05","slug":"was-tanzanian-president-magufuli-assassinated-because-of-his-resistance-to-the-draconian-covid-regime-being-imposed-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=58730","title":{"rendered":"Was Tanzanian President Magufuli assassinated because of his resistance to the draconian Covid regime being imposed worldwide?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Magufuli: Was he a science denier or a threat to the Empire?<\/h1>\n

Submitted by Anonymous<\/p>\n

While his COVID-19 policies have dominated media coverage regarding his disappearance and suspicious death, Tanzania\u2019s John Magufuli was hated by the Western elites for much more than his rebuke of lockdowns and mask mandates. In particular, his efforts towards nationalizing the country\u2019s mineral wealth threatened to deprive the West of control over resources deemed essential to the new green economy.\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

Less than 2 weeks ago, Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan delivered thenews<\/a>\u00a0that our president, John Pombe Magufuli, had died of heart failure. President Magufuli had been\u00a0described as missing<\/a>\u00a0since the end of February, with several anti-government parties circulating stories that he had fallen ill with COVID-19. During his presidency, Magufuli had consistently challenged neocolonialism in Tanzania, whether it manifested through the exploitation of our country\u2019s natural resources by predatory multinationals or the West\u2019s influence over our country\u2019s food supply.
\nIn the months leading up to his death, Magufuli had become better known and particularly demonized in the West for opposing the authority of international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) in determining our government\u2019s response to the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n

However, Magufuli had spurned many of the same interests and organizations angered by his response to COVID for years, having kicked out Bill Gates-funded trials of genetically-modified crops and more recently angering some of the most powerful mining companies in the West, companies with ties to the World Economic Forum and the Forum\u2019s efforts to guide the course of the 4th industrial revolution.
\nIndeed, more threatening than his recent COVID controversies was the threat Magufuli posed to foreign control over the world\u2019s largest, ready-to-develop nickel deposit, a metal essential to electric car batteries and thus the current effort to usher in an electric, autonomous vehicle revolution. For instance, just a month before he disappeared, Magufuli had signed an agreement to begin developing that nickel deposit, a deposit that had been previously co-owned by Barrick Gold and Glencore, the commodity giant deeply tied to Israel\u2019s Mossad, until Magufuli revoked their licenses for the project in 2018.<\/p>\n

Running afoul of the most powerful corporate and banking cartels followed then by the mysterious onset of sudden regime change, would normally garner considerable coverage from anti-imperialist independent media outlets, which recently covered similar events in Bolivia, that led to the removal of Evo Morales from power.<\/p>\n

However, the very outlets that have extensively covered Western-backed regime change efforts for years have been entirely silent on the very “convenient” death of Magufuli. Presumably, their silence is related to Magufuli\u2019s flouting of COVID-19 narrative orthodoxy, as these same outlets have largely promoted the official narrative of the pandemic.
\nYet, regardless of whether one agrees with Magufuli\u2019s response to COVID, his sudden departure and Tanzania\u2019s new leadership is a defeat for a widely popular domestic movement that sought to mitigate and reverse the centuries-long exploitation of Tanzania by the West. Now, with Magufuli\u2019s lengthy disappearance followed by his apparent sudden death from heart failure, the country\u2019s future could be determined by Tanzanian politicians if they have deep ties to the oligarch-beholden United Nations and the World Economic Forum.
\nCan Samia Suhuhu Hassan offer up our natural resources and our population to the altar of the Western elite-driven 4th industrial revolution?I do not think so.The very recent choice of a nationalistic Vice President shows that the Oligarchy is in for a surprise.<\/p>\n

Magufuli\u2019s celebrated rise and his clashes with the West<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

The former President Magufuli was first elected with his running mate and now president of Tanzania, Samia Suhulu, back in 2015 with 85% of the vote. At first, the president was met with lavish praise from the same Western media outlets that would later seek to demonize him. For instance, a\u00a0BBC <\/i><\/a>report from 2016 reflected on Magufuli\u2019s first year in office and noted his 96% approval rating. The report also quoted political analyst Kitila Mumbo, who remarked, \u201cthere is no doubt that President Magufuli is very popular among many ordinary Tanzanians\u201d and added that \u201cthe president\u2019s main promise of extending free education to secondary schools, which came into effect in January, has been well received.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running mates John Magufuli and Samia Suhuhu on a 2015 campaign flier. Source: 2015 FILE PHOTO<\/h5>\n

