PORT-AU-PRINCE — Kenya President William Ruto is promising to send an additional 600 police officers to Haiti over the next two months and to plea for additional money to fund a struggling, ill-equipped international armed mission to the country headed by his East African nation.
Ruto made the announcement Saturday during a brief stopover in Haiti while on his way to this week’s high level meeting of world leaders at the United Nations. Ruto currently has 400 specialized police officers in Haiti as part of the first contingent of foreign security personnel involved in the U.N.-backed and largely U.S. funded Multinational Security Support mission.
After arriving onboard a Kenya Airways flight at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Ruto descended the stairway and was greeted by members of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council and the force commander of the Multinational Security Support mission, Godfrey Otunge.
“You have represented the people of Kenya with courage, professionalism, selflessness, compassion and efficiency,” Ruto told his troops, noting he made the visit to check on their progress. “Your success is not only going to be the success of the National Police Service, it is going to be the success of the people of Haiti and the success of all people who believe in peace, in stability, in dignity and in democracy and I am very confident that you have what it takes to restore peace.”
Ruto’s visit came as the Kenya-led mission faces equipment and funding shortages, and the Biden administration seeks to have the mission transform into a formal U.N. peacekeeping operation later this month when the Security Council meets on Sept. 30 to also decide on whether to extend the mission for another year.
Ruto is expected to focus heavily on Haiti when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly. He said he chose to visit Port-au-Prince so that he could have clarity and mobilize support for the Haiti mission during meetings in New York. He said while there have been logistical constraints and a lack of resources for the mission, which is supposed to have 2,500 security personnel, 20 additional countries have now committed resources. He also plans to deploy an additional 300 police officers in the next three weeks. They will be followed by an additional 300 Kenyan officers in November.
During his brief visit, Ruto toured the base of the mission where he, members of his delegation and Haitian authorities met in discussions before addressing the press. He also prayed for his police officers.
“He’s hoping more countries will pledge to send troops and send more money for the mission in order for it to be more effective and have more resources,” said Fritz Jean, a member of the Transitional Presidential Council.
Jean said he believe Ruto’s visit to Port-au-Prince was done in good faith and “we’re hoping that what he wants to accomplish, he can.”
Like U.S. officials who visited recently, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ruto insisted there has been progress in the fight against armed gangs. This, however, has been contradicted by Haitians who continue to be displaced and by the U.N. human rights expert William O’Neill. On Friday, O’Neill concluded a visit to Haiti by warning that gang violence is spreading across Haiti and the country’s national police force still lacks the logistical and technical capacity to fight gangs, now controlling more than 85% of the capital.
The one-year security mission was approved in October by the Security Council. Its deployment, however, was delayed by several months due to court challenges in Nairobi over Ruto’s promise to send a 1,000 Kenyan cops to lead it; funding blocks in Washington by Republican lawmakers not totally convinced of the plan; and later by the armed gang insurgency in late February that led to the U.S. pulling its support for then prime minister Ariel Henry. Soon after, Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Jamaica, where together with the Caribbean Community, the U.S. helped carve a path toward elections through the formation of a nine member Transitional Presidential Council.
But seven months later, the council has been engulfed in scandal after three of its seven voting members were accused of soliciting a nearly $800,000 bribe from the director of a state-owned commercial bank to keep his job. The council as a group has not addressed the allegations, and the three accused council members have refused to step down despite pressure by their respective parties and the Caribbean Community to do so.
In a huge slap in the face to the transitional body, the U.S. State Department on Friday informed the Haitian government that they will not be providing Secret Service protection for Council President Edgard Leblanc Fils, according to multiple sources who confirmed the decision to the Miami Herald. He was scheduled to provide Haiti’s address before the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
The State Department, which is providing Secret Service protection for Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille, did not specify why it was not providing the same service to Leblanc, whom U.S. authorities have started to refer to as “coordinator” rather than president.
On Saturday as Ruto prepared to depart Port-au-Prince, Leblanc informed reporters that he would not be traveling to New York. He had intended to travel aboard Ruto’s aircraft. Presidential Council member Leslie Voltaire, who has some bilateral meetings scheduled in New York, did leave and it remains unclear if he or Conille will be the one to address the assembly, or if there will be no Haiti address.
Leblanc has recalled both Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. and the U.N. to seek an answer as to why the U.S. is not providing him with protection, a source familiar with the discussions informed the Herald.
By JACQUELINE CHARLES/Miami Herald
Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
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