PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti should be held accountable for introducing cholera into the Caribbean nation, a Yale University report said Tuesday.
In the report “Peacekeeping Without Accountability,” researchers from Yale Law School and the Yale School of Public Health said there is ample scientific evidence to show U.N. troops from Nepal inadvertently brought cholera to Haiti in October 2010. It said the world body should take responsibility.
The U.N. has said it enjoys legal immunity from such claims, and rejected an earlier effort by a Boston-based human rights group that sought compensation on behalf of a group of cholera victims who blamed peacekeepers for the outbreak.
The Yale report said the world body “violates obligations under international law by not providing a forum to address the grievances of cholera victims.” By failing to hold itself accountable for causing Haiti’s cholera outbreak, “the United Nations violates the very principles of accountability and respect for law that it promotes worldwide,” it said.
Johan Peleman, the country director of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the study should be brought before the U.N. headquarters in New York.
“That’s for New York to deal with,” Peleman said by phone. “The reality on the ground is we need money to respond” to the cholera outbreak.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced in December a $2.27 billion initiative to help eradicate cholera in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, but the ambitious 10-year plan remains mostly unfunded.
