Placing Blame

Let us not forget another epidemic that caused 10, 000 lives.

Independent UN rights experts today called on Secretary-General António Guterres to urgently step up efforts to fulfill a United Nations pledge to help victims of a cholera epidemic in Haiti.

The experts said more than three years ago, the UN acknowledged the role played by its peacekeepers in causing the epidemic. It has since failed to pay any compensation and its subsequent underfunded aid effort has amounted to little more than a spate of symbolic development projects.

“Serious shortfalls in funding and expenditures make the UN’s promises illusory. Despite initially seeking $400 million over two years, the UN has raised a mere $20.5 million in about three years and has spent a pitiful $3.2 million. This is a deeply disappointing showing following the loss of 10,000 lives,” they said.

U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston, says, “At a time when some countries are expressing outrage and demanding accountability in relation to what appears to be a natural mutation, it is useful to recall the fact that not one of those countries said or did anything to hold the U.N. to account when the facts are indisputable and its responsibility unquestionable.”