UN caused deadly cholera in Haiti, covered it up, lawsuit says

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/08/20874045-un-caused-deadly-cholera-in-haiti-covered-it-up-lawsuit-says?lite

by devx • 13 years ago

97 61 13 years ago

investigations.nbcnews.com

dylz• 13 years ago

Why is the UN immune to everything?

lmm• 13 years ago

Because they're expected to make violent interventions that, while we hope they will be for the better overall, will almost certainly harm some people even if they do everything correctly (which it sounds like they didn't do here). Just like the army or the police.

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

Because mistakes happen and usually go when it's a horrible situation. If they got sued for every little thing, nothing would be done when it came to humanitarian help. UN should offer some sort of settlement but not to create a precedent. Imagine if you went to help a family during a tornado and they sued you because you hurt someone's arm by pulling them or accidentally broke a family heirloom.

andreasvc• 13 years ago

But that's a blanket argument, it could apply to any organization that offers help. It is unclear to me why it would be in the interest of anyone but the UN for the UN to have immunity.

raverbashing• 13 years ago

Yes

Then what happens: no UN to save anything.

mseebach2• 13 years ago

There is a difference between mistakes happening and then being culpably negligent. If the UN lied about having tested peacekeepers free of cholera, and they then went on to cause an outbreak, then it's not at all comparable to knocking over a vase while saving someones life.

spindritf• 13 years ago

Why are sovereign states immune? Why are politicians immune?

Because they can be. Power is its own justification.

danmaz74• 13 years ago

Politicians immune? That't not generally true.

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

Because of its unusual legal status. The UN is not a state, but its not an NGO either. It has "international personality" and "is a subject of international law and capable of possessing international rights and duties" [1]. The only way to take legal action against it seems to be through the International Court of Justice, which is accessible only to states, not individuals. And this is problematic because the ICJ is itself a branch of the UN.

Edit: I don't fully agree that the UN is "immune to everything". There are problems with accountability, but I think it does a lot of good in the world.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations#Legal_basis_of_e...

moneyrich4• 13 years ago

coincidentally if united nations meant organization for uniting man kind under a global government, this could be the best status and legal system to have.

/tinfoil hat

beloch• 13 years ago

This case is similar to one where a doctor with hepatitis accidentally cuts himself while operating on a person to save his or her life. That person's life is saved, but now he has hepatitis. The doctor should not be held responsible for an accident and should be given credit for saving a life, but he should be responsible for reporting the accident and ensuring that the patient is tested so that he can be treated and doesn't spread the disease to others. Accidents happen, but if UN staff covered it up when they could have taken steps to control the spread of disease... Well, that's not good. Still, it should be individuals on trial here, not an international organization. I sincerely doubt it is official UN policy to spread cholera in disaster areas and then cover it up.

waps3• 13 years ago

Why should an international organisation that placed soldiers from a cholera-infected region into a region that was known historically to have very bad immunity without so much as a blood screening, then have said soldiers dump their waste (which is how cholera spreads), in a local river where masses of those non-immune people drink from ?

Why the hell should such an organisation be held blameless ? Seriously.

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

I'll give the same answer I gave after the UN's child rape scandal in the Congo: without the UN, things would be even worse.

The UN should of course fix their procedures and try to do better next time, but punishing them merely creates disincentives for engaging in necessary actions. That's to say that specific individuals involved in the coverup shouldn't be punished, however.

Note that I say this as a person who hates the UN, believes the US should exit the UN, kick them out of NY, and give our security council seat to India (or perhaps a less dysfunctional large democracy).

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

> "This case is similar to one where a doctor with hepatitis accidentally cuts himself while operating on a person to save his or her life. That person's life is saved, but now he has hepatitis. The doctor should not be held responsible for an accident and should be given credit for saving a life..."