Also in 2016,\u00a0CNN<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>had reported that \u201cthe Tanzanian public has gone wild for its new President John Magufuli\u201d and that \u201cafter sweeping to victory in October 2015, Magufuli has embarked on a remorseless purge of corruption.\u201d The article reported that Magufuli had inspired a new term, as seen in Tanzanians\u2019 social media posts:<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2026 \u2018Magufulify\u2019 \u2013 defined as: \u2018To render or declare an action faster or cheaper; 2. to deprive [public officials] of their capacity to enjoy life at taxpayers\u2019 expense; 3. to terrorize lazy and corrupt individuals in society.\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Indeed, Magufuli\u2019s term was characterized by making decisions that benefited the majority of Tanzanians, largely at the expense of foreign corporations but also by overhauling a government known for its entrenched corruption and absenteeism prior to Magufuli\u2019s rise. His administration\u00a0cut<\/a>\u00a0the salaries of the executives at state-owned companies, as well as his own salary, from $15,000 to\u00a0$4,000 USD<\/a>. Some State parades and celebrations were reduced or cancelled to cover the expenses of public hospitals.
\nHealthcare had long been one of Magufuli\u2019s priorities, and the life expectancy of the country significantly\u00a0increased<\/a>\u00a0every year he was in office. In addition, in the previous 50 years of Tanzanian independence, only 77 district hospitals were constructed, whereas during the past 4 years alone, 101 such hospitals\u00a0were constructed and equipped<\/a>with local funds. By July 2020, the country had grown from a so-called lower income country to a middle income country, according to the\u00a0World Bank<\/a>.
\nA recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the hawkish, US establishment think tank, the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), was highly critical of Magufuli, but noted the following about his political philosophy:<\/p>\n

\u201cMagufuli, who subscribes to his own homegrown \u201cTanzania first\u201d philosophy, believes that Tanzania has been cheated out of profit and wealth by exploitative mabeberu (\u201cimperialists\u201d) since independence. To secure populist support, Magufuli has fashioned his agenda as a continuation of the socialist vision of Tanzania\u2019s first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who advocated self-reliance, an intolerance to corruption, and a strong nationalist character.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Click to expand…<\/p>\n

Magufuli\u2019s various conflicts with the imperialists transpired throughout his presidency, targeting various projects and business ventures of corporations and oligarchs that have worked to exploit much of the Global South for decades. For example, in late 2018, Tanzania\u2019s government\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0a stop to all ongoing field trials on genetically modified (GM) crops and the destruction of all plants grown as part of those trials. Those trials were being conducted by a partnership called the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project, which was a collaboration between Monsanto and the\u00a0African Agricultural Technology Foundation<\/a>, a non-profit organization funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, GM seed\/agrochemical giant Syngenta, PepsiCo and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), long known to be a cut-out for the CIA. Then, in January of 2021, a month before Magufuli\u2019s disappearance, Tanzania\u2019s agriculture ministry not only\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0a cancellation of all \u201cresearch trials involving genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country\u201d for the second time, it also announced plans to institute new biosafety regulations aimed at protecting Tanzania\u2019s food sovereignty by scrutinizing western GM seed imports.<\/p>\n

Historically, the US has been particularly harsh to countries that resist the integration of GM biotech into their food systems. According to a State Department cable<\/a>\u00a0from 2007 published by Wikileaks, Craig Stapleton, then US Ambassador to France, advised the US to prepare for economic war with countries unwilling to introduce Monsanto\u2019s GM corn seeds into their agricultural sectors. He recommended the US \u201ccalibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the E.U.\u201d for the bloc\u2019s resistance to approving some GM products. In another cable<\/a>\u00a0from 2009, a US diplomat stationed in Germany relayed intelligence on Bavarian political parties to several US federal agencies and the US Secretary of Defense, telling them which parties opposed Monsanto\u2019s M810 corn seed and spoke of \u201ctactics that the US could impose to resolve the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US government\u2019s use of food as a weapon for imperialist agendas became\u00a0de facto\u00a0<\/i>policy when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State during the Nixon administration. During that period,\u00a0a classified report<\/a>\u00a0was produced by the State Department that argued that the population of the developing world threatened US national security and posited that food aid be used as an \u201cinstrument of national power\u201d to advance US empire.<\/p>\n

A roadblock for the Ruling Class\u2019 \u201cgreen\u201d future<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

Magufuli\u2019s role in robbing Big Ag of a foothold in Tanzania a month before his disappearance and death, certainly casts suspicion on the circumstances surrounding his demise. Yet, if that weren\u2019t enough, Magufuli, during the exact same time frame, greatly angered the most powerful commodity corporations in the world across the sectors of mining<\/a>,\u00a0oil and natural gas<\/a>.
\nParticularly damaging to foreign corporate interests and agendas was Magufuli\u2019s targeting of the foreign-dominated mining sector in Tanzania, which contains some of the world\u2019s largest deposits hof minerals essential to the 4th industrial revolution-related technologies. With 500,000 tonnes of nickel, 75,000 tonnes of copper, and 45,000 tonnes of cobalt, Tanzania sits on a mountain of mineral wealth and, more specifically, minerals needed for next generation batteries and hardware that are themselves essential to the effort to rapidly implement \u201csmart\u201d infrastructure and automation globally. Within Africa, Tanzania has\u00a0the continent\u2019s second largest mining sector<\/a>, second only to South Africa.
\nIn the years prior to Magufuli\u2019s rise, Tanzania had offered relatively low tax rates and little regulatory oversight for mining companies. Yet, in 2017, Magufuli\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0\u201ceconomic warfare<\/a>\u201d on foreign mining companies and his administration followed through on the declaration,passing<\/a>\u00a0two laws that provided the government with a much greater share of the revenue from the exploitation of Tanzania\u2019s natural resources. This, of course, came at the expense of foreign mining conglomerates.<\/p>\n

