UN must do better

However, while Mo?se’s election represents a chance for Haiti to return to democratic governance after a long period under a caretaker administration, his ascent has not been welcomed unanimously among all Haitians.

There were tumultuous demonstrations in Port-au-Prince as losing candidates questioned the integrity of the voting process.

While US Department of State spokesman John Kirby said the US viewed the elections “as an important step toward returning Haiti to full constitutional rule and addressing the serious challenges the country faces,” he added the election had some “isolated incidents of violence and intimidation.” Mo?se’s election comes at a particularly challenging time for Haiti. The country is still recovering from Hurricane Matthew, the 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak, among other things.

Repeated international efforts to bring relief to Haiti have often become enmeshed in confusion.

Last week’s unprecedented apology by the United Nations over its role in the post-2010 cholera epidemic underlines the difficulties.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may have been trying to avoid tarnishing the good intentions of the organisation, yet his half-apology did not go far enough in addressing the serious questions of moral authority now facing the UN.

“On behalf of the United Nations, I want to say very clearly: We apologise to the Haitian people,” the secretary general said.

“We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role.” What was unsaid in the apology is what has stoked anger, even as many laud Ban for the dramatic about-turn in the UN’s approach.

There was no offer of payment of claims, no definitive statement on causation.

UN peacekeepers inadvertently brought cholera to Haiti in 2010 just after the crippling earthquake.

The outbreak, which is still ongoing, has sickened nearly 800,000 people and killed nearly 9,000.

Prior to 2010, cholera had not been reported in Haiti in decades.

The UN’s own special rapporteur on human rights, Philip Alston, criticised the body in a report last August.

“The existing approach is morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically self-defeating,” Alston warned then in his report to the General Assembly.

“The legal position of the United Nations to date has involved denial of legal responsibility for the outbreak, rejection of all claims for compensation, a refusal to establish the procedure required to resolve such private law matters, and entirely unjustified suggestions that the organisation’s absolute immunity from suit would be jeopardised by adopting a different approach.” He continued, “The past policy of the United Nations relied on a claim of scientific uncertainty.

That is no longer sustainable given what is now known. The United Nations was clearly responsible and it must now act accordingly.” He warned that not accepting claims would provide “highly combustible fuel for those who claim that United Nations peacekeeping operations trample on the rights of those being protected; and it undermines both the overall credibility of the organisation and the integrity of the Office of the Secretary-General.” We agree.

The UN needs to do much better than apologise.

And further down the line, there has to be an international effort to more seriously address the question of reparations in the wake of the slave trade.

There must be a rethink of the approach to Haiti