Boston Globe: State Dept. should demand U.N. take responsibility in Haiti
Editorial Board

“…Last month, 158 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry urging the State Department to ‘exercise its leadership to ensure that the United Nations … take concrete steps to eliminate the cholera epidemic introduced to Haiti in 2010 by waste from a U.N. peacekeeper camp, and to comply with its legal and moral obligations to provide cholera victims with access to an effective remedy.’ … So far, the State Department has made no official response to the June 29 letter … Kerry should call the U.N. to account, and the State Department should intervene. … Nothing less than a comprehensive overhaul of Haiti’s water and sanitation systems can bring the epidemic to an end. … [T]he U.N.’s efforts have been minimal. At the very least, the U.N. should take its own advisory committee’s advice and find a way to compensate victims. And, as the U.N.’s host nation and biggest financial contributor, the United States, in the voice of Secretary Kerry’s State Department, should demand immediate action” (7/12).