THE STAR KENYA
MAY 30 2024
A Kenyan reconnaissance team identified key places where more than 2,500 police officers will be deployed in Haiti.
The team, which was led by Deputy Inspector General of Administration Police Noor Gabow, arrived back in Kenya on May 27, after a weeklong tour and embarked on drafting their report on their findings ahead of the planned deployment.
Sources aware of the developments said the team agreed with local leadership they will man the main port, airport, main hospital, two main highways and the White House, which is the presidential palace.
“If need be, the officers will be sent to other areas to back up the local teams,” a source said.
The team said there are police officers on the ground but they seem to be overwhelmed and poorly motivated.
The team said the Haitian police officers need to be retrained, according to the report they will hand over.
President William Ruto said the peacekeeping police force is expected to arrive in Haiti to help quell growing gang violence in about three weeks.
The officers were expected to start arriving before end of May but an advance team on the ground said some logistics are not ready, hence the extension by two more weeks.
This means the latest they can arrive there is June 15, according to Ruto’s assertion.
In Haiti, anticipation is high that the arrival of foreign forces will help loosen the tight grip by armed gangs that have forced shortages in medication and food, the team found out.
Kenya, which is leading the 2,500-member security force, has agreed with the Haitian government on rules of engagement for the security personnel.
The delegation met with the seven members of the Transitional Presidential Council, which is exercising the functions of the office of the president until such a time as a new president is elected and inaugurated.
They also met police commanders for talks and way forward.
They established there is a need to retrain some of the police officers in Haiti on various issues including combat, law and policing.
And as part of the agreement, at least 2,000 Haiti police officers will fly to Kenya for training.
The middle and lower cadre officers will be flown to Kenya for a short training on law, combat and other policing matters, before they go back to their country for deployment.
But the agreement has not yet been committed to writing or submitted to the United Nations Security Council, a prerequisite for the multinational security mission, or MSS, to begin.
The Kenyan delegation found that Haiti lacks the equipment to accommodate the deployment of police officers.
The team found the country not only lacks armoured vehicles to move the foreign troops around, it also faces a deficit of radios and communications equipment.
The mission still needs to procure helicopters to evacuate potential casualties from the country, where dozens of hospitals have been destroyed or looted since February 29, when gangs united to topple the government.
In April, President Joe Biden authorised a $60 million military aid package using what is called presidential drawdown authority to get rifles and ammunition into the hands of the Haiti National Police, and to allow the Kenya-led force to quickly deploy.
Without the funds, either from the US or other countries, supporters fear the country will be facing not just a full gang takeover, but a humanitarian catastrophe.
Earlier this month, members of Haiti’s newly installed transitional presidential council, tasked with putting together a new government, wrote to Ruto asking him to deploy Kenyan police.
The cops will serve as the backbone of a force that will include officers from at least six different countries from Africa, the Caribbean and southern Asia.
Apart from Kenya, other countries that will send officers to Haiti are Chile, Jamaica, Grenada, Paraguay, Burundi, Chad, Nigeria and Mauritius.
The Kenyan teams are from the Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU), Anti-Stock Theft Unit (ASTU), General Service Unit (GSU) and Border Patrol Unit (BPU).
This is a combat-trained team that officials say can handle the situation on the ground professionally.
They have undertaken training in various areas, including language.
Ruto confirmed a planning team had met local police in Haiti to secure arrangements before the Kenyan troops are deployed.
The President’s comments came as he concluded a three-day trip to Washington DC, the first official state visit of any African leader to the US in more than 15 years.
During his trip, the White House called for the swift deployment of the Kenyan-led multinational force, after a US couple was named among three missionaries killed in Haiti on Friday.
Last year, Kenya offered to lead a UN-backed multinational security force to restore order to the Caribbean island.
Gangs have taken over much of Haiti, bringing violence and destruction to its besieged capital, Port-au-Prince in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.
On May 25, two US missionaries were killed in Haiti by gangs.
Ruto said these types of events are “exactly” why his country was preparing to send in its police force.
“We shouldn’t be losing people. We shouldn’t be losing missionaries. We are doing this to stop more people from losing their lives to gangs,” he said.
The US is also a part of the multi-national coalition working with Kenya.
Ruto said a base where troops and equipment will be kept-being built in conjunction with the US-is about “70 per cent complete”.
He said Kenya has moved cautiously to ensure security concerns have been addressed, including plans for equipment, infrastructure and building a relationship with Haiti’s police force.
Ruto assured there is a written agreement with Haiti’s transitional presidential council to ensure Kenya’s presence will be received as a “peacemaking” force and not an occupying force.
The council has signalled it intends to honour the agreement, which was signed by Haiti’s former Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Henry resigned in March after weeks of mounting pressure and increasing violence in the country.
Ruto said he has Kenyans “in 15 different missions globally”, including in neighbouring Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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