Is this even allowed? Why would a doctor with hepatitis be allowed to operate?

roel_v2• 13 years ago

This is not about an actual doctor, it's a rhetorical device to make a point. But to assuage your worries, add to the hypothetical 'the doctor contracted hepatitis the night before and didn't know yet he was infected when he operated'. (cue comments on incubation period of hepatitis...)

gnu8• 13 years ago

It is allowed but the risk of transmitting or contracting hepatitis is something the surgeon is supposed to be aware of and mitigate.

http://www.facs.org/fellows_info/statements/st-22.html

cmiles74• 13 years ago

This is a very poor analogy. The UN's role in Haiti was in no way analgous to a doctor "operating" on the country.

The UN did not adequately manage the waste products from their own mission. This camp in Mirablais dumped their waste into the nearest waterway. The CDC has confirmed that this was the source of the cholera epidemic.[0] When soldiers at the camp began showing cholera symptoms, the UN continued to pump sewage into the river.

  By contrast, considering the presence of pipes pouring sewage 
  from the MINUSTAH camp to the stream, the rapid dissemination 
  of the disease in Meille and downstream, and the probable 
  contamination of prisoners by the stream water, we believe that 
  Meille River acted as the vector of cholera during the first 
  days of the epidemic by carrying sufficient concentrations of 
  the bacterium to induce cholera in persons who drank it.

Unlike a patient who recovers from a successful surgical procedure, it's difficult to make the case that the UN improved the situation in Haiti.[1]

[0] http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/7/11-0059_article.htm#di...

[1] http://www.lethaitilive.org/news-english/2012/1/3/two-years-...

vacri4• 13 years ago

Something a single doctor doesn't usually need to worry about with a single patient is the rumourmill and mob justice. If you're providing aid to a desperate area, PR is an important facet of what you do. This can spill over into ignoring or papering over what may seem to be minor details at the time.

Aloisius• 13 years ago

That's ridiculous. I pay the doctor to operate on me. The fact that they are saving my life doesn't mean if they give me a disease that they aren't liable. If the doctor was doing it for free then under Good Samaritan laws, sure, but if I'm paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for my mechanic to replace my engine and he ruins my car frame, he sure as hell is liable for it.

That said, these guys I imagine we're there for free, so...

mjolk3• 13 years ago

Okay, so let's say that the UN didn't go in to help. What would be the response then? Outrage from Haitians that the UN didn't come to their aid? Why not the outrage at their own government for not being able to handle a national disaster?

"(Cholera) has now spread to Venezuela, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and has now killed more than 8,500 people."

If we're thinking about this pragmatically, the world attention paid to Haiti during the flood saved far more than that number of people, even those not directly hit by the earthquake and instead were living with diseases that are prevalent in the third world.

We can split hairs over the effectiveness of the UN or international intervention, but before we start the ranting to the tone of hackernews isolationist/libertarian politics, keep in mind that Haiti is such a mess that we're still talking in terms of the broad good. Anyone that criticizes the role of the UN in this instance is a vulture looking to profit off of a natural disaster in a corrupt nation.

ars2• 13 years ago

Did you read the article? They actively lied and tried to cover it up - that's a long way from just an accident.

If nothing else, this can discourage lies in the future.

mjolk3• 13 years ago

Did you read the article? They actively lied and tried to cover it up - that's a long way from just an accident.

This is what has been alleged in the lawsuit. This has not been proven, otherwise, the article would be very different.

Also, this is an accident in the classic definition. Do you seriously think the UN workers went in to one of the poorest, most corrupt countries in the world after disease and sickness were rampant and deliberately introduced cholera?

Ergomane• 13 years ago

The suit alleges that "false statements and misleading information" increased the risk to the population.

I'm not sure that is plausible. At the start of the epidemic investigation on Oct 19, dissemination into communities on the Artibonite delta had already happened.

earless1• 13 years ago

If we're thinking about this pragmatically, the world attention paid to Haiti during the flood saved far more than that number of people, even those not directly hit by the earthquake and instead were living with diseases that are prevalent in the third world.

