Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, promised a “significant new set of UN actions” to respond to the epidemic, following a confidential report sent to the UN chief that was critical of the world body’s actions.
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U.S. courts have repeatedly rejected complaints filed by the families of cholera victims in NY, where the United Nations is headquartered, due to the world body’s immunity.
“This outcome places the onus back on the United Nations to follow through on its commitments to respond justly to victims out of court if it does not want to be an organization that stands for impunity”, Mario Joseph, a Haitian lawyer who heads the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, IJDH’s partner in Haiti, said in a statement.
The UN acknowledgment comes after top officials were provided a draft 19-page report by an adviser criticizing their handling of the cholera outbreak.
United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal are widely believed to have caused the outbreak from their camp rife with poor sanitation, following the massive 2010 quake in Haiti.
The newspaper said the shift was prompted by an internal report, seen by the New York Times and penned by Philip Alson, a professor now serving as the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, that concluded the epidemic “would not have broken out but for the actions of the UN”.
A U.N. acknowledgement that it played a role in introducing cholera to Haiti and vows to aid victims were welcomed Friday in the Caribbean nation, which has experienced the worst outbreak of the disease in recent history.
At least one lawsuit was dismissed because of the U.N.’s diplomatic immunity claim.
For the first time since a deadly cholera epidemic broke out in Haiti in 2010, the United Nations has admitted that its peacekeeping troops played a significant role in the spread of the disease, which has killed almost 10,000 people in the Caribbean nation and infected hundreds of thousands of others. Several experts have argued that the outbreak in Haiti started from the United Nations base.
Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, said victims’ advocates will be watching the U.N.’s actions closely. More than 9,300 Haitians have died of the disease since 2010. “The secretary-general urges member states to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Haiti by increasing their contributions to eliminate cholera and provide assistance to those affected”, the statement said. “It is high time for the United Nations to make this right and prove to the world that “human rights for all” means for Haitians too”, he said.
That court relied on a provision of the UN Charter that states “the UN “shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process except insofar as in any particular case it has expressly waived its immunity”.
“The UN brought this sickness to Haiti, so they need to pay the country back”.
Six years after the disease was first seen in Haiti, the infection still flares up intermittently and continues to kill people.
The bacterial disease, which is spread through contaminated food or water, can quickly overwhelm areas with inadequately treated sewage and drinking water, a common problem after a natural disaster strikes.
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According to the UN, Some 72 percent of Haitians have no toilets at home and 42 percent still lack access to drinking water.
