Just checking… is the UN still denying responsibility for bringing cholera to Haiti? It's been long observed that Haiti was a "totally naive environment" before the UN Nepalese troops arrived to occupy Haiti's breadbasket, the Artibonite. There is abundant "Confirmation of the Origin of the Haiti Cholera Disaster: UN Nepalese Troops." Even U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton has said the U.N. brought cholera to Haiti, but the UN is denying its role in the devastating cholera outbreak.
Until now, the UN has not officially replied to the complaint, saying it is still “being studied,” and continues to deny responsibility. Just last week, the UN Secretary General’s spokesman said that “it was not possible to be conclusive about how cholera was introduced into Haiti.”What a conundrum! How does the UN explain that a "UN Panel was able to quickly use the simpler MLVA method in their analysis of the 2009 specimen, occurring a year earlier in Nepal than the epidemic in Haiti. Of this laboratory work they wrote, "a careful analysis of the MLVA results and the ctxB gene indicated that the strains isolated in Haiti (during 2010) and Nepal during 2009 were a perfect match (1)."
— Haïti Liberté, Vol. 5, No. 39, 4/11/2012
If the cholera lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH) ever gets assessed in a courtroom, it should be a slam dunk, right? Here's the thing that is puzzling about this lawsuit; that have skeptics asking: are they for real?
How can the very same people who are closely associated with the U.N. claim to be representing the U.N.'s Haitian victims? The IJDH is represented by Dr. Evan Lyon who works for Partners in Health in Haiti, which was founded by U.N. Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti Paul Farmer. Attorney Brian Concannon, the IJDH Director, would theoretically be the one who put Paul Farmer on the Board of Directors of the IJDH, where Paul Farmer still serves.
Meanwhile, it's clear from this July 14, 2011 interview on Democracy Now! that Paul Farmer is a U.N. employee and represents it's interests. Farmer, has gone on the record to deny U.N. responsibility for bringing cholera to Haiti and blames conditions in Haiti for the pandemic.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you were one of the first people—you were quoted by AP—saying that the cholera after the earthquake was brought in by the Nepali—the Nepalese peacekeeping force, the U.N. force. How did that happen?DR. PAUL FARMER: How did it happen that I was rash enough to say that?AMY GOODMAN: No, how did it happen that they did it?DR. PAUL FARMER: Well, of course, it was completely unwitting. I mean, no one—no one ever intends to bring a disease into a population that had been free of it. And I really, in a way, wish I hadn’t even gotten involved in the discussion, in a way.
If the attorney(s) claiming to represent cholera victims have Paul Farmer on their Board of Directors, shouldn't they recuse themselves? There is a clear conflict of interest here, which should disqualify them from representing the victims of the cholera epidemic. They should turn over their resources to lawyers who will act as "officers of the court" -- who see their duty as representing "the truth, including avoiding dishonesty or evasion."
It's outrageous that Farmer, a physician, who is sworn to "first do no harm" is also backing a "vaccine" for potential victims. If Farmer really cared about making a positive difference in the lives of Haitians (and no one can deny that Farmer has shown that side of himself in the past), he would still be fighting for a sustainable solution -- clean drinking water and water infrastructure. Cholera is a waterborne disease. The parallel that can be drawn here: it's like administering a vaccine to people in anticipation of an outbreak of salmonella and other foodborne illnesses.
Farmer, is a close associate and friend of U.N. Envoy Bill Clinton, who has been using Haiti as a disaster capitalism hub for himself and his ultra-rich friends -- like Warren Buffet of Clayton Homes and Katrina disaster formaldehyde trailers infamy. Clinton paid Clayton Homes a million dollars for bringing formaldehyde laced trailers to Haiti's school children -- that's something else we can all agree on Esquire Magazine.
The Clinton Global Initiative are co-sponsoring "cholera insurance" for Haiti's market women. What should we term that little enterprise -- windfall or rainfall profits? The Clinton's propensity for being implicated in scandals and corruption is as rampant as it ever was.
Haiti Liberté writes that the IJDH speaks for "The petitioners [who] also call on the UN to take constructive action to prevent cholera’s spread and to formally accept responsibility for importing cholera into Haiti" -- if that is so, then why is the IJDH not filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of all 523,000+ victims of the imported cholera scourge and their families? The IJDH -- the face of the "complainants" -- has instead chosen to represent just 5,000 of the "cholera survivors or close family members of someone killed by the disease."
Ezili Dantò terms the folks behind the cholera lawsuit: "paid to lose tenured progressives" because clearly they are "crisis handling" this "embarrassing" situation for their bosses and close associates at the "United Nations" -- the goal is to make it all go away.
Meanwhile, the U.N. is continuing to cower behind the amoral, unjust and indefensible mantle of "plausible deniability."
With these kinds of friends... Haiti does not need enemies.
It was the Bush regime that sponsored the Haiti coup in 2004 that brought in the U.S. puppet Boca Raton regime of Gerard Latortue responsible for these U.N. "peacekeepers" entering Haiti to practice their brutal form of "humanitarianism." The TOURISTAH have been in Haiti for almost eight years now getting their generous "hazard pay" of $6,000 a month -- with a budget of $832 million a year, MINUSTAH is paid well for their rapacious occupation of Haiti.
Bring a class action lawsuit on behalf of all the victims of U.N. cholera against the United States! The U.S. cannot continue to operate with impunity in the world, particularly against small nations, which have no standing army, weapons or means to defend themselves from the most powerful nation(s) of the world.
The U.N. is primarily a military force, which is deployed all over the world to protect and secure the interests of the 1 percent, albeit NATO seems to have taken up a lot of the U.N.'s duties of late. So do take heed closet racists in Brazil, you're mercenary services as head of MINUSTAH may no longer be required. Occupying Haiti at the behest of the U.N.'s "Big Powers" sure hasn't brought Brazil the permanent seat on the Security Council they were seeking -- thus far.
The U.S. is a signatories to international human rights treaties. Due respect to Human Rights Watch for calling out the United States on their continuing hypocrisy -- it's about time:
The failure of the US to join with other nations in taking on international human rights legal obligations has undercut its international leadership on key issues, limiting its influence, its stature, and its credibility in promoting respect for human rights around the world.
1. Cravioto A. (Chair), Lanata CF, Lantagne DS, Nair GB. Final Report of the Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti. United Nations, April, 2011.
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