close
close
hsuses

Kenya’s president announces police arrival in Haiti in three weeks

Theo

video subtitles, Kenyan president is ‘confident’ about police operation in Haiti

  • Author, Caitriona Perry
  • Role, BBC News
  • Report from Washington, DC

Kenyan President William Ruto said his peacekeeping force would arrive in Haiti in about three weeks to help contain growing gang violence.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Mr Ruto confirmed that a planning team was already in Haiti and had met with local police to make preparations ahead of the deployment of Kenyan troops.

Mr Ruto made his remarks at the end of a three-day trip to Washington DC, the first official state visit by an African head of state to the US in over 15 years.

During his trip, the White House called for the rapid deployment of the Kenyan-led multinational force after an American couple was named among the three missionaries killed in Haiti on Friday.

“As I speak, a team of mine is already in Haiti,” Ruto told the BBC on Friday.

“This will give us an overview of what things look like on the ground, what capacities are available and what infrastructure has been built.”

He added: “Once we have the assessment agreed with the Haitian police and the Haitian leadership, we expect a time frame of about three weeks until we are ready to go, once everything is prepared on the ground.”

Last year, Kenya offered to lead a UN-backed multinational security force to restore order on the Caribbean island.

Gangs have taken over large parts of Haiti, bringing violence and destruction to the besieged capital Port-au-Prince following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.

On Friday, two US missionaries were killed by gangs in Haiti.

Mr Ruto told the BBC that events of this kind were “precisely” the reason his country was preparing to deploy its police forces.

“We should not lose people. We should not lose missionaries,” he said.

“We are doing this to prevent more people from losing their lives to gangs.”

The United States is also part of the multinational coalition working with Kenya.

“The security situation in Haiti cannot wait,” a spokesman for the National Security Council said on Friday.

They said President Joe Biden had pledged in his talks with President Ruto to support the “accelerated deployment” of the force.

Mr Ruto said a base to house troops and equipment – being built in cooperation with the US – was about “70 per cent complete”.

The situation on the ground in Haiti is becoming increasingly desperate and was described last year by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as a “living nightmare”.

However, there were delays in sending armed assistance.

President Ruto said his government had moved prudently to ensure security concerns were addressed, including plans for equipment, infrastructure and building a relationship with the Haitian police.

The Supreme Court in Kenya has also set June 2 as the date for hearing the opposition party’s concerns challenging the legality of the deployment of the Kenyan police.

But President Ruto assured the BBC that there was a written agreement with Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council that ensured that Kenya’s presence would be perceived as a “peacekeeping force” and not an occupying force.

The Council has signalled its intention to honour the agreement signed by Haiti’s former Prime Minister Ariel Henry with Mr Ruto.

Mr Henry resigned in March after weeks of mounting pressure and increasing violence in the country.

Haiti is not the only crisis-ridden country attracting Mr Ruto’s attention.

The president said he has Kenyans “in 15 different missions around the world,” including in neighboring Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mr Ruto said he was also holding talks with warring parties in Sudan, a country where “the level of human suffering is unacceptable”.

When asked by the BBC whether he thought the international community had lost sight of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, Mr Ruto replied: “Yes, it has.”

“I think the events in Ukraine and the Middle East have caused some of the focus to be diverted from what is happening in Sudan and in our region,” he said.

Mr Ruto said all such situations require equal attention, a point he discussed with Mr Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit this week.

On Thursday, the White House designated Kenya a non-NATO ally, making it the first sub-Saharan country to receive this designation.

Nairobi’s status as a non-NATO ally will enable it to cooperate more closely with Washington on security and acquire more modern American weapons.

While the move strengthens diplomatic relations between the United States and Kenya, polls show that Western influence in Africa is declining and increasingly dominated by Russia and China.

When the BBC asked Mr Ruto if the US was a preferred ally, he replied: “It’s not a question of people trying to say whether we look west or east.”

Related Posts