“it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial”
August 22, 2016 1:32 PM Subscribe
U.N. Admits Role in Cholera Epidemic in Haiti [The New York Times] “For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a “significant new set of U.N. actions” will be needed to respond to the crisis.” [Previously.] [Previously.]
- The U.N.’s Cholera Admission and What Comes Next [The New York Times]
- The U.N.’s Cholera Admission and What Comes Next [The New York Times]
The question is whether, absent a court or some other outside power, the United Nations and its members — particularly the United States — will choose on their own to spend the money and put in the effort to make things right again. So far they haven’t. The stonewalling has destroyed what was left of the United Nations’ reputation in Haiti, and has done the organization few favors in the rest of the world. Meanwhile, people in Haiti continue to die from cholera, infection rates continue to rise, and the damage to the country’s economy, social structures and reputation goes unrepaired. In the report’s final line, Alston called specifically on the United States government to “actively support a resolution to this ongoing crisis that respects the rights of the victims of this tragedy and best serves the reputational and other interests of the United Nations.”
Indeed, though I doubt it will do much with regards to who will be held accountable. It's the smaller NGOs that step in and pick up all of the slack when it comes to this humanitarian crisis.
posted by Fizz at 2:07 PM on August 22, 2016
posted by Fizz at 2:07 PM on August 22, 2016
It's not even "too little too late". It's precisely nothing:
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:21 PM on August 22, 2016
The secretary general’s acknowledgment, by contrast, stopped short of saying that the United Nations specifically caused the epidemic. Nor does it indicate a change in the organization’s legal position that it is absolutely immune from legal actions, including a federal lawsuit brought in the United States on behalf of cholera victims seeking billions in damages stemming from the Haiti crisis.Fsck the UN and its so-called "peacekeepers".
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:21 PM on August 22, 2016
jeeezzus.
i) this is appalling. tens of thousands of dots for Haiti and its people, already fucked over by so many other things, more fucked by those nominally coming to help.
ii) I'm sure the number of lives saved by the peacekeeping mission is less than the number killed by their efflux. How many other military events around the world cause cholera/disease outbreaks like this when you have a base installed quickly? Shouldn't there be strict protocols for this kind of thing?
iii) you can bet this event will be used as a stick to beat & delegitimize the ENTIRE UN, including their humanitarian work, by actors who have caused an order of magnitude more death and suffering, for much less justifiable goals.
Not that international co-operation NEEDS more enemies...... Now every time the UN is brought up as a solution, anti-UN warmongering assholes/isolationists/free-marketeers will bring this event up as why the Murdering UN Can't Be Trusted and thus nation states/corporations should just Do As They Please Within Their Borders Because Reasons.
Paradoxically, this will cause more death and suffering by EXCLUDING the UN - probably more than in Haiti's cholera outbreak..... which won't be redressable in any court. FUBAR.
posted by lalochezia at 2:23 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
i) this is appalling. tens of thousands of dots for Haiti and its people, already fucked over by so many other things, more fucked by those nominally coming to help.
ii) I'm sure the number of lives saved by the peacekeeping mission is less than the number killed by their efflux. How many other military events around the world cause cholera/disease outbreaks like this when you have a base installed quickly? Shouldn't there be strict protocols for this kind of thing?
iii) you can bet this event will be used as a stick to beat & delegitimize the ENTIRE UN, including their humanitarian work, by actors who have caused an order of magnitude more death and suffering, for much less justifiable goals.
Not that international co-operation NEEDS more enemies...... Now every time the UN is brought up as a solution, anti-UN warmongering assholes/isolationists/free-marketeers will bring this event up as why the Murdering UN Can't Be Trusted and thus nation states/corporations should just Do As They Please Within Their Borders Because Reasons.
Paradoxically, this will cause more death and suffering by EXCLUDING the UN - probably more than in Haiti's cholera outbreak..... which won't be redressable in any court. FUBAR.
posted by lalochezia at 2:23 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
After more than a century of figuratively shitting on Haiti, the West finally got around to doing it literally.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:27 PM on August 22, 2016
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:27 PM on August 22, 2016
Paradoxically, this will cause more death and suffering by EXCLUDING the UN [...]
Citation needed. UN troops leave a trail of corpses and sexual abuse. It would take a lot of very successful missions to counterbalance Haiti, let alone its other failed missions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:31 PM on August 22, 2016
Citation needed. UN troops leave a trail of corpses and sexual abuse. It would take a lot of very successful missions to counterbalance Haiti, let alone its other failed missions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:31 PM on August 22, 2016
After more than a century of figuratively shitting on Haiti, the West finally got around to doing it literally.
I thought the peacekeepers were Nepalese?
posted by aramaic at 4:47 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
I thought the peacekeepers were Nepalese?
posted by aramaic at 4:47 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Fuck the UN and its so called peacekeepers"
Citation needed.
Here's a cite 1
Several studies have shown a beneficial effects of PKOs along one of the following pathways: peacekeeping reduces the amount of violence during conflict (Gilligan and Sergenti 2008), it increases the chances of conflict ending (Doyle and Sambanis 2006a) it reduces the risk of conflict recurrence a few years after a war has ended (Doyle and Sambanis 2000; Fortna 2004), and PKOs limit the onset of conflict in neighboring countries (Beardsley 2011).
for the dozens of missions that Peacekeeping has done and the lives they have saved, rather than the issues that your newspaper article refers to
Also note that focusing on peacekeeping delegitimizes the WHOLE UN.......just as you did in your blithe little comment.
