Kenyan police officers return from Haiti

A con­tin­gent of more than 200 Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers re­turned home on Tues­day night from Haiti, where their ser­vices formed part of Kenya’s broad­er lead­er­ship role in the UN-backed multi­na­tion­al mis­sion aimed at im­prov­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try.

“215 po­lice of­fi­cers, who formed the sec­ond con­tin­gent of the Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) Mis­sion to Haiti, have safe­ly re­turned home. The of­fi­cers were part of our 2023 de­ploy­ment to sup­port ef­forts to sta­bilise Haiti and as­sist the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice in restor­ing pub­lic or­der in ar­eas af­fect­ed by in­se­cu­ri­ty,” the Min­istry of the In­te­ri­or said in a state­ment.

The of­fi­cers were met on ar­rival at the Jo­mo Keny­at­ta In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port by In­spec­tor Gen­er­al Dou­glas Kan­ja, along­side In­te­ri­or Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary, Ray­mond Omol­lo, and oth­er se­nior se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials.

Their re­turn comes as the MSS un­der­goes a tran­si­tion with the first con­tin­gent of the Gang Sup­pres­sion Force (GSF), sched­uled to be de­ployed to Haiti on April 1st, be­ing com­posed of Cha­di­an troops cur­rent­ly be­ing trained in the Unit­ed States.

“The de­ploy­ment will be­gin on April 1st, and the full GSF de­ploy­ment will reach 5,500 troops by Oc­to­ber 2026,” Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Rober­to Ál­varez, an­nounced af­ter a brief­ing on the FRG de­ploy­ment with the US am­bas­sadors to Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Un­der the new arrange­ment, Kenyan per­son­nel will be with­drawn in phas­es as the Cha­di­an con­tin­gent is grad­u­al­ly in­tro­duced.

Gang vi­o­lence has crip­pled se­cu­ri­ty in Haiti lead­ing to the dis­place­ment of an es­ti­mat­ed 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple, many of whom were al­ready suf­fer­ing from high lev­els of pover­ty – a sit­u­a­tion which has been ex­ac­er­bat­ed by eco­nom­ic col­lapse.

Haiti’s pro­tract­ed po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion is not an iso­lat­ed do­mes­tic is­sue but has ram­i­fi­ca­tions for re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty such as the traf­fick­ing of drugs and weapons by gangs and the mi­gra­tion of its cit­i­zens over­seas.

The UN said the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has al­ways main­tained that any durable po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion needs to be a Hait­ian-led process and that the au­thor­i­ties are be­ing sup­port­ed in their ef­forts to or­gan­ise and hold mu­nic­i­pal, par­lia­men­tary and pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Des­ig­nat­ed Ex­pert on the sit­u­a­tion of hu­man rights in Haiti, William O’Neil, said ear­li­er this week that the “on-go­ing hu­man rights cri­sis cre­ates mas­sive suf­fer­ing for the Hait­ian peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the most vul­ner­a­ble.”

“The lib­er­a­tion of ter­ri­to­ry from gangs and a more ‘mo­ti­vat­ed and vis­i­ble’ po­lice pres­ence are of­fer­ing a glim­mer of hope for Haitians amid on­go­ing vi­o­lence and in­se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

The coun­try al­so faces po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty hav­ing not had an elect­ed pres­i­dent in of­fice since Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse was as­sas­si­nat­ed at his pri­vate res­i­dence over­look­ing the cap­i­tal on Ju­ly 7, 2021.

Haiti’s Pro­vi­sion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil (CEP) said it has reg­is­tered 320 po­lit­i­cal par­ties and or­ga­ni­za­tions for the elec­tion and is ex­pect­ed to pub­lish the fi­nal list of qual­i­fied en­ti­ties on March 26. It is hoped that elec­tions will be held lat­er this year.

Kenya first de­ployed its ini­tial con­tin­gent of 400 of­fi­cers to Port-au-Prince on June 25, 2024 in a move re­gard­ed as a com­mit­ment to re­store or­der in a na­tion gripped by armed gangs. —NAIRO­BI, Kenya (CMC)