The new legislation also gave the government the right to renegotiate and\/or revoke existing mining licenses that had been awarded prior to Magufuli\u2019s presidency.
\nSoon after, Tanzania\u2019s government took aim at Acacia Mining, which is now owned by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, and slapped them with $190 billion in fines for unpaid taxes and penalties. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t happen that we have all this wealth, sit on it, while others come and benefit from it by cheating us,\u201d Magufuli\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0of the decision. \u201cWe\u00a0need<\/a>\u00a0investors, but not this kind of exploitation. We are supposed to share profits.\u201d In 2018, the administration went after Acacia again, fining them $2.4 million for contaminating local water supplies in residential areas.<\/p>\n

The signing of the Kabanga Nickel Framework Agreement in January 2021. Source:Home<\/a><\/h5>\n

2018 was also the year that Magufuli\u2019s biggest rift with powerful mining corporations took place, one that potentially influenced his disappearance and subsequent death. The Kabanga nickel project, the largest, development ready nickel deposit in the world, had been owned jointly by Canada\u2019s Barrick Gold and commodities giant Glencore. In May 2018, Magufuli\u2019s administration\u00a0revoked<\/a>\u00a0the Barrick-Glencore license for the project, along with several others that included other nickel, gold, silver, copper and rare earth mining projects.<\/p>\n

Angering Glencore in particular is a risky business. The commodities giant was originally founded by Marc Rich, an infamous asset for Israel\u2019s Mossad who allowed Glencore profits to be used to finance covert intelligence activities. Rich and Glencore\u2019s intelligence ties are discussed in greater detail in\u00a0Part IV<\/a>\u00a0of Whitney Webb\u2019s series on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Today, Glencore is closely linked with Nat Rothschild, the son and heir of the scion of the British-based branch of the elite banking family, who purchased a $40 million stake in the company and was\u00a0largely responsible<\/a>\u00a0for orchestrating Simon Murray\u2019s appointment as Glencore\u2019s chairman as well as his\u00a0close relationship<\/a>\u00a0with Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg.
\nThen, in January 2021, a month before Magufuli disappeared, the Kabanga Nickel project went forward without Glencore and Barrick Gold, with Tanzania successfully negotiating joint ownership of the mine with a company<\/a>\u00a0set up by Norwegian millionaire Peter Smedvig and two of his associates. Unlike the Barrick-Glencore project, in which Tanzania\u2019s government had no financial stake, the new project gave Tanzania a 16% ownership stake in the mine, which is now required by law following Magufuli\u2019s reform of the country\u2019s mining sector.<\/p>\n

The loss of Kabanga was clearly a grave one for Barrick Gold and Glencore given the central role nickel and this specific deposit in Tanzania are set to play in the production and implementation of \u201csmart\u201d technologies. Nickel, among other uses, is a key component of the next-generation batteries used in \u201csmart\u201d technologies, specifically in electric vehicles. As a result, the demand for nickel is projected to rise dramatically in the next few years, in part due to the current effort to phase out most motor vehicles and replace them with ones that are both electric and self-driving. The importance of nickel to the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution has been underscored by the World Economic Forum, which\u00a0estimates<\/a>\u00a0that demand for high-purity nickel for EV battery production \u201cwill increase by a factor of 24 in 2030 compared to 2018 levels.\u201d In addition, last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk<\/a>\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cnickel is the biggest concern for electric car batteries.\u201d
\nIn addition to Tanzania\u2019s valuable nickel reserves, it can be argued that Tanzania\u2019s other most significant mineral wealth lies in its graphite reserves, which rank as the 5th largest in the world. In 2018,\u00a0Oxford Business Group<\/a>\u00a0estimated that Tanzania would become one of the top three graphite producers on the planet. With the World Bank estimating that graphite demand will increase 500% in the next 30 years, Tanzania now holds a strong bargaining position in the global market. The global lithium-ion battery market is \u201cexpected<\/a>\u00a0to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.0% from 2020 to 2027,\u201d and these batteries usually require both nickel and graphite, both of which are plentiful under Tanzania. As Elon Musk has\u00a0put it<\/a>, \u201clithium-ion batteries should be called nickel graphite batteries.\u201d
\nLast year, Musk had\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cWe will coup whoever we want! Deal with it,\u201d in response to accusations that the US government had backed the 2019 coup in Bolivia so that Musk\u2019s Tesla could acquire rights to the world\u2019s largest lithium reserves, another mineral critical to electric vehicle battery production. A few months before Musk\u2019s infamous tweet, the foreign minister of Bolivia\u2019s coup government had written a letter to Musk that\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cany corporation that you or your company can provide to our country will be gratefully welcomed\u201d in relation to the country\u2019s mining sector. These incidents underscore US empire\u2019s current willingness to engage in regime change to ensure control of mineral deposits considered essential to emerging technologies and the 4th Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n

