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On
Haiti Quake
Anniversary,
UN Statement
Silent on
Cholera UN
Brought
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 12 --
On the fourth
anniversary of
the earthquake
in
Haiti, UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon issued
a 312-word
statement
to UN staff
there. He
began,
appropriately,
with "grief" -
but nowhere in
the statement
did he mention
the word
"cholera,"
much less that
the UN is
nearly
universally
viewed as
having brought
cholera to
Haiti, through
a deployment
of
peacekeepers
from Nepal
coupled with
lax UN
sanitation
practices.
In
New York, the
UN dodged the
claims and
questions from
Inner City
Press about if
it has
standing
claims
commissions
anywhere --
the
answer is no
-- and if it
even now
screens for
cholera before
deployment --
the answer is
still no. Most
recently, the
UN has
refused to
accept service
of legal
papers in the
class action
lawsuit
filed against
it. And see
below:
When asked
inside the UN
about bringing
cholera to
Haiti,
spokespeople
for UN
Peacekeeper
have for
months been
telling the
Press "we have
nothing more
to say," or
more recently,
"that is not a
yet or no
question."
So in
November 2013
Inner City
Press went two
blocks from
the UN to a
panel
discussion
with UN
Peacekeeping
and the US
State
Department, to
see if there
might be a
more candid
answer.
The
guest was
supposed to be
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous, who
inside the UN
refuses to
answer Press
questions. (Video here, UK
coverage
here.) But
he was
replaced,
apparently at
the last
minute, by his
deputy Edmond
Mulet, once
the head of
the UN's
mission in
Haiti,
MINUSTAH.
When
Mulet and the
US State
Department's
Victoria Holt
were asked
about cholera
in Haiti, only
Mulet
answered.
(Holt answered
another
question about
zero tolerance
for sexual
abuse, but
said nothing
about the
US-trained
391st
Battalion of
the Congolese
Army being
implicated in
135 rapes in
Minova.)
Mulet
essentially
blamed the
cholera death
on Haiti
itself, noting
the "same
strain" --
that would be,
from Nepal,
brought along
with the
peacekeepers
from there by
the UN --
spread to the
Dominican
Republic but
didn't kill
anyone.
Mulet
said it spread
to Cuba too,
but the
government
there was more
organized. But
no follow-up
was allowed on
the main
point: it was
the UN
peacekeepers'
negligent
santitation
practices that
put their
fecal material
in the river
and introduced
cholera to
Haiti. Have
any
improvements
been made
since?
The
venue was the
Museum of
Tolerance; the
host was
UNA-USA. The
mood was how
to make the UN
attractive to
Americans, or
really, how to
best present
the UN to
Americans.
That's why
Mulet's
blame-the-Haitians
line doesn't
work: nearly
anyone who
hears what
happens thinks
the UN should
apologize, and
try to help
the families
of those
killed. And
that is
something that
UNA-USA is
going to have
to deal with.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
Mulet did tell
some
interesting
stories, about
peacekeepers
in Western
Sahara having
to use powder
to fend off
snakes; he
also said that
the first of
Ladsous'
drones --
he called
them UUAV, unarmed
-- will fly
above
Eastern
Congo in ten
days' time.
Watch this
site.
* * *
These
reports
are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City
Press at UN
Click
for
BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN
Corruption
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