So because they may have saved more than 8500 lives in the same time frame we should ignore this? The issue at hand is not whether the UN has or has not done good in Haiti. The issue is that they reintroduced a disease which had been eradicated in this region hundreds of years ago due to their own negligence. They then lied about it and tried to impede the investigation.

mjolk3• 13 years ago

The issue at hand is not whether the UN has or has not done good in Haiti.

Actually, it kind of is. Haiti is a special case. It's so corrupt that the US stopped giving them money. We (the USA) were giving them 1.5 billion dollars and stopped because we knew that barely any of that money was getting to people that needed it. Which is to say that things are desperate and the world needs to act quickly when a bad thing happens there.

The issue is that they reintroduced a disease which had been eradicated in this region hundreds of years ago due to their own negligence. They then lied about it and tried to impede the investigation.

This is alleged from a lawsuit from a very corrupt country. Stop talking about this like it's a kid that knocked over a glass of milk and won't admit it.

adestefan• 13 years ago

Why is this on HN?

iand• 13 years ago

Because HN users upvoted it

DanBC2• 13 years ago

What do you think should be on HN?

cac042• 13 years ago

News about hacking

tedunangst• 13 years ago

"If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

FurrBall• 13 years ago

It's a community of hackers. But topics are not restricted by category.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

Intervention in Haiti has been a disaster.

Here's a history of it: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstructio...

And of cholera: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstructio...

mseebach2• 13 years ago

Being shielded from criticism and responsibility is the root of all evil and having a good mission does nothing to change that - if anything, it aggravates it: When you believe what you're doing is Unequivocally Good(tm), you're more likely to see through transgressions in the pursuit of the greater good.

The UN, like various police forces, the NSA, the military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are all committed to very commendable ends, some obviously more successfully than others. Even if they do enjoy some level of legal immunity from direct responsibility, that privilege must come with a strong and unambiguous demand that all transgressions are investigated throughly, justice is served and lessons are applied to avoid future transgressions.

Even if the contamination was an unfortunate mistake, the cover-up (if the complainants are right) was a grave crime and no level of good-doing can excuse that.

waps3• 13 years ago

It is arguable if the UN actually does good. The "UN", then by name of "League of Nations" was the organisation behind the treaty of Versailles, and therefore carries at least some of the blame for causing WWII.

When it renamed itself to "United Nations", here's how it got started :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Operation_in_the...

I've heard this UN operation described to me by some people who survived it.

1) black revolt. Small amounts of damage occur. Police generally have things under control. The police, ultimately reports to a colonial government, so the UN feels pressured to step in, and the colonial government gets paid off to let them step in.

2) the UN "judges fairly" that a white government can't be trusted to get things right, so they have to pull out. This despite the fact that the people on the ground are overwhelmingly (black) locals, and they already had significant amounts of local authority, with promises from the colonial government for expansion of that authority. The local colonial governor and army leadership refuse to give up control because of the shear stupidity of the UN's organisation (the UN didn't think it necessary to have the police force commanded on the same continent as it was operated, and didn't even bother to respond to requests for who to turn over control to), with support from the locals.

3) UN sends in racist "peacekeepers". Their first action : shoot whatever is black and holds a gun. That turned out to be the police force, "whoops, apologies". Several blue helmet basis were accused of organising group rapes of the locals (this accusation, by the way, keeps coming back in later UN operations. They are accused of doing this in Congo, Western Sahara, Sudan, Mali and several other places. The UN does not see this as a reason to stop sending in the very same troops, and to date there have been zero convictions, except of course in local jurisdictions)

4) UN withdraws (as if they somehow didn't know what would happen next).

5) situation : the police force has been partially massacred, and is obviously no longer defending the cities, and has a serious grudge against the government. The local population up in arms because their family members got shot for being black. The rebels, of course, also up in arms because of this, as they've lost family to the UN's guns just the same. This, of course, resulted in an attack on the cities by the rebels.

6) total devastation. Tens of thousands dead. Famine and disease reign for almost 2 decades. Needless to say, the UN did not see fit to help at this point.

