by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
Under the new status, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its employees are exempt from legal action for acts performed in Kenya as part of their official foundation duties. Will the move set a precedent for other billionaire philanthropists?
Kenya last week granted diplomatic immunity to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its employees, or “servants,” Tim Schwab reported on Substack.
Under the new status, the foundation and its employees are exempt from legal action for acts performed as part of their official foundation duties. They also are exempt from paying taxes on their salaries, and they now have the right to own property in Kenya.
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“While nations around the world have long treated Bill Gates as a head of state, it’s now been practically codified into law in Kenya,” wrote Schwab, author of “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire.”
Schwab said the decision has raised “alarm bells” within the country and across the world. One public advocate, through a Freedom of Information Act request, has already petitioned the government for documents related to the decision
Others worry the decision to grant immunity may set a precedent for other billionaire philanthropists.
Concerns also have arisen that other nations will be pressured to follow Kenya’s lead and offer immunity to the Gates Foundation in exchange for continued access to the massive resources the foundation pours into other African countries.
The Government of Kenya’s announcement, Schwab wrote, comes just a week after farmer organizations and religious leaders across the continent called for reparations for the damage the foundation has inflicted on African agriculture through its so-called “green revolution” program.
They say the foundation promotes corporate, industrial agriculture at the expense of local practices and African ecosystems.
Much of the Gates Foundation’s investment in African agriculture happens through the Nairobi-based AGRA, previously known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. The foundation is AGRA’s co-founder and biggest donor. It has given at least $872 million to the organization, Schwab reported.
AGRA says it “exists to fulfil a vision where Africa can feed itself,” yet it directs its funding to support input-intensive and resource-intensive agriculture.
The alliance promotes the use of synthetic fertilizers and commercial seeds controlled by Big Ag, the restructuring of seed laws to criminalize trading of seeds not certified by Big Ag, and supports seed dealers who promote corporate products.
The foundation has past financial ties to companies like Monsanto (now Bayer), whose seeds it pushed on African farmers.
Gates/AGRA’s practices have long been criticized by human rights and environmental groups in Africa and globally. And independent research shows that AGRA-supported initiatives have failed, sometimes leading to increased hunger.
Daniel Maingi, coordinator for the Kenya Food Rights Alliance, told Schwab that with Gates’ diplomatic immunity, “Kenya becomes the testing ground … That is a big, big concern. It’s a big red flag.”
“In terms of food sovereignty, as we give Gates these privileges and immunities, Africa is going to be — not food sovereign, not seed sovereign — we’re going to be slaves and masters of the big corporations,” he added.
In response to criticism about its new diplomatic immunity in Kenya, the foundation issued a statement affirming its commitment to partnering with the Kenyan government.
“Our agreement to operate in Kenya was made in alignment with the Kenyan government’s Privileges and Immunities Act. We operate according to the typical agreements Kenya makes with other foundations and nonprofits,” Buhle Makamanzi, deputy director of Global Communications for the Gates Foundation in Africa, said in the statement.
Schwab said the move by the Kenyan government and the concerns raised by critics, “get to the heart of Gates’s anti-democratic influence and power, which, at least in Kenya, appears to be reaching new levels.”
“No one ever elected or appointed Gates to lead the world — on any topic,” Schwab said. “Yet through his great wealth and his money-in-politics brand of philanthropy, he is able to buy a seat at the democratic decision-making table — and, apparently, also buy diplomatic immunity.”
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