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Cholera issues in Haiti
When the leader of the United Nations apologized to Haitians for the cholera epidemic that has ravaged their country for more than six years – caused by infected peacekeepers sent to protect them – he proclaimed a “moral responsibility” to make things right. The apology, announced in December along with a $400 million strategy to combat the epidemic and “provide material assistance and support” for victims, amounted to a rare public act of contrition by the United Nations. Under its secretary general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, the organization had resisted any acceptance of blame for the epidemic, one of the worst cholera outbreaks in modern times.
Cholera, a waterborne bacterial scourge that can cause acute diarrhea and fatal dehydration if not treated quickly, has killed nearly 10,000 people and sickened nearly 800,000 in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, since it was introduced there in 2010 by infected Nepalese members of a United Nations peacekeeping force. This year, as of late February, nearly 2,000 new cases had been reported, amounting to hundreds a week.
Studies have traced the highly contagious disease to sloppy sanitation that had leached fecal waste laced with cholera germs from latrines used by the Nepalese peacekeepers into the water supply.
Compared with other disasters confronting the United Nations, like the Syria refugee crisis and famines threatening 20 million people in Yemen and parts of Africa, the Haiti crisis may not loom as large. But unlike the others, the direct cause in Haiti was traced to the United Nations. This fact weighed on Mr. Ban until near the end of his tenure. He finally acted after the organization’s independent investigator on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, said in a scathing report that the United Nations’ failure to take responsibility for the cholera crisis was “morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically selfdefeating.” But Mr. Ban’s apology for Haiti’s cholera epidemic also clearly reflected an assumption that all members were responsible for the success of the new strategy to defeat it. “For the sake of the Haitian people, but also for the sake of the United Nations itself, we have a moral responsibility to act,” he told the General Assembly on Dec. 1. “And we have a collective responsibility to deliver.”
(Rick Gladstone. www.nytimes.com, 19.03.2017. Adaptado.)
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