The toll has reached over 8,000 mark as the Haitian people are dying one after another by the cholera epidemic spread all over the country due to the human waste being thrown in the ‘potable’ river water by the UN peacekeepers (from Nepal). There is no end to deaths as more and more victims come in the row. The UN must have by now declared emergency and called the world community to come to their help but probably the Haitians are not so important.
Secondly, this brings to the limelight the circumstances in which the peacekeepers live in or the locals who suffer at their hands. Only Pakistan army peacekeepers are said to have adhered to norms and traditions of non-interference and extending peace to the locals. Otherwise there are many complaints against other countries’ peacekeepers who are free to exploit locals in many ways. Such deployments also bring in social ills and other essentials, which the world community especially the world body must address on priority basis. Otherwise, such a noble cause of peacekeeping will turn into major troublemaking, which can ignite locals’ protests on a large scale.
MARYA MUFTY
Lahore