EDITORIAL: UN fails to help cholera victims

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Advocate - HOW MUCH longer will it take for the United Nations to come to grips with its moral, if not legal responsibility as well, to compensate the thousands of Haitian victims of a cholera epidemic in 2010 that has been traced to negligence by a detachment of United Nations peace-keeping troops in that Caribbean Community member state? And why are both the Haitian government of Prime Minister Michel Martelly and the 15-member Caribbean Community in general seemingly unenthusiastic in vigorously championing the cause of the dead Haitian victims – numbering between 7 000 and 8 000 – as well as thousands of other infected survivors of this dreaded contagious disease? These questions have resurfaced following the intervention this past weekend by a United Nations-appointed human rights expert in Haiti, Gustavo Gallon, in a report submitted to UN headquarters in New York.