Crimes Against Humanity?

Last May, I wrote an article about Passive Eugenics. In it, I questioned

why the death rate due to COVID-19 was up to 64,000. Didn’t it matter
that over half of the victims were people of color? Why had almost half
of the victims been nursing home residents? After 5,000 meat packing
plant workers had been infected, mostly Latinos and blacks, why did
Trump order them to go back to work or risk losing their unemployment
benefits? Why were farmworkers ordered back to work, after so many
had already died? I concluded the article by calling it “Passive
Eugenics”, or genocide, a.k.a. crimes against humanity.

This was genocide that was deliberately being committed against very
vulnerable populations. Why didn’t the Trump administration formulate
a national plan to protect Americans from the virus? Well, now we know
the answer. It was because of decisions made by people in the White
House, including the President. Their decisions were criminal.

We recently learned that a national plan to control the virus was

conceptualized and partially drafted, early on. On March 13, a meeting
was held at the White House with the CEOs of major retailers and
pharmaceutical companies regarding a national testing strategy. A big
announcement followed. Trump laid out the framework, consisting of a
federal testing program, a national database of testing results, a tracing
program, and a website to provide vital information and the locations of
potentially 32,000 testing sites.

For six weeks, Trump’s team waited for him to give the word. The word
never came because, as one team member stated, “The political folks
believed that because [COVID-19] was going to be relegated to
Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that
would be an effective political strategy.”

So the pursuit of a national plan evolved into a deadly and potentially

criminal political strategy. The administration abdicated its role and
responsibility and left it to the states to formulate their own plans,
resulting in 50 state-based plans, devoid of presidential leadership.
This, of course, shielded the administration from any blame for the
impending disaster that would claim many lives in blue states like New
York, Illinois, and California. It made the governors responsible for
acquiring whatever PPE, ventilators, masks, and swabs they needed.
The federal government obstructed their efforts by intercepting their
deliveries to create their own stockpiles, forcing the states to scramble
to find more equipment and supplies, and pay exorbitant prices. Our
national response to the virus turned into absolute chaos, as infections
and the number of deaths soared.

Now, four months later, 4.6 million Americans have caught the virus,
and 156,000 have died. What’s worse, is that the death toll is expected
to surpass 200,000 by the end of next month, and possibly double that
number before the virus is brought under control.

Today, one American is dying every minute of the day. This is the result
of Trump’s inhumane decision to allow people to die unnecessarily for
political reasons, rather than choosing to save American lives. These
deaths were preventable. Trump’s decision could possibly be criminal
also under U.N. Resolution 96, adopted December 11, 1946, making
genocide against racial, religious, political, and other groups, “entirely
or in part,” a crime under international law.

Dr. Juan Andrade, Jr.

President
United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, Inc.
About USHLI
USHLI is an award-winning Chicago-based national non-profit, non-partisan, tax-
exempt organization. Since 1982, USHLI has registered 2.3 million new voters;
published 425 reports on Latino demographics and the Almanac of Latino
Politics; sponsored 38 national conferences, each attended by leaders from 40
states; trained over 1.1 million present and future leaders; and awarded over $1.3
million in scholarships and internships.
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