Logo for the latest iteration of the Kabanga Nickel mining project. Source:\u00a0Home<\/a>
\nIn the case of Tanzania.<\/h5>\n

It is worth noting that Glencore, which had its ownership of the Kabanga nickel deposit revoked by Magufuli, is\u00a0closely tied <\/a>to the World Economic Forum and is part of the Forum\u2019s\u00a0Global Battery Alliance<\/a>\u00a0as well as its\u00a0Mining and Metals Blockchain Initiative<\/a>, both of which focus on supply chains for minerals deemed essential to the 4thIndustrial Revolution. Also of interest is the fact that Tundu Lissu, the Magufuli government\u2019s most vocal critic and a main source for all mainstream media Tanzania reporting, was formerly employed by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a US-based non-profit and \u201cstrategic partner<\/a>\u201d of the World Economic Forum. The WRI aims to build \u201cclean energy markets\u201d and \u201cvalue supply chains,\u201d supply chains which will inevitably depend on cheaply sourced raw materials like nickel, graphite, and cobalt.
\nThe World Resource Institute has received no less than\u00a0$7.1<\/a>\u00a0million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and, according to the\u00a0WRI donor page<\/a>, they\u2019ve received no less than $750,000 from the West\u2019s most powerful corporate actors including Shell, Citibank, The Rockefeller Foundation, Google, Microsoft, The Open Society Foundation, USAID, and the World Bank.<\/p>\n

Lissu\u00a0praised news<\/a>\u00a0of Magufuli\u2019s sudden death as a \u201crelief\u201d and an \u201copportunity for a new beginning\u201d in Tanzania. Tellingly, he alsospoke very positively<\/a>\u00a0of the country\u2019s future under Magufuli\u2019s Vice President and current President Samia Suhulu, suggesting that she will take the country in a direction very different than that of her predecessor.
\nThabit Jacob, a Tanzanian academic at Denmark\u2019s Roskilde University was quoted in UpStream<\/a> as saying that Rostam Aziz, one of Tanzania\u2019s wealthiest businessmen and ex-parliament member, who had a major falling out with Magufuli over tax policy, could soon become a key player in the new government, \u201cmeaning big business will play a bigger role\u201d in the country\u2019s future. Rostam owns Caspian Mining, the single largest Tanzanian mining firm and a frequent contractor for Barrick Gold.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 response met with foreign hostility\u00a0<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

