Life
Will the UN face justice over the Haiti Cholera outbreak?
“It is important to remember that we are operating within a legal framework approved by the international community,” Medrano Rojas said in defence of the organization’s immunity from prosecution.
Instead, he added, the UN has responded by “trying to convince the international community that now is the time to stop the outbreak and the transmission of this disease”.
After losing friends and family to cholera, Haitian artist Monvelyno wrote a song about the crisis. The lyrics directly target the United Nations: “January 12 brought us pain and death. We should’ve been able to mourn and cry. But everything got worse. The UN takes our land and pays us with tombs. After the earthquake came Nepal’ s cholera on Quisqueya (the indigenous name for Haiti).”
Speaking in Little Haiti in Brooklyn, Monvelyno told reporters: “You cannot resurrect the people that died but you can at least go to the family and to say it was not intentional and we feel sorry for what happened – anything that the UN can do would show that they are sorry.”
But the UN has failed in almost 2 years to gather more than 12 percent of the funding needed for just one year. In July this year, Ban was forced to make the same pledge of US$2.2 billion, dressing it up with a new name – the “Total Sanitation Campaign”.
Wednesday’s decision by US District Judge J. Paul Oetken signals a heartening shift in the dispute, which was largely expected to go nowhere. It is suspected that the court will rule that the UN has immunity.
One of the lawyers representing Haitian victims is Mario Joseph. He says that the UN has gone to great lengths to cover up alleged wrongdoing by diverting the Meye river from where it used to flow next to the wall of the base.
“The contractor did not treat the fecal matter properly. They dumped the feces in a hole which was not covered,” he said. “When it rained, fecal matter would overflow into the river.”
