Make Haiti whole

The United Nations is finally coming to terms with its moral responsibility for suffering and death it imported to Haiti. Up next, and urgently: a practical reckoning to undo the damage done. Six years ago, as the impoverished nation struggled to rebuild from a devastating earthquake, UN peacekeepers from Nepal introduced cholera there, by dumping human waste into a waterway.

A million sick and 10,000 dead later, the UN added insult to infection by refusing to admit its role in the face of overwhelming evidence.

That finally changed last week when the UN apologized — with Secretary-General Ban Kimoon saying: “We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role.”

Talk is cheap, especially in Turtle Bay. It is more imperative that UN actually eradicate the bacterium, which Haiti had been free of for more than a century before its manmade, lethal reintroduction.

The UN has identified $400 million for anticholera efforts. Building a modern sanitation system — the only sure way to wipe out the pathogen — will run upwards of $2 billion.

Then, the Haitian people harmed by the outbreak, and the families of those killed, are owed some measure of financial compensation.

António Guterres, the Portuguese politician who takes over as secretary general on Jan. 1, has so far called balancing diplomatic immunity and ensuring the UN meets its responsibility a “particularly complex question.”

No it isn’t. He must grow a backbone — working with presumed incoming U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, as the money will ultimately have to come from member states.

The U.S. is the UN’s largest donor and its loudest voice. With an aggrieved American neighbor in crying need, so it must remain.