By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- With the UN still saying all claims it brought cholera to Haiti are "not receivable," the Yale School of Public Health and Yale Law School has joined the chorus concluding that the UN is both responsible and out of control.
Their study "Peacekeeping without Accountability" -- an accurate moniker for the tenure of Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop DPKO -- says that "The U.N. must work to re-establish its institutional legitimacy in Haiti.
The role of the U.N. and MINUSTAH in causing the epidemic has created deep anger among the general public in Haiti, and the U.N.’s refusal to take any responsibility for its actions has eroded its already fragile reputation in the country."
This erosion is global. How can the UN preach "rule of law" to others when it tersely dismisses all legal claims against itself? Herve Ladsous, the very face of impunity, has repeatedly refused to answer critical Press questions. See compilation video here. This has extended to his DPKO's support to Congolese Army units implicated in the mass rapes at Minova in November, 2012.
The study, done in collaboration with the Haitian Environmental Law Association (Association Hatïenne de Droit de L’Environment), notes that former "Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged that the 'international responsibility' of the U.N. for the activities of its forces 'is an attribute of its international legal personality and its capacity to bear international rights and obligations."
But today's UN under Ladsous and ultimately Ban Ki-moon, along with the dismissal of the Haiti cholera claims, have yet to publicly acknowledge that their forces, particularly but not only their new Intervention Brigade in the Eastern Congo, are parties to an armed conflict and subject to the Geneva Conventions.
In fact, Ladsous has even bragged about "keeping a body" while he was in Sudan, where he met without transparency with ICC-indicted Omar al Bashir. "Peacekeeping without Accountability" indeed.
Legal footnote: the report cites LaGrand (Ger. v. U.S.), 2001 ICJ Rep. 466. It's time for litigation.