Under the Magufuli administration, Tanzania\u2019s COVID-19 response policies ran counter to the international consensus, with the country declining to implement any major lockdowns or mask mandates. It should be noted that even the\u00a0CFR relayed<\/a>\u00a0that these decisions had the democratic support of the masses, writing that \u201con-the-street sentiment suggests many Tanzanians agree with the government\u2019s light-touch approach.\u201d
\nMagufuli was also skeptical of\u00a0adopting <\/a>COVID-19 vaccines, before they could be investigated and certified by Tanzania\u2019s own experts, warning that they could pose safety concerns due to their rushed development. \u201cThe Ministry of Health should be careful, they should not hurry to try these vaccines without doing research \u2026 We should not be used as \u2018guinea pigs’\u201d, Magufuli had stated in January. \u201cWe are not yet satisfied that those vaccines have been clinically proven safe,\u201d Tanzanian Health Minister Dr. Dorothy Gwajima later\u00a0remarked<\/a>\u00a0at a news conference.
\nMagufuli refused to immediately agree to receive COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX, a public-private partnership between Gates\u2019 GAVI and the World Health Organization which\u00a0aims<\/a>\u00a0to deliver 270 million COVID vaccines, with 269 million of them<\/a>\u00a0being the Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccine to the world \u201cas soon as they\u2019re available.\u201d In recent weeks, major safety issues with the Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccine have been identified by national regulatory bodies across Europe and Asia and numerous countries have suspended its use.
\nHowever, such nuance regarding the safety of \u201cvaccine aid\u201d was absent from the now ubiquitous mainstream narrative of Magufuli being \u201canti-science.\u201d That narrative was first established as early as May 2020, when Magufuli exposed the inaccuracy of\u00a0imported PCR testing kits<\/a>\u00a0after a goat, a piece of fruit, and motor oil all received \u2018positive\u2019 test results from the supplied kits. \u201cThere is something happening \u2026 we should not accept that every aid is meant to be good for this nation,\u201d he\u00a0proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0in a national address.
\nAfter this address,Bloomberg<\/a><\/i>\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0Magufuli the \u201cCOVID-denying president.\u201dForeign Policy<\/i>went as far as to dub the President as \u201cDenialist in Chief\u201d and asked if he was even \u201cmore dangerous than COVID-19.\u201d Magufuli became the Western press\u2019s poster boy for \u201cCOVID denial<\/a>\u201d while Tanzania became \u201cthe country that\u2019s rejecting the vaccine.<\/a>\u201d
\nHowever, in the months that followed May 2020, the accuracy of PCR testing kits have been called into question, not only by mainstream media, but also \u201cauthoritative\u201d global health bodies like the World Health Organization, thereby validating Magufuli\u2019s initial critique. In a story titled \u201cYour Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn\u2019t Be<\/a>\u201d,\u00a0the New York Times\u00a0<\/i>reported that the \u201cstandard [PCR] tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. . . and are not likely contagious.\u201d
\nIn November 2020, a landmark court case in Portugal ruled that the PCR test used to diagnose COVID-19 was not fit for that purpose, ruling that \u201ca single positive PCR test cannot be used as an effective diagnosis of infection.\u201d In their ruling, judges Margarida Ramos de Almeida and Ana Param\u00e9s referred to a\u00a0study by Jaafar et al<\/a>., which found that the accuracy of some PCR tests was only about\u00a03%<\/a>, meaning up to 97% of positive results could be false positives.
\nBy December 2020, the\u00a0World Health Organization<\/a>\u00a0had confirmed that the PCR test was ripe for false positives, warning that they could easily lead to COVID-free individuals receiving positive test results. The position that PCR testing kits are unreliable is not new science, as a\u00a02007 <\/a>New York Times<\/i><\/a>\u00a0article titled \u201cFaith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic that Wasn\u2019t\u201d wrote that the sensitivity of PCR testing kits \u201cmakes false positives likely, and when hundreds or thousands of people are tested, false positives can make it seem like there is an epidemic.\u201d In addition, large batches of PCR test kits in the early phase of the COVID-19 crisis were contaminated with COVID-19 prior to their use, which was later found to have\u00a0significantly skewed<\/a>\u00a0the number of cases reported in the early phases of the pandemic in the US and beyond.
\nNumerous examples of vaccines with severe adverse effects being pushed onto the Tanzanian people, combined with the widely reported safety issues surrounding the AstraZeneca\/ Oxford vaccine that Tanzania would receive through COVAX, make the Western media\u2019s \u201canti-science\u201d characterization of Magufuli particularly inappropriate. For example, as far back as 1977, studies published in\u00a0The Lancet <\/a><\/i>established that the risks of the diphtheria tetanus pertussis (DTP) vaccine are greater than the risks associated with contracting wild pertussis. After mounting evidence linking the drug to\u00a0brain<\/a>\u00a0damage<\/a>,seizures<\/a>, and even\u00a0death<\/a>, the U.S.phased<\/a>\u00a0it out in the 1990s and\u00a0replaced<\/a>\u00a0it with a safer version called DTaP. A 2017 study funded by the Danish government concluded that more African children were dying at the hands of the\u00a0deadly DTP vaccine<\/a>\u00a0than by the diseases it prevented. Researchers examined data from Guinea Bissau and concluded that boys were dying at 3.9 times the rate of those who had not received the shot, while girls suffered almost 10 times (9.98) the death rate. GAVI, subsidized by USAID and the Gates Foundation, has dumped over\u00a0$27 million<\/a> worth of the dangerously outdated DTP vaccine onto the Tanzanian health system as of today.
\nFurthermore, as detailed by\u00a0Unlimited Hangout<\/i><\/a>\u00a0in December, the developers of the Oxford vaccine (the vaccine Tanzania would receive under COVAX), are deeply entangled with the eugenics movement and engage in ethically questionable activities regarding the intersection of race and science to this day. In 2020,\u00a0The Wellcome Trust<\/a>, the research institute where both of the lead developers of the Oxford vaccine work, was\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0by the University of Cape Town of illegally exploiting hundreds of Africans by stealing their DNA without consent.
\nAlso concerning is the fact that more than 20 European countries have\u00a0halted use<\/a>\u00a0of the Oxford\/ AstraZeneca vaccine due to a possible link to blood clot disorders and strokes. Even\u00a0the New York Times\u00a0<\/i>has questioned if the Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccine is a viable candidate, particularly for Africa. According to a\u00a0Times<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>article from February, South Africa halted use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine after evidence emerged that the vaccine did not protect clinical trial volunteers from mild or moderate illness.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent election victory \u201camid claims of fraud\u201d\u00a0<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