TLDR: A country was having problems with people from the countryside taking up arms against the cities. The UN comes n, shoots up the local police force because they're black, and pulls out.

Needless to say, you will not find this operation on their site. They have fought tooth and nail not to be held responsible (against the locals), and for the soldiers involved to go free.

The country STILL has not fully recovered from the UN action in the 1960s. Needless to say, the UN goes blameless despite everyone, including the UN itself, agreeing that they hold responsibility for significant damage (they paid for a tiny amount of it).

This is the UN, plain and simple. They are evil profiteers who don't care about anything that isn't front and center in the news. They are an organisation dedicated to paying off foreign officials, hiring their children, ... to get favours, and they keep getting accused of gang-raping the locals wherever they go in Africa, in addition to a massacre every decade or so. Political correctness uber alles, and they can obviously not concern themselves with the consequences of their actions. They should have been held responsible and disbanded for this one action alone.

rsynnott2• 13 years ago

The "UN", then by name of "League of Nations" was the organisation behind the treaty of Versailles, and therefore carries at least some of the blame for causing WWII.

This is incorrect; the League of Nations became de-facto defunct during the war and was formally dissolved in 1946. The UN was founded in 1945, with a very different structure to the LN.

jstclair• 13 years ago

The UN was founded in 1945, while this mission started in 1960, so it's a bit inaccurate to describe this as "how it got started." This was however (according to the linked article) the first "peacekeeping mission with muscle."

I'm by no means well-informed on the specifics of the UN's peace-keeping in the Congo, but if you're going to link to the UN's role (and provide your own TL;DR), you might want to place that within the context of the Congo Crisis [1] itself. That might put a bit of nuance into the story you're telling.

And again, no Congo expert, but I'm highly skeptical that the UN intervention is the proximate cause for the Congo Crisis. You might want to start by looking at the role of Belgium, well-documented in the book King Leopold's Ghost [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold's_Ghost

roel_v2• 13 years ago

"The country STILL has not fully recovered from the UN action in the 1960s."

I don't think you are quite informed on the history of Congo and the various drivers for the socio-economic changes it went through in the last 150 years.

vacri4• 13 years ago

And yet, since the creation of the UN, there has been little in the way of open war (let alone total war) between the planet's major military powers, a significant departure from the pattern that humanity had shown until then.

This is not to cover over the dark chapters in the UN's history, but it is far from "This is the UN, plain and simple".

ajays• 13 years ago

This may be relevant: a history of Congo: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24396390

Datsundere• 13 years ago

The UN usually gives money to Nepal and gives the responsibility to provide soldier to haiti. It's the responsibility of the Nepal's government to screen everyone and educate them about these kinds of things.

As you may or may not know, Nepal's government is one of the most corrupt piece of shit in the world. The higher ups probably took most of the money and spent hardly any on the soldiers being sent there.

iluvuspartacus• 13 years ago

Just remember, this is not an argument against the UN.

It's an argument for letting people live their lives.

The USA had to do a second coup to get their 'beloved' President Aristide out of power. (the second one with the help of Canadian troops, no less).

Canada and then the UN were the follow through. The real reason? They were not compliant with foreign investment interests. (Arguments at corruption or vote rigging are so flaccid and transparent that I won't even bother.) Also I should mention that young men streaming across the Dominican border armed by the USA don't count as a popular uprising.

Take Gildan activewear as an example. They have uppity garment workers in Montreal, so they create excess production facilities in Honduras. Then the Hondurans get uppity and they create excess production facilities in Haiti (the cheapest place in the western hemisphere for wages).

(You don't live in a capitalist society if capital can move freely and people can't. That's international serfdom.)

So what happened when Fanmi Lavalas started making Haitians uppity?

You hit them with a stick. And of course you hit the serfs who are the most vulnerable, it's cheaper that way and serves as an example to others.

UN caused deadly cholera in Haiti, covered it up, lawsuit says

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