Here are more lives saved.
E.g.
7 million lives saved via millenium development goals
1 million children's lives saved via UNICEF
The WHO is part of the UN ffs, which eradicated smallpox - that one act saved TENS OF MILLIONS of lives.
The UN can be iinefficient and sometimes ineffective - and they have failed spectacularly on occasion - we need real supranational bodies of law and power, and unless you argue for a real alternative, you are promulgating evil. The alternative to no supranational body is increases in hideous nationalism, unfettered capitalism, and unremitting intrastate war .......as well as no mechanisms to address the GLOBAL environmental catastrophes that are going to steamroller our civilization and lives, cause billions of deaths and send us back to the dark ages.
I say: fuck anyone who thinks their petty tribal issues with the existence of the UN outweighs the needs of the entire world and its inhabitants.
posted by lalochezia at 6:41 PM on August 22, 2016 [9 favorites]
Citation needed.
Here's a cite 1
Several studies have shown a beneficial effects of PKOs along one of the following pathways: peacekeeping reduces the amount of violence during conflict (Gilligan and Sergenti 2008), it increases the chances of conflict ending (Doyle and Sambanis 2006a) it reduces the risk of conflict recurrence a few years after a war has ended (Doyle and Sambanis 2000; Fortna 2004), and PKOs limit the onset of conflict in neighboring countries (Beardsley 2011).
for the dozens of missions that Peacekeeping has done and the lives they have saved, rather than the issues that your newspaper article refers to
Also note that focusing on peacekeeping delegitimizes the WHOLE UN.......just as you did in your blithe little comment.
Here are more lives saved.
E.g.
7 million lives saved via millenium development goals
1 million children's lives saved via UNICEF
The WHO is part of the UN ffs, which eradicated smallpox - that one act saved TENS OF MILLIONS of lives.
The UN can be iinefficient and sometimes ineffective - and they have failed spectacularly on occasion - we need real supranational bodies of law and power, and unless you argue for a real alternative, you are promulgating evil. The alternative to no supranational body is increases in hideous nationalism, unfettered capitalism, and unremitting intrastate war .......as well as no mechanisms to address the GLOBAL environmental catastrophes that are going to steamroller our civilization and lives, cause billions of deaths and send us back to the dark ages.
I say: fuck anyone who thinks their petty tribal issues with the existence of the UN outweighs the needs of the entire world and its inhabitants.
posted by lalochezia at 6:41 PM on August 22, 2016 [9 favorites]
The WHO is part of the UN ffs, which eradicated smallpox - that one act saved TENS OF MILLIONS of lives.
Yes, many UN organs do great work. In contrast, UN peacekeepers are notorious for their illegal activities. There are lots of complaints from lots of different places, and they're not coming from some neoliberal isolationist bogeyman. Amnesty International, for example, had this to say about one force:
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:33 PM on August 22, 2016
Yes, many UN organs do great work. In contrast, UN peacekeepers are notorious for their illegal activities. There are lots of complaints from lots of different places, and they're not coming from some neoliberal isolationist bogeyman. Amnesty International, for example, had this to say about one force:
The rape of a 12-year-old girl and the apparent indiscriminate killings of a 16-year-old boy and his father by UN peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic must be urgently investigated, with those implicated in the crimes suspended immediately, Amnesty International saidHow does something like this even happen? And it's hardly an isolated incident; there are lots of these.
Amnesty International interviewed 15 witnesses in the immediate aftermath of both incidents, as well as the girl and members of her family. A nurse who examined the girl found medical evidence consistent with sexual assault.
The girl had been hiding in a bathroom during a house search at approximately 2am on 2 August. A man allegedly wearing the blue helmet and vest of the UN peacekeeping forces took her outside and raped her behind a truck.
“When I cried, he slapped me hard and put his hand over my mouth,” the girl told Amnesty International.
A MINUSCA spokesperson told Amnesty International that the operation was carried out by Rwandan and Cameroonian police and gendarmes belonging to the UN peacekeeping forces. During armed clashes with residents of the enclave early in the morning of 2 August, a Cameroonian soldier was killed and nine other soldiers were injured.
The following day, UN peacekeeping forces returned to PK5. Witnesses told Amnesty International that the peacekeepers were not under any threat but began shooting indiscriminately in the street where the killings had taken place.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:33 PM on August 22, 2016
How does something like this even happen?
The major military powers do not turn over their troops to the UN, leaving countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, with troops that are probably not trained as well as the US/UK/France, to take up the role. They do this to keep their military paid and probably makes them a profit too:
Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly, of a little over US$1,332 per soldier per month.
I bet Bangladeshi soldiers aren't taking home anywhere close to $1 332/month.
posted by PenDevil at 11:44 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
The major military powers do not turn over their troops to the UN, leaving countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, with troops that are probably not trained as well as the US/UK/France, to take up the role. They do this to keep their military paid and probably makes them a profit too:
Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly, of a little over US$1,332 per soldier per month.
I bet Bangladeshi soldiers aren't taking home anywhere close to $1 332/month.
posted by PenDevil at 11:44 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
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