Did the West put deadly Ebola in Africa?

What I’ve found remarkable about the Ebola pandemic in West Africa is the amount of distrust there is among not just Black people about the West’s role in it.

There are projections from medical experts of a devastating million and half people infected in the next few months.

In big media the West has been cast as saviours of the beleagued “developing world”, with the multi-million pound humanitarian intervention of their medical teams and military. But bloggers and other social media commentators have pointed the finger at the "developed world" and claimed the terrifying disease was manmade outside the continent.

These controversial views have been played out, for instance, in comments on our lively Facebook Citizen Journalism group page.

Black conspiracy theorists believe that Ebola can be added to Hiv-Aids as deadly viruses planted in Africa as part of the white man’s ongoing bioeconomic war against the Motherland.

What has made it into big media are reports of relatives of Ebola victims in worst affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone snatching them from their hospital beds because they believed the patient had been purposely infected.

US blogger Dave Hodges, host of what he calls the Common Sense Show online, supports the theory Ebola was manmade. He quotes in detail official sources, including the National Institute of Health, Centres for Disease Control, and Prevention and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Hodges comes to the blunt conclusion: “Ebola was invented, a vaccine for Ebola has existed for 8-10 years, some government sponsored institutions as well as some of the global elite have positioned themselves to profit enormously from the spread of the virus and the development of and dissemination of mandatory Ebola vaccines and the imposition of total martial law in the process.”

Among the elite figures Hodges says are implicated are billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, formerly the richest man in the world, who has donated hundreds of millions of pounds of his wealth to fighting Ebola and other diseases in Africa. But, whom Hodges and others claim will reap a huge profit in their investment in the production of the vaccine.

Horace G Campbell, writing in the San Francisco Bay View national Black newspaper, said: “The African Union and the [West African] regional bloc ECOWAS have taken a back seat as the international media uses this virus to stigmatise Africa and Africans.”

Despite the staggering challenges, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Nigeria are managing to contain the pandemic, the latter country declared Ebola free after an incredible effort by its health care professionals.

This same World Bank that has warned of catastrophic economic consequences for West Africa, has not yet accepted any responsibility for its role in promoting neo-liberal politics that degraded the health care facilities of Africa.

Campbell says that: “In the midst of this tragedy, Britain, France and the United States use the deaths of thousands to remilitarise West Africa. Characteristically, this militaristic intervention – with the division of the three societies between USA (Liberia), France (Guinea) and the United Kingdom (Sierra Leone) – ensures that the media attention is placed on the military deployments of the Western states and not on measures for public education.”

Black activist and trade unionist Katrina Roberts, posted on Facebook: “Huh Evil Devil Bill Gates and World Health Organisation!! Please people open your eyes for the sake of Afrika, Asia and anywhere else these devils operate in!! Dangerous for people to not have any level of consciousness. Particularly for the fight and struggle for freeing Afrika of neo colonialism.”