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RICK GLADSTONE | NYT Syndicate
EVEN as the United Nations expresses growing alarm over a cholera outbreak in war-ravaged Yemen, the organisation is increasingly worried about the fallout from a stubborn cholera scourge in Haiti that was caused by its own peacekeepers more than six years ago.
A $400 million voluntary trust fund for Haiti to battle cholera was created last year by Ban Ki-moon, then the secretary-general, when he apologised for the United Nations' role after having repeatedly denied any responsibility. But the fund, meant in part to compensate cholera victims, garnered only a few million dollars and is now nearly empty.
Entreaties by Ban's successor, Ant'f3nio Guterres, for charitable contributions have gone unanswered. Moreover, a proposal announced on June 14 by Guterres' office to repurpose $40.5 million in leftover money from the soon-to-be disbanded peacekeeping mission in Haiti for use in the cholera fight has faced strong resistance from other countries. Without an immediate infusion of funds, warned his deputy secretary-general, Amina J Mohammed,"the intensified cholera response and control efforts cannot be sustained through 2017 and 2018."
Last week, Guterres appointed a new special representative for the Haiti cholera crisis the third one so far to devise new fundraising solutions. And on Friday, UN officials were served with a reminder that their effort to shield the organisation from Haiti cholera lawsuits by asserting diplomatic immunity might not necessarily work.
In papers filed in US District Court in Brooklyn, a lawyer for Haitian victims challenged a request for dismissal of his case by the Justice Department, which acted on behalf of the UN. The arguments by the lawyer, James F Haggerty, differed from those in a separate lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, an advocacy group, which argued that the UN had failed to give victims a way to settle their grievances.
A federal appeals court dismissed that suit last August at the Justice Department's request. The Justice Department has until July 7 to respond to Haggerty's filing, which argues that the UN established as far back as the 1990s that it was legally liable for damages caused by negligence from peacekeeping operations.
Acceptance of that liability, Haggerty said, was the same as waiving immunity under the treaty the UN has invoked as protection, known as the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. That treaty, he said,"should not be a shield to hide behind because the UN (or the US government) doesn't like the price tag that comes with the UN's indisputable gross negligence in this case." UN officials indicated on Monday that they expected Haggerty's lawsuit to be dismissed as well.
Roughly 10,000 Haitians have died and nearly 1 million have been sickened since cholera was introduced into Haiti in 2010 by infected UN peacekeepers from Nepal. Studies showed the cholera bacteria came from poor sanitation by the peacekeepers. The UN never acknowledged it was at fault, and even when Ban apologised last December for its failure, he worded the apology to avoid any mention of who had brought the cholera to Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. Ban's solution was to create the $400 million voluntary trust fund ” in effect, a charitable gesture to show goodwill and demonstrate what he called a"moral responsibility" to make things right in Haiti.
Critics of the United Nations have argued that its response to Haiti's cholera crisis remains deeply flawed, with no guarantee of ever redressing victims as long as donations are voluntary.
