Many thanks to old Haiti hand Dr. John Carroll for sending the link to this New York Times report by Jonathan M. Katz, another old Haiti hand: U.N. Admits Role in Cholera Epidemic in Haiti. Excerpt and then a comment:
For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a “significant new set of U.N. actions” will be needed to respond to the crisis.
The deputy spokesman for the secretary general, Farhan Haq, said in an email this week that “over the past year, the U.N. has become convinced that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera.”
He added that a “new response will be presented publicly within the next two months, once it has been fully elaborated, agreed with the Haitian authorities and discussed with member states.”
The statement comes on the heels of a confidential report sent to Mr. Ban by a longtime United Nations adviser on Aug. 8. Written by Philip Alston, a New York University law professor who serves as one of a few dozen experts, known as special rapporteurs, who advise the organization on human rights issues, the draft language stated plainly that the epidemic “would not have broken out but for the actions of the United Nations.”
The secretary general’s acknowledgment, by contrast, stopped short of saying that the United Nations specifically caused the epidemic. Nor does it indicate a change in the organization’s legal position that it is absolutely immune from legal actions, including a federal lawsuit brought in the United States on behalf of cholera victims seeking billions in damages stemming from the Haiti crisis.
But it represents a significant shift after more than five years of high-level denial of any involvement or responsibility of the United Nations in the outbreak, which has killed at least 10,000 people and sickened hundreds of thousands. Cholera victims suffer from dehydration caused by severe diarrhea or vomiting.
Special rapporteurs’ reports are technically independent guidance, which the United Nations can accept or reject. United Nations officials have until the end of this week to respond to the report, which will then go through revisions, but the statement suggests a new receptivity to its criticism.
In the 19-page report, obtained from an official who had access to it, Mr. Alston took issue with the United Nations’ public handling of the outbreak, which was first documented in mid-October 2010, shortly after people living along the Meille River began dying from the disease.
The first victims lived near a base housing 454 United Nations peacekeepers freshly arrived from Nepal, where a cholera outbreak was underway, and waste from the base often leaked into the river.
Numerous scientists have since argued that the base was the only plausible source of the outbreak — whose real death toll, one study found, could be much higher than the official numbers state — but United Nations officials have consistently insisted that its origins remain up for debate.
Haiti was a crucial test for the UN and especially for its health agencies, and they abjectly failed it. By allowing the importation of cholera into the poorest country in the Americas, the UN committed medical malpractice on an international scale, inflicting cholera on the Dominican Republic as well. By doing so, it compromised every one of the hard-working professionals in PAHO and WHO—who could have blown the whistle but preferred to keep their jobs.
Everyone understood this, especially thanks to Jon Katz's magnificent reporting right from the Nepalis' camp, but I honestly expected Ban Ki-Moon to go into well-paid retirement without anyone giving him so much as a dirty look about his years of denial, sustained while thousands of Haitians died on his watch.
So we all owe a lot to the people like Jon Katz and John Carroll and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, who have fought from the beginning to get a scrap of honesty out of the United Nations, and a little justice for Haitians.
As long as I'm celebrating, this seems like a good time to give you another chance to read the latest report by Dr. Renaud Piarroux, the scientist who first confirmed the cause of Haiti's cholera. My Tyee article about his efforts, and the book about them, is here.
