The United Nations Must Cure Haiti of the Cholera Epidemic It Caused

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12720-the-united-nations-must-cure-haiti-of-the-cholera-epidemic-it-caused




The United Nations Must Cure Haiti of the Cholera Epidemic It Caused
Tuesday, 13 November 2012 13:21
By Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian | Op-Ed

Before Hurricane Sandy slammed into the east coast of the United States, it killed 54 people in Haiti and left tens of thousands more homeless. Haiti is especially vulnerable because of its poor infrastructure and environmental destruction, so people die there – as they did during the earthquake in January 2010 – in greater numbers than they would in other countries subject to the same natural disasters.

But there is one disaster that was brought to Haiti directly by people, not by nature. It was not caused by shifting tectonic plates or extreme weather (or climate change). That disaster is the cholera epidemic that struck Haiti two years ago.

Most people I talk to don't even know that United Nations troops brought this deadly disease to Haiti in October of 2010. There hadn't been anycholera in Haiti for at least 100 years, if ever, until some UN troops from South Asia dumped human waste into a tributary of the country's main water supply. Since then, more than 7,600 Haitians have died and over 600,000 have gotten sick.

If Haiti were any other country in this hemisphere, a human-created disaster of this proportion would be a big international scandal and everyone would know about it. Not to mention the institution responsible for inflicting this damage – in this case, the UN – would be held accountable. At the very least, they would have to get rid of the epidemic.