Hold UN accountable for Haiti's cholera outbreak

Myrtha Désulmé, Contributor

On August 24, Tropical Storm Isaac pummelled Haiti, resulting in floods, mudslides, storm surges, downed trees and power lines. The storm threatened the lives of millions, particularly the more than 400,000 homeless Haitians still living in flimsy tents, exposed to the elements like sitting ducks, two and half years after the January 2010 earthquake.

Painful images of tent dwellers bracing against fierce winds, with a backdrop of flying tents containing all of their worldly possessions, were streamed on CNN between news of another United States shooting incident, and the joys of Australian river rafting. Adding to the crisis was the fear of an ensuing surge of the cholera epidemic introduced into Haiti by the United Nations (UN) forces.

On October 21, 2010, ten months after the greatest natural disaster of the modern age, cholera exploded in the Artibonite region along Haiti's central river system, quickly spreading to other areas. While Haiti had never had a cholera epidemic in recorded history, the Pan-American Health Organization recently declared that the outbreak "has now become one of the largest cholera epidemics in modern history", killing more than 7,450 Haitians, and infecting over 580,000.

Numerous independent DNA tests and epidemiological studies, including those of the UN itself, have established that Nepalese troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) brought the vibrio cholerae bacteria to Haiti. Geneticists have precisely matched the epidemic strain in Haiti to a particularly virulent, deadly cholera strain found in Nepal in the summer of 2010, just before the troops were deployed.

Although Nepal has endemic cholera, the UN did not test or treat the Nepalese peacekeepers for cholera prior to their deployment. In Haiti, they lived on a base with a haphazard and inadequate sewage system, and recklessly dumped all waste into an unfenced pit.

It was easily foreseeable that human feces containing cholera bacteria could contaminate a tributary, which runs just metres from the base into the Artibonite River, travelling downstream to infect the Haitian families who drink, bathe, play, and wash laundry in the river.

lawsuit

Three of the brave souls who have taken on the UN leviathan are attorneys Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), and Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH).

On November 3, 2011, BAI and IJDH filed a lawsuit on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims. The case demands that the UN provide the only long-term solution, which is the comprehensive clean water and sanitation infrastructure necessary to control the epidemic.

Cholera is generally easily treatable with oral rehydration solutions. But for those who lack access to clean water and medical care, it can kill in a matter of hours. Medical treatment, vaccinations, and chlorine tablets are saving some lives for now, but cholera immunity lasts only a few years, while the cholera bacteria will remain in Haiti indefinitely. The water and sanitation infrastructure will not only eradicate cholera, it will reduce all water-borne diseases in Haiti, which kill thousands every year.

Incredibly, the UN initially denied responsibility on the premise that a "confluence of factors", including Haiti's weak sanitation and health infrastructure, were the real reasons for the outbreak. This preposterous and legally invalid defence is akin to starting a fire in a dry field, and blaming the wind for the spread of the fire.

Before the outbreak, Haiti was widely known to be one of the most water-insecure countries in the world, and after the devastating earthquake of January 2010, experts warned that outbreaks of water-borne diseases, especially cholera, would have disastrous effects. Haiti's fragile conditions created a heightened responsibility for the UN to exercise care in its operations.

Yet the UN failed to take simple measures that would have prevented the outbreak, like proper management and disposal of waste, testing of its soldiers known to come from a cholera-endemic region, and immediate corrective action. By any legal code, the UN is legally responsible, because its carelessness directly caused foreseeable harm to victims.

CRIMINAL ACTION

The victims of cholera filed complaints directly with the UN's internal claims unit. MINUSTAH's operations in Haiti are governed by a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which affords the UN and MINUSTAH broad immunities from civil or criminal action in Haitian courts. To balance this immunity, the SOFA requires the establishment of an independent standing commission to hear claims and compensate victims who have been injured in the course of UN operations.

Despite this requirement, no commission has been established during the eight years MINUSTAH has operated in Haiti. In fact, there has never been a standing claims commission established in more than 60 years of UN peacekeeping, even though these commissions are a standard feature of most SOFAs.

Momentum has been building to pressure the UN to respond justly to the epidemic. In January, ABC News published an article titled 'UN Soldiers Brought Deadly Superbug to Americas'.

In March, former US President Bill Clinton, UN special envoy for Haiti, publicly affirmed that UN peacekeepers were the "proximate cause" of the cholera epidemic. Hundreds of Haitians marched from the UN's base to the Haitian parliament, demanding justice for cholera victims.

The New York Times ran a front-page story confirming the UN's responsibility in bringing cholera to Haiti, and exposing the UN's failure to respond accordingly. After a visit to Haiti by the UN Security Council, the missions of the US, France and Pakistan declared to the Security Council that the UN must do "whatever is necessary to make this situation right".

In April, The Economist published a scathing piece calling on the UN to accept responsibility for its wrongdoings in Haiti. In May, Nigel Fischer, UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, acknowledged that the UN's current efforts were "patchwork, Band-Aid work", and that "the long-term solution was investment in improved drinking water sources and waste management."

Washington Post editorials also called for the UN and the international community to take responsibility swiftly in ending the cholera epidemic.

On July 17, US Representative John Conyers Jr (D-Michigan) and 103 other members of Congress sent a letter to Susan Rice, US ambassador to the United Nations, applauding her call for UN accountability, and asking her to urge the UN to take a leading role in addressing the cholera crisis in Haiti which, according to the Caribbean government, infects 600 new victims every day.

The congressmen wrote: "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 eliminate this deadly disease from Haiti ... . A failure to act will not only lead to countless more deaths: it will undermine the crucial effort to reconstruct Haiti."

INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE

The IJDH/BAI lawsuit aims to compel the UN to spend US$750 million-US$1.2 billion on comprehensive water and sanitation infrastructure, which would improve Haiti for decades. By comparison, MINUSTAH's operating budget in Haiti for one year is around US$800 million, and US$4.2 billion in international donations has not even been disbursed.

If the lawsuit is successful, the clean water and sanitation infrastructure will save 50,000-70,000 lives over the next 10 years, by eradicating cholera, and all other water-borne diseases.

In the words of Betsey Chace, a finance volunteer with IJDH:

"... Fair treatment of Haiti by the international community [is] the only thing that will enable Haiti to break the cycle of extreme vulnerability to disasters. There is little natural about a death toll in the tens of thousands from an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude, or massive loss of life from heavy rainfall. These unnatural disasters result from political, environmental and economic conditions that will improve only when Haitians are supported, rather than thwarted, in building a system of laws, rights, and accountability that are the foundation of a just and safe society."

In July 2010, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising access to clean water and sanitation as a human right essential to human dignity, and to the realisation of all other human rights. Why are Haitians not entitled to basic human rights?

Caribbean leaders, your silence is deafening. What will it take for you to declare that the continuing loss of life in Haiti is wholly unacceptable? We call upon you to be a force for justice in Haiti, by demanding accountability from the UN and urging it to live up to its core mission, of containing infectious diseases, not spreading them.

Myrtha Désulmé is president of the Haiti-Jamaica Society and Caribbean representative of the Haiti Diaspora Foundation. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and myrtha1804@yahoo.com.