When high-level teams from the Caribbean Community and the United Nations Security Council visited Haiti in February last year to assess the post 2010 earthquake reconstruction efforts, one of the unanticipated issues that had to be taken account of was an outbreak of cholera which has resulted up to now in a total of about 8000 persons dead and over 600,000 suffering from the illness. The result has been a problem of dual priorities of almost equal importance to be faced by the UN itself, by Haiti, and by the wider Caribbean Community.
Following the outbreak, it came to light, through reputable scientific research that its origins lay in contamination from Nepalese troops of the United Nations Force resident in the country as part of the institution’s peacekeeping force. The scientists’ investigations, published in August of 2011, reported that “Cholera is one of the ancient classical diseases and particularly prone to cause major outbreaks following major natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes where normal separation between sewerage and drinking water is destroyed. This was the case following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti”.
The researchers then concluded, that in the face of rumours that the Nepalese soldiers had brought the disease with them, on the basis of “Isolates collected from July 2010 in Haiti and between 30 July and November 1, 2010 in Nepal, the results of the study are consistent with Nepal as the origin of the Haitian outbreak”.
A consequence of this research was a legal claim for compensation launched in 2011 against the UN, through Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on behalf of 5000 Haitian cholera victims. The result, given last month, has been an outright rejection by the Secretary General on the grounds that given the institution’s diplomatic immunity the claim is “not receivable”.
The UN has also reminded its critics that it has sought to raise substantial funds in order to deal with the epidemic, particularly through an appeal for US$24 million for cholera programmes, but its critics insist that up to now only a little over thirty percent has been raised, the well-recognised French non-governmental organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) insisting that while the UN seems to consider the cholera outbreak the subject for long-term treatment, “the current situation calls for an emergency response”.
MSF has, in that context, argued that while “prevention – by improving water, sanitation, hygienic conditions and vaccinations – is obviously the long-term solution”, substantial resources are still needed “to treat patients and prevent deaths. And in terms of a programmatic approach to the problem, it suggests that, to the UN, ”cholera now appears to be seen as a development issue to be resolved over the next 10 years, whereas the current situation still calls for an emergency response”. And another NGO has put the issue in numerical terms, arguing that with the cost of the UN peacekeeping force amounting to $659m per year, it might make sense to more immediately devote a half of this to dealing with the issue as an emergency, rather than as an aspect of long-term Haitian stability, and all that entails.
We have heard little in Caricom circles about this aspect of the Haitian issue. There does not seem to have been any comment on the Secretary-General’s statement on the claim, even as Heads of Government met in Haiti in early March for their conference, with President Martelly of Haiti taking the chairmanship for the next six months. Rather, the focus has been, as former Jamaica Prime Minister P J Patterson, Caricom’s special representative on the Haiti Recovery Commission has insisted, on the international community keeping it pledges for Haiti’s reconstruction.
It is to be hoped that Caricom Heads will join others in attempting to force some reconsideration of Ban Ki-moon’s approach to the epidemic, with an emphasis on forcing a clearer distinction between diminishing with urgency the rampage of the cholera epidemic, and the longer-term general physical, social and economic reconstruction problem.
A temporary shifting of priorities seems to be called for, especially as the medical and other scientific persons presently practically involved in the fight against the epidemic believe that it can, with appropriate resources, be brought under control.
The timing would appear appropriate for a forceful demarche to Ban Ki-moon while President Martelly is presently Conference Chairperson. The notion of an epidemic of this nature raging in the Caribbean is not to be wished on the Region as a whole. The wider international medical fraternity insists that a major dent can be made in it; and it would appear preferable to encourage the UN, whether it presently accepts liability for the spread of the disease to Haiti or not, to utilize some of the longer-term reconstruction funds presently designated to the more difficult Haitian economic and social development problems, to a problem capable of being substantially dealt with in the shorter, if not the short run.
