[News] The UN’s Cholera Epidemic in Haiti

[Anti-Imperialist News]

August 10-12, 2012
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/10/the-uns-cholera-epidemic-in-haiti/


<http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/10/the-uns-cholera-epidemic-in-haiti/print>
Time to Clean Up One of the UN's Biggest Crimes


  The UN’s Cholera Epidemic in Haiti

by MARK WEISBROT

Haitians have had a long and arduous struggle just to achieve the rights 
that most people in the rest of the hemisphere have enjoyed. From the 
revolution of Haitian slaves that won independence from the French in 
1804, through the U.S. occupation (1915-1934), the Duvalier family 
dictatorship (1957-1986), and the last 20 years 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/us-government-still-not-ready-for-democracy-in-haiti> of 
devastating foreign intervention, the “international community” just 
hasn’t seen Haitians as having the same basic human rights as people in 
other countries.

They still don’t, perhaps because Haitians are too poor and black.  
While the horrific earthquake of January 2010 brought international 
sympathy and aid – much more pledged than delivered 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/donor-disbursements-slowing-according-to-latest-data-from-special-envoy> – 
it didn’t bring a change of attitude toward Haiti.

This is perhaps most clear in the failure of the United Nations to take 
responsibility <http://www.undeny.org/> for the additional devastation 
they have brought to Haiti with the deadly disease of cholera. Since the 
outbreak began in October 2010, more than 7,445 Haitians have died of 
the disease and more than 580,000 have been infected, and these official 
numbers are an underestimate. It is now firmly established 
<http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/scientists-soldiers-brought-deadly-superbug-americas/story?id=15341129&singlePage=true#.UCPtefZlR-7>, 
by a number of scientific studies 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/international-community-fails-haiti-yet-again-this-time-with-a-cholera-epidemic>, 
that UN troops brought cholera to Haiti by dumping their human waste 
into the country’s water supply.

This is gross negligence that would have landed them a multi-billion 
dollar lawsuit if they were a private corporation, or even criminal 
prosecution.  But the UN has so far refused to even admit 
responsibility; although Bill Clinton, who is the UN’s special envoy for 
Haiti acknowledged in March 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/bill-clinton-says-minustah-soldier-introduced-cholera-to-haiti> that 
the UN brought cholera to Haiti.

“As cholera was brought to Haiti due to the actions of the UN, we 
believe that it is imperative for the UN to now act decisively to 
control the cholera epidemic, ” said Congressional Democrats in an 
appeal to Susan Rice 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/104-members-of-congress-call-for-the-un-to-take-responsibility-for-cholera>, 
the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a few weeks ago.  Despite the 
fact that the letter was signed by the majority of Democrats in the U.S. 
House of Representatives, it was ignored by the media in the United 
States.  And Rice has yet to respond.

But controlling and putting an end to the epidemic is the least that the 
UN can do for Haiti, having caused this disaster.  We know that it can 
be done, too – as it has in many other countries – by building the 
necessary infrastructure so that Haitians can have access to clean 
drinking water. The cost has been estimated at about $800 million, or 
the amount that the UN spends on keeping its soldiers there 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/minustah-by-the-numbers> for 
a year.

Haiti has no civil conflict or peacekeeping agreement. The UN military 
mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) therefore has no legal or legitimate basis – 
on the contrary, it was sent there in 2004 to occupy the country after 
Washington and its allies organized the overthrow of the country’s 
democratically elected president.

Besides bringing the cholera epidemic to Haiti and wasting billions of 
dollars, MINUSTAH troops have committed serious abuses, from killings of 
civilians to sexual abuse.  Last September Uruguayan troops were caught 
on video sexually assaulting an 18-year-old Haitian man. In the latest 
MINUSTAH sexual abuse scandal, Pakistani troops were found guilty of 
raping a 14-year-old boy; they received a year in prison from a 
Pakistani military tribunal.  Perhaps more damning for the UN in this 
case is that higher UN officials have been implicated by Haitian 
authorities as having attempted to cover-up the crime 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/in-minustah-abuse-case-cover-up-goes-unpunished>.

No wonder more than 70 percent 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/new-survey-shows-that-residents-of-port-au-prince-want-minustah-to-leave-and-compensate-victims-of-cholera> of 
Haitians responding to a recent poll said they wanted MINUSTAH to leave 
within a year.  The UN can use the money currently wasted on this 
military force to rid the country of cholera.  Then, at least, they will 
have cleaned up one of their biggest crimes in the country.

/*Mark Weisbrot* is an economist and co-director of the Center for 
Economic and Policy Research. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of 
Social Security: the Phony Crisis 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226035468/counterpunchmaga>./

-- 
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