VANGUARD

By Owei Lakemfa

Humanity, despite its giant strides  in knowledge, and over the planets, lies prostrate  before an almost invisible enemy, the Coronavirus (Covid-19) The nuclear weapons, stealth jets, sophisticated weaponry and armies of the human race are no match for a virus that is not as big as a spec  human eyes can see or detect.

We think we are big and that God has given us dominion over all living and non-living things, yet a microscopic organism is chasing us  from our cherished streets  in our tens of millions and forcing governments that lay claim to strong democratic credentials and tradition, to  adopt extra-ordinary  dictatorial measures such as locking down towns and cities, malls and transport systems and suspending  the right of free movement.

The  tiny organism is making hospitals in many countries overflow, mortuaries full and fresh graves  dug at extra ordinary speed.  It is crashing oil prices, crashing stock exchanges and pushing  centuries of relationships  like that between Europe and United States (US) to breaking points including full travel bans between them. These tiny creatures have emptied the usually  packed football stadia of their fanatical  fans and brought airlines crashing;  not from the air, but right there on the tarmac.

The tiny infectious agent which is spontaneously and actively waging war in 146 countries, has sent over 8,000   to early graves and infected   at least 200,000 persons. The infected   include the Iranian Vice President, Massoumeh Ebtekarand Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi,  Australian Home Affairs Minister,Peter Dutton, United Kingdom Health  Minister, Nadine Dorries, French Culture Minister, Frank Riester, Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary,  Marcos Troyjo and Sophie Trudeau, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Spain perhaps has the most infected government in the world; the victims include,  its  Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s wife Begona Gomez, the country’s Minister, Irene Montero,  its  Catalonia Region leader, Quim Torra  and his Deputy, Pere Aragones.

Also falling victim to the infection are popular Hollywood couple, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, British actor and musician, Idris Elba and famous Chilean writer Luis Sepulveda.  In sports,  Arsenal  Team Manager Mikel Arteta, Chelsea winger, Callum Hudson-Odoi and  Italy-based Argentinian footballer, Paulo Dybala have tested positive.  Also testing positive are American NBA basketball stars Rudy Gobert and  Donovan Mitchell.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has a simple message to the world: “All countries should be able to test all suspected cases. They cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded.” Survival is the first law of nature. Just six weeks ago, universal  focus was on refugees from underdeveloped countries trying to force their way into Europe especially through the Turkish-Greek border. It would have been unthinkable that just four  weeks later,  Europeans, especially Italians visiting Africa would  refuse to return home after the expiration of their visas!  Technically, they are seeking refuge on the continent.

But Africa should not shout Eureka because the virus is a dirty fighter, obeying no rules. China was the epicenter a few weeks ago, now it is Europe with Italy recording 475 deaths in one day. Both parts of the world, compared to Africa, have advanced health systems. The lessons from the devastation in China and Europe, is that Africa must  prepare for the worst;  while a  step like wash hands regularly with soap  can be quite simple in many parts of the world, it might not be so in Africa where many parts lack running water.

But it is all humans that must learn lessons including the American President Donald Trump who rather than lead the charge against the Coronavirus, sought to play politics with what he derisively called the “Chinese Virus”  The most important lesson is that the world is truly a global village  and what we must do, is try all that is humanly possible to   prevent a reoccurrence of a virus attack that has the potentials of wiping out large sections of humanity or even threatening the human race with extinction. That is why to me, beyond containing, and possibly defeating Covid-19, humanity, irrespective of the origins of the virus, must destroy all its stockpile of biological  weapons because any outbreak will spread beyond the intended borders.

Any leader or country that thinks Biological Warfare (BW) also known as  germ warfare, is viable in a highly globalized world, will be  mistaken. Any nation that thinks it can unleash   toxins, bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi on its enemy, and be immune, is mistaken.

Biological Warfare is not new in the world. In the Middle Ages, victims of the bubonic plague were thrown into castles to spread what White Europe called the Black Death. In  the fourteenth  Century, over    50 million died in Europe from the plague.

The Europeans who arrived in America met  Indian indigenes who in 1492, had a population of   112 million. The migrants  employed small pox as a biological weapon against the unsuspecting Indians who did not realize that the blankets  and linens the  migrants were giving them had been deliberately infected with smallpox.  This way, 90 percent of the indigenous Indian population, was wiped out. The three main persons who in 1763 deliberately infected the Indians with small pox were Sir Jeffery Amherst, Commander-in- Chief of the British forces in North America, his Philadelphia  Commander, Col. Henry Bouquet and  trader, William Trent.

In April 1789, British immigrants in  Australia  used the same  smallpox  epidemic  to wipe out 90 percent of the  indigenous  Aborigines. In the Second World War,   the Japanese army Unit 731  led by Lt. General Shirō Ishii  “used plague-infected fleas and flies covered with cholera to infect the population in China.” In August, 2002, the Japanese  District Court  presided over by  Justice   Koji Iwata, ruled that: “The evidence shows that the Japanese troops, including Unit 731, used bacteriological weapons under the order of the Imperial Japanese Army’s headquarters and that many local residents died.” North Korea has also advanced evidence that America used biological warfare against it during the Korean War.

In  the Vietnam War, America used the bio-chemical weapon, Agent Orange which could cause   diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and  cancer.  The Vietnamese government said over   three million people  suffered from illnesses as a  result of  Agent Orange.

In the 20^th Century alone, over  500 million people were  killed in biological warfare. The biological weapon of choice today is anthrax; who knows if Covid-19 was not also cultured in a laboratory and released amongst the Chinese?

My submission is that the world must  prevail on countries like Canada, China, France, Germany, Iran,  Israel, Japan,  North Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom which are suspected  of having biological weapons programs, to give them up for destruction.   Otherwise, the virus  humans culture, can turn around to be our masters.