
Kenya’s peacekeeping mission controversially deployed to Haiti in June 2024 seems to be hopping from one challenge to another after surviving the initial legal and logistical challenges, the latest being both operational and remuneration, where the officers reportedly have not been paid their dues since September. On the ground, this UN mission, which was set up in October 2023 and which Kenya agreed to lead in order to restore its image, is faced with an explosive situation. The mission is supposed to be helping the Haitian police to “restore basic security and State control”. But this is far from being the case. The dozen or so violent gangs that de facto run the country and control 85 % of the capital, Port-au-Prince, are steadily gaining ground.
The reports of non-payment of their salaries and allowances come amid claims that at least 20 police officers part of the 425-strong Kenyan policemen serving under United Nations backed mission to stabilise the lawless Caribbean country, have opted to resign from the force in frustration.
The officers allegedly wrote letters to the UN in November offering to resign from their duties citing frustrations over non-payment of three months’ salaries and allowances, reports which have been denied by the UN -authorized Multinational Security Support mission (MSS), and the Kenya police authorities. According to the Reuters news agency the officers began to submit letters of resignation in October after allegedly trying to resign verbally and being told to put their requests in writing. While 3 officers submitted resignation letters in October and another 15 among them senior commanders did so in November, said the agency citing the aggrieved officers.
“The reports that officers have offered to resign from the MSS are not accurate, all our police officers serving in Haiti have been paid up to the end October,” said police inspector general, Douglas Kanja. This contradicted a similar denial by the MSS which said that the officers had been paid up to September, in what is turning out to be a financially crippled mission.
A poorly thought-out expedition
The allegations were further denied by the MSS force commander Daniel Otunge who termed them as “malicious and inaccurate” even as reports of dissatisfaction and disaffection kept surfacing back home in social media platforms. “Things haven’t gone as well as we expected. We never received our salaries and allowances on time, and conditions in our camp are bad because we lack basic necessities, including food”, said John, an officer from the mission interviewed by Afrique XXI, who requested anonymity. According to David, another officer contacted by Afrique XXI, the members of the mission have not been equipped with the sophisticated weapons they were promised. “Things are not going well, morale is low and, as a result, people don’t want to risk their lives confronting criminals”, he said, also on condition of anonymity.
But even as denials came, reports indicate that the financial challenges have been brought about by a lack of financial commitment from the mission’s main financier the United States, and other Western powers who are supposed to fund the MSS via voluntary contributions.
It has further been complicated by claims of a shortage of munitions and equipment needed to confront more than a dozen gangs that run the country, a mission that Kenya had hoped would run smoothly and boost the country’s international image and standing, according to Nairobi human rights lawyer Soyinka Lempaa.
For Soyinka Lempaa, a human rights lawyer in Nairobi, these difficulties are the result of a poorly thought-out expedition by Kenya. “The problem is that Kenya volunteered to lead the mission to Haiti so as to be in good books with Western powers and in an attempt to shore-up its international standing and esteem. The mission has also all along lacked the goodwill of the same powers, meaning that the country is left to undertake a very difficult law and order restoration task, virtually on its own,” he told further Afrique XXI.
The result is also that Kenya is delaying the deployment of an additional 600 policemen part of the pledged 1000-strong force as earlier planned, with the officers stuck at a training garrison in Nairobi since the beginning of November when they graduated from training, ready for deployment.
Lack of liquidity
Not unexpectedly, MSS as a result is having problems fighting the gangs controlling large parts of Port-au-Prince, and its suburbs, where more than 3,600 people have been killed since the beginning of the year. Part of the problem with the mission according to the Human Rights Watch is that while it was approved by the UN security council, it is not a UN operation and wholly relies on voluntary financial contributions. So far only a paltry US$ 85m of the mission’s estimated US$ 600m required annually to support its operation has been received through a trust fund established by the UN.
“Despite some good will and commitments, the government, the MSS, and humanitarian and human rights groups working in Haiti don’t have anywhere near the resources needed to effectively address the challenges,” said HRW’s Nathalye Cotrino and Ida Sawyer. The MSS only has 425 policemen of the expected 2,500 personnel on the ground in Haiti and has only received around US$85 million through the UN-controlled Trust Fund, in addition to direct contributions – primarily $369 million from the United States – far below the estimated US$600 million required annually for its operation.
This is despite the UN Security Council in September unanimously voting to extend the mandate of the mission for another year, and rejecting calls from Haiti on transforming it into a UN peacekeeping mission.
The denials of threats of resignation by officers aside , Kenya’s resident William Ruto in October Kenya in a meeting in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, with Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conille appealed for urgent financial support from the international community. “We are asking the international community to match their commitment and their pledges with the necessary action for us to be able to undertake the task ahead of us,” Kenya’s President pleaded. The deployment in which Kenya deployed which has pledged at total of 1,000 police officers according to had only enough cash to run operations up to March 2025, but this is now in doubt, if the protests by the officers are anything to by, and if the claims that Kenya, a country running on budget deficit was so far footing the bill.
“A costly political mistake”
It is a claim that has been lent credence by National Treasury and Economic Planning minister John Mbadi who in November admitted that “this money we are spending on behalf of the U.N, we are the ones making the payment so the money comes from our exchequer because these are our officers”. It also leads credence to claims that the country has spent no less than US$15 million of its own money as it awaits reimbursement of cash from the UN.
A UN report cited by the Haiti’s powerful gangs are digging trenches, using drones and stockpiling weapons as they change tactics to confront the Kenyan-led police force deployed to wrestle back government control, a UN report said Monday. On the other hand, frustrations with salaries for the officers who took up their roles in June is nothing new, the policemen having gone without pay for the first two months of their deployment in what was termed a rocky start to the start of what has now turned out to be a troubled mission. The MSS on August 25 statement acknowledged the delayed payments, assuring that “there was nothing to worry about with regard to welfare issues of the MSS officers”, but challenges for the deployment which remains deeply unpopular back in home in Kenya, have evidently persisted.
Overall, the participation of Kenya as leader for the supposed 2500-strong force remains a “costly political mistake” for President Ruto, according to James Mwangi, head of the African Center for Corrective and Preventive Action (ACCPA) in Nairobi. “The president is leading Kenya into a dangerous mission abroad by agreeing to be used by the United States and France to pacify Haiti, country thousands of kilometres away from home, and where Kenya has no known political economic interest,” he told Afrique XXI.
It is perhaps because of this realization of this that Ruto on 20 December appointed a consular-general to Port au Prince, the first time Kenya was establishing a diplomatic ties with the country, picking former senior policeman Noor Gabow to head the consulate, and provide support to the expedition.
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