In October 2020, Magufuli was reelected to a second, five year term, this time gaining a resounding 84.39% of vote. At the time, the US government-funded outlet\u00a0Voice of America<\/a><\/i>\u00a0(VOA) quoted one Tanzanian, Edward Mbise, who told the outlet that \u201c[they] all expected [Magufuli] to win due to what he has done \u2026 he has accomplished so many things that you can\u2019t even finish listing all of them.\u201d
\nHowever, Tundu Lissu, the leader of Magufuli\u2019s main opposition party, alleged that the election had been fraudulent, but provided no evidence. According to the same VOA article, Lissu\u00a0called for<\/a>\u00a0\u201ccitizens [to] take action to ensure all election results are changed.\u201d
\nLissu\u2019s accusations of fraud were widely reprinted by Western media despite the lack of evidence. A\u00a0BBC<\/a><\/i>\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0was titled \u201cPresident Magufuli Wins Election Amid Fraud Claims.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/i>, funded heavily by the Gates Foundation,\u00a0s<\/i>imilarly claimed that \u201cTanzania\u2019s President wins re-election Amid Claims of Fraud.\u201d In the US,\u00a0the New York Times<\/i>\u00a0published a story called,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAs Tanzania\u2019s President Wins a Second Term, Opposition Calls for Protests.\u201d
\nNeither mention of Magufuli\u2019s approval ratings nor quotes from actual Tanzanian people were anywhere to be found in these articles, details which had been plentiful in Western mainstream media coverage of his first election victory. Quotes that did appear were usually from Lissu, now exiled in Belgium, or other members of his party.
\nNot long after Lissu\u2019s claims had been uncritically repeated by major Western media outlets, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0sanctions on his last day in charge of the State Department that targeted Tanzanian officials who had allegedly been \u201cresponsible for or complicit in undermining the 2020 Tanzanian general election\u201d. It is worth pointing out that the similarities between the election fraud accusations in Tanzania and those made in Bolivia just prior to the US-backed November 2019 coup are considerable.
\nTwo weeks later, on February 5th, 2021, theCenter for Strategic & International Studies<\/a> suggested that the US might, as it often does, fund Magufuli\u2019s political opposition, openly suggesting that the \u201cthe Biden administration has an opportunity to increase direct engagement with Tanzanian opposition politicians and civil society groups,\u201d using Magufuli\u2019s \u201cdangerous\u201d approach to COVID-19 as public justification.
\nThat same week,\u00a0the Guardian\u2019<\/i>s Global Development section (made possible through a\u00a0partnership<\/a>\u00a0with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) published an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0titled, \u201cIt\u2019s time for Africa to rein in Tanzania\u2019s anti-vaxxer president<\/a>.\u201d Predictably, this article, and others like it, sought to paint the African leader as a crazy conspiracy theorist, but left out the fact that Magufuli had earned his master\u2019s and doctorate degrees in Chemistry before being elected president in 2015.
\nOn March 9th, Tundu Lissu, the opposition leader formerly employed by the Washington-based and Wall Street-funded World Resource Institute, contended that Magufuli was critically ill with COVID-19. In a series of tweets, Lissu\u00a0asserted that<\/a>\u00a0the then-president had been flown first to Kenya and then India to be treated for the virus. \u201cWe urge the government to come out publicly and say where is the president and what is his condition,\u201d John Mnyika, another opposition leader, also publicly\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0similar claims. The very first paper to run the\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0that Magufuli had COVID-19 was\u00a0The Nation<\/i>, a relatively new Kenyan newspaper that has received\u00a0$4 million<\/a>\u00a0from the US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
\nMeanwhile, the Magufuli government repeatedly dismissed these claims as fake news. \u201cHe is fine and doing his responsibilities,\u201d insisted Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa on March 12. \u201cA head of state is not a head of a jogging club who should always be around taking selfies,\u201d Constitutional Affairs Minister Mwigulu Nchemba had said at the time.
\nOn March 11, just days before the announcement of Magufuli\u2019s death and Suhulu\u2019s appointment to the post of President, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the influential think tank closely tied to the Rockefeller family and the US political elite, suggested that a \u201cbold figure within the ruling party [i.e. Magufuli\u2019s party] could capitalize on the current episode to gain popularity and begin to reverse course \u2026\u201d
\nWhile a swift leadership transition in Tanzania might seem like an unexpected surprise to western financial interests, groups in the US who specialize in foreign meddling and regime change operations had been at work in Tanzania ever since Magufuli\u2019s initial election victory. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government think\/do tank which aims to \u201csupport freedom around the world,\u201d pumped\u00a0$<\/a>1.1<\/a>\u00a0million<\/a>\u00a0into different Tanzanian opposition groups and causes over the last few years. One co-founder of NED, Allen Weinstein, once disclosed to\u00a0the\u00a0<\/i>Washington Post<\/a><\/i>\u00a0that \u201cA lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.\u201d Carl Gershman, NED\u2019s other co-founder, once told\u00a0the\u00a0<\/i>New York Times<\/a><\/i>\u00a0that \u201cIt would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA . . .and that\u2019s why the endowment was created.\u201d
\nNED\u2019s recent operations in Tanzania included projects to \u201corganize young people to promote reform, and introduce them to new media tools that can assist in their efforts\u201d, \u201crecruit and train young artists to convey stories about governance\u201d, financially support an opposition-friendly \u201csatirical\u201d news production that provides humorous commentary on current events to \u201cencourage conversations\u201d, as well as financially supporting the production of a \u201ccomprehensive televised civic education campaign\u201d aimed at both COVID-related public awareness and \u201cvoter education.\u201d The grantee for the funds, the\u00a0Tanzania Bora Initiative<\/a>, whose slogan is \u201ctransforming mindsets, influencing cultures\u201d boasts of \u201cempowering over 50 young Tanzanian political candidates.\u201d The Tanzania Bora Initiative was also heavily\u00a0supported by USAID<\/a>\u00a0while Magufuli was in office.
\nOne wonders what effects these NED and USAID-funded efforts would have had on the country if Magufuli had not died in office. In January, the\u00a0CIA-filled<\/a>Jamestown Foundation began reporting on Tanzania\u2019s \u201ccreeping radicalization issue<\/a>\u201d and eerily put forward the idea that \u201cTanzania could be primed to experience an increase in violence directed inward\u2026\u201d Though this thankfully never came to fruition, in other cases of Western-backed regime change, opposition groups funded by these same organizations have been known to stoke or create violence in order to justify Western intervention.
\nThe Magufuli Administration wasn\u2019t oblivious to the West\u2019s regime change efforts. In the years following his election victory, Tanzanian police forces had\u00a0raided meetings<\/a>\u00a0organized by the Open Society Foundations, a group infamous for\u00a0their meddling initiatives<\/a>\u00a0in states targeted by the US\u2019 foreign policy establishment.
\nYet, despite his strong stands against the West, something about Magufuli\u2019s approach had changed the day of his last public appearance on February 24th, 2021. That morning, the Tanzanian President\u00a0had begun urging<\/a>\u00a0his countrymen to wear masks, something he had resisted doing for nearly a year after the WHO declared a pandemic, and urged them to begin taking health precautions.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0<\/b>new President, to Western applause\u00a0<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

