A delegation from Kenya leaves Haiti. Will its proposal prove effective against gangs?

Haitian police, government officials and some members of the foreign diplomatic corps have been hoping that an offer by Kenya to lead an international intervention into a troubled Haiti would mean thousands of additional cops helping to dismantle and fight heavily armed kidnapping gangs.

Instead, however, the proposal is shaping up as an offer to protect key government infrastructures like the airport, seaports and main roads, which critics say will not curb the violence and only end in failure.

“Most of the critical infrastructures they were quoting are in the hands of the gangs. Before protecting this critical infrastructure, you have to first take them back,” a diplomatic source told the Miami Herald.

The “static protection force,” which one Haiti security expert calls “not effective,” was presented by a 10-member security assessment team headed by Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs General Director, Ambassador George Orina, as they met Monday inside a small hotel room, not far from Port-au-Prince’s international airport. In attendance were members of the Haitian government, Haiti National Police brass, foreign diplomats and the special representative of the United Nations secretary-general.

The delegation, which was under the protection of the U.S. and accompanied by more than a dozen U.S. State Department personnel, included members of the East African nation’s foreign ministry and police officials, according to two sources familiar with its make-up. The delegation arrived on an American Airlines flight Sunday and departed Wednesday after two days of meetings that included a working session with the Haitian national police’s top command.

The task force’s goal was to assess operational requirements for the police mission, which still needs to be approved by Kenya’s government and the United Nations Security Council. But what is emