Kenya’s Haiti mission: African help or covert US imperialism?

As the Caribbean nation teeters on the brink, American-backed moves to send 1,000 Kenyan troops there are condemned

THE VOICE

HOPE FOR Haiti continues to be elusive as the Caribbean country finds itself engulfed in a horrific security crisis.

Following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 by Colombian mercenaries, a huge power vacuum has opened up which has been filled by over 200 gangs, 100 of which have taken over the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

To compound the problem further, earlier in the year the terms of Haiti’s last remaining senators expired, leaving the country without elected government officials. This all occurred as a hurricane of devastating catastrophes all hit the country at once.

Half of all Haitians are in desperate need of aid as the country is currently struggling with the worst famine in its history, cholera outbreaks, fuel shortages and another economic crisis that all intersect to tear the country apart.

Various gangs have taken over parts of the country and completely overwhelmed the Haitian police force. An estimated two million people now live in areas under gang control.

Over 195,000 people have been internally displaced. Reports have indicated that over 2,400 people have been killed this year and between July 1 and September 30, 2023, over 1,239 murders have occurred compared to 577 in the same period last year.

From July to September, 701 people have been kidnapped, and 388 people have been lynched for alleged membership in gangs between April and September, as Haitians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands as frustration builds up with the ineffectiveness of the government and police force.

Catastrophic

For over a year, the Haitian government, led by the widely unpopular acting president Ariel Henry, has been calling on the United Nations and United States to send assistance to the weakened government. Up until recently, most countries have been reluctant to intervene, with previous attempts by the United States and Brazil widely being unpopular and in many cases catastrophic for the beleaguered country.

After months of the United Nations putting out a request among member states to set up and lead a security mission to Haiti, an unlikely country has offered its assistance. The East African country of Kenya under President William Ruto has offered to provide a task force of over 1,000 troops to tackle the security situation in the Caribbean country.
TALKS: US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris host a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This will mark the first deployment of international security forces to Haiti in nearly 20 years. The proposal for intervention received 13 votes, with China and Russia abstaining, and the resolution drafted by the United States and Ecuador.

This resolution proposes that Kenyan officers would be able to remain in Haiti for up to a year from January 2024 with a review in nine months. US President Biden has pledged over US$100 million to fund the mission.

President Ruto has cited Kenya’s commitment to Pan Africanism as the ideological and moral reason for intervening in Haiti. The Kenyan president also cited Kenya’s history of peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Kosovo, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as credentials for why the East African nation can and should intervene in Haiti.

The move has been welcomed by the United States, the EU and the United Nations which are all reluctant to commit security forces.
Resistance

As the series of coups across West Africa and the Sahel have shown, there is growing resistance across Africa and the diaspora against Western intervention missions, and this is no different among Haitians in the Caribbean.

However, among Kenyans — and especially amongst Haitians — there is great suspicion behind what is motivating an African country to launch an intervention in a Caribbean country, the first of its kind in modern history.

Some Kenyans feel that Ruto made the decision unilaterally in what is seen as a “back door deal with the United Nations”. The move to send security forces to Haiti has been controversial among many Kenyans with the Kenyan High Court barring the deployment for up to two weeks.

The Interior Minister of Kenya appeared before a national assembly committee to argue against the deployment. Many Africans in the diaspora and Kenyans are concerned that sending Kenyan security forces to a country that is relatively unknown to them compared to their immediate East and Central African region is risky.

Even though Caribbean countries such as the Bahamas, Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda have pledged to send additional security forces, these pledges have not been ratified and there is a concern that Ruto has committed 1,000 Kenyan officers to a dangerous and unnecessary mission.
Strategy

Activists such as Guerline Jozef argue that, geopolitically speaking, the security operation is more of a strategy by the United States to use other countries to conduct overseas missions to serve its interests while avoiding the stigma and label of imperialism. Jozef argues that many Haitians see this as the United States using Kenya as Blackface to enact its agenda.

Haitians are generally tired of foreigners coming in to run their country. Between 2004 and 2017, the UN had sent over 5,000 troops from Brazil who notably attacked supporters of the recently exiled Aristide.

In 2010, following the devastating earthquake, UN-backed troops were responsible for a cholera outbreak due to troops defecating in clean water sources used by Haitians leading to the deaths of over 10,000 Haitians and outbreaks continue to this day.

Questions

UN-backed interventions during this period have been responsible for a series of extrajudicial murders, rape and sexual violence against women and children. This is of particular concern for Haitians because there have been reports of Kenyan troops stationed in Somalia being accused of various human rights violations of which Ruto has not addressed.

In addition, Kenyan troops have been known to open fire on demonstrators in Kenya, and there are questions about how adequate their training will be for ensuring that the dignity and human rights of Haitians is respected.

Many Haitians believe these Kenyan security forces will serve the same purpose as the Brazilian forces 19 years ago, which is to protect certain multinational assets from increasing instability while not doing anything to protect and improve the lives of the Haitian people. While there are some Kenyans and Haitans who welcome any sort of intervention to help a country that has suffered so much, it is understandable there are concerns about this intervention.

There are still many questions to consider such as why has the African Union not given weight to Kenya’s Pan-African intervention. Haiti does need help but is it getting the assistance that Haitians want, or is this the latest in a long history of exploitation that will leave the country trapped in the same cycle of poverty and underdevelopment?