Convenient for the powers that Magufuli had angered, his successor and VP, Samia Suluhu, hails from the United Nations\u2019 World Food Programme and has a profile\u00a0listed<\/a>\u00a0on the website of the World Economic Forum, suggesting a closeness with the circles her predecessor had rebuked. It still remains unclear if she has already reversed any of Magufuli\u2019s policies, either economic or COVID-related, but some shifts seem likely given that her appointment has been met with pure celebration by the same institutional actors that actively worked to undermine President Magufuli.
\nAnother potential indicator is the dubious discovery of a new COVID variant in Tanzania that reportedly has more mutations than any other variant. That variant\u2019s discovery was announced\u00a0just over a week<\/a>\u00a0following the announcement of Magufuli\u2019s death and seems tailor-made to provide a public justification of a reversal of Tanzania\u2019s government approach to COVID. Notably, the Tanzania variant\u00a0was discovered<\/a>\u00a0by Krisp, \u201ca scientific institute that carries out genetic testing for 10 African nations\u201d that is\u00a0funded by<\/a>\u00a0the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the governments of the US, the UK and South Africa.
\nRegarding a potentially imminent reversal of Tanzania\u2019s COVID policy, the reaction of the top official at the World Health Organization may offer a clue. WHO General Director Tedros Ghebreyesus had no time to comment after receiving word of Magufuli\u2019s sudden death, but quickly took to\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0minutes after Suluhu\u2019s swearing-in ceremony to congratulate the country\u2019s first female president, telling her that he\u2019s \u201clooking forward to working with her to keep people safe from COVID-19, and end the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghebreyesus was previously on the board of two organizations that Bill Gates had founded, provided seed money for, and continues to fund to this day: GAVI and theGlobal Fund<\/a>, where Tedros was chair of the boardoriginal\u00a0few days before Ghebreyesus\u2019 tweet, the State Department released a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0reaffirming the US\u2019 commitment to supporting Tanzanians as they advocate for respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and work to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that \u201cWe hope that Tanzania can move forward on a democratic and prosperous path.\u201d Vice President Kamala Harris had nothing to say in regards to the popular East African president suddenly dying, yet like Ghebreyesus, she managed to send her\u00a0best wishes<\/a>\u00a0to the newly sworn in Suluhu Samia on Twitter.
\nBillionaire-backed<\/a>\u00a0Human Rights Watch, whose\u00a0revolving door<\/a>\u00a0with the US government is well documented, welcomed Magufuli\u2019s death, publishing a piece entitled \u201cTanzania: President Magufuli\u2019s Death Should Open New Chapter<\/a>,\u201d writing that the African leader\u2019s sudden passing \u201cprovides an opportunity.\u201d Notably, the same organization had\u00a0supported<\/a>\u00a0the US-backed military coup in Bolivia as well as the Trump Administration\u2019s regime change efforts in\u00a0Nicaragua<\/a>\u00a0and had called for<\/a>\u00a0an increase of deadly U.S. sanctions on Venezeula\u2019s Chavista government, even after the publication of a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by The Center for Economic and Policy Research which found that at least 40,000 Venezuelan civilians had already died due to the such sanctions.
\nEarlier this month, Judd Devermont, a former CIA senior political analyst on sub-Saharan Africa, in a CSIS piece titled \u201cWill Magufuli\u2019s Death Bring Real Change to Tanzania?<\/a>,\u201d Later in the article, the former CIA analyst accidentally disclosed his working definition of \u201cauthoritarianism\u201d when he wrote: \u201cMagufuli steered Tanzania toward authoritarianism by implementing a nationalist economic agenda characterized by stifled regional and international trade and a blow to foreign direct investment (FDI).\u201d
\nHowever, the claim that Magufuli was against all foreign investment is misleading. Perhaps Devermont should have written that Magufuli\u2019s policies were a blow to FDI from the West, as Magufuli, in the last months of his presidency and his life, was directly courting foreign investment from China.
\nIn mid-December 2020,\u00a0Tanzania Invests <\/a><\/i>reported<\/a>\u00a0on a Magufuli meeting with Chinese leadership, after which Magufuli announced that Tanzania \u201cwelcomes traders and investors from China in various areas like manufacturing, tourism, construction, and trade for the benefit of both parties.\u201d The report also noted that \u201cMagufuli asked China to cooperate with Tanzania in investing in large projects by providing cheap loans\u201d and that \u201cTanzania will further develop and enhance its long-standing relationship with China and will continue to support China on various international issues.\u201d China is currently Tanzania\u2019s top trading partner and Tanzania is the largest recipient of Chinese government aid in Africa. It is worth considering that this China pivot, particularly at a time when the US\u2019 new Cold War with China is reaching new heights, played a role in Western-backed regime change efforts targeting Tanzania.<\/p>\n

