The UN in a time of cholera

After years of amoral denials, the United Nations has finally admitted its responsibility for a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has infected more than 800,000 and killed at least 10,000. In 2010, the UN brought in 4,544 peacekeepers fresh from a tour of duty in Nepal — where cholera was rampant. Soon, an island nation without cholera for more than a century had an epidemic on its hands.

Regardless, over the next five years, the United Nations swatted away scientific reports that clearly proved its troops had imported the deadly disease to a nation terribly equipped to combat it.

Now, an internal report has concluded that the UN created the epidemic and went out of its way to dodge responsibility.

The report, by Philip Alston of New York University, found that UN member states had so far agreed to contribute “only 18% of the $2.2 billion required to implement” a cholera eradication plan for Haiti.

Still worse, a medical journal report suggests that authorities could have reduced the outbreak by as much as 90% if the peacekeepers had been administered inexpensive treatments.

At long last, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon grudgingly admits UN’s culpability. But he still maintains that his organization should face no serious financial penalties for its reckless incompetence. There, he’s protected by the law, because a U.S. federal appeals court ruled last week that the UN is immune from suit.

The United Nations allegedly strives to relieve man-made or natural disasters. It created one in Haiti and owes an enormous debt to the country and its victims.