The UN’s Peace Keeping Disease

By Mr. Curmudgeon

When the fifteen delegates of the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1542 in June of 2004, they unwittingly signed the death warrants of 7,000 suffering people – and damaged the health of more than 500,000. And so, the Western Hemisphere was introduced to one of Asia’s more merciless killers – a virulent strain of cholera simply called the “super bug.”

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, Dr. Renaud Piarroux, a French cholera expert, delivered the results of his exhaustive study into Haiti’s deadly cholera outbreak to UN headquarters in New York City early last December. According to Dr. Piarroux, the culprits responsible for the outbreak were UN Peace Keepers from Nepal sent to the Caribbean nation to maintain order in the face of political unrest and in the aftermath of a devastating 7-point earthquake on January 12, 2010.

Long before the good doctor delivered the bad news to New York’s hive of scum and villainy, the people of Haiti already placed the blame. Nearly one year after the earthquake, anti-UN riots erupted throughout Haiti, with U.N. troops shooting and killing one demonstrator in the town of Quartier Morin.

Needless to say, the Nepalese army was outraged by the French doctor’s report, saying it was “based on supposition, not proof,” said Nepalese army spokesman Ramidra Chettri. However, he did admit Nepalese soldiers were not given the test for cholera before embarking for Haiti “since that test is not required by the United Nations,” reported the Latin American Herald Tribune.

The UN refused to take responsibility for the outbreak, blaming unclean water for the disease. In the view of Mirta Roses, director of the UN’s Pan-American Health Organization, “As we fight with climate change and the scarcity of water, it is even more important to be responsible but also to be equitable in the distribution of this precious resource.”

Yes, climate change and a failure to redistribute water equally among the masses were to blame for Nepalese cholera hopscotching its way to Haiti.

“It is impossible to prevent cholera from being introduced into an area,” reads the World Health Organization’s “Cholera Outbreak” handbook, “but spread of the disease within an area can be prevented through early detection and confirmation of cases, followed by appropriate response.”

But what if a global bureaucratic organization with delusions of grandeur is blinded by its own infallibility? 500,000 sick and 7,000 dead is what.

According to ABC News, cases of the deadly cholera strain have popped up in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In America, Nepalese cholera cases appeared in Miami and New York.

“The UN has over 100,000 Peacekeepers on the ground, in places others can't or won't go, doing things others can't or won't do,” said actor and activist George Clooney, “Peace, like war, must be waged.”

And no one wages peace quite like the United Nations. For the people of Haiti, it’s the peace that comes with the grave.