Looking\u00a0<\/b>beyond Tanzania<\/b>\u200b<\/b><\/p>\n

The fate suffered by President John Magufuli and Tanzania is similar to what happened in a neighboring country, Burundi, just six months ago. The president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza, publicly refused to enact top-down mitigation measures in response to COVID-19, and was similarly vilified by US aligned press and think tanks. In May 2020, Nkurunziza\u00a0expelled<\/a>\u00a0the World Health Organization from Burundi and, three weeks later, it was reported that he had died after suddenly going into cardiac arrest.
\nMore recently, Zambia, which borders Tanzania and is set to hold elections this August, is currently angering some of the same actors that Magufuli had challenged in its government\u2019s efforts to nationalize its copper mines and potentially other mining projects. In December, Zambian President Edgar Lungu announced that his government would acquire\u00a0\u201c<\/b>a significant stake in some selected mine assets\u201d in order to \u201ccreate sufficient wealth for the nation.\u201d Echoing Magufuli, Lungu had stated \u201cWe shall no longer tolerate mining investors who seek to [profit] from our God-given natural resources, leaving us with empty hands.\u201d
\nIn January, Lungu took a step towards nationalizing the copper mining sector after a protracted dispute with none other than Glencore. Copper, like nickel, graphite and lithium, is a metal critical to the success of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Western media reports on Lungu\u2019s recent move quoted experts who\u00a0urged Zambia\u2019s government<\/a>\u00a0\u201cto tread carefully\u201d in its efforts to increase the role of the public sector in the nation\u2019s mining industry.
\nThen, a week after Magufuli\u2019s death was announced, Lungu\u2019s main competitor in the upcoming election publicly accused Lungu of trying to have him murdered while some English language, pro-Western media outlets have already claimed that Lungu\u00a0plans to rig<\/a>the upcoming election in his favor and that the country \u201cmay burn<\/a>\u201d if the election has the \u201cwrong\u201d outcome.
\nSuch examples reveal that the situation that has recently unfolded in Tanzania is hardly unique in today\u2019s Africa. However, the domination of the media landscape with constant COVID coverage has made Western audiences largely unaware of the various regime change efforts that have taken place or are underway in the region. Unlike regime change efforts of the recent past, those targeting Africa, and also Bolivia, seem laser focused on mining assets deemed essential to establishing the supply chains needed to power the 4th Industrial Revolution.
\nWith many of these countries having recently cozied up to China, it seems the regime change projects and proxy wars of the future are set to revolve, not around fossil fuels and pipelines, but over whether the East or the West will dominate the supplies of minerals needed to produce and maintain next-generation technology.
\nNot only has COVID kept reporting on these coups for minerals to a minimum, it has also lent a convenient cover for the demonization of leaders and the advancement of regime change in countries that are being targeted for other reasons that have everything to do with resources and little to do with a virus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Magufuli: Was he a science denier or a threat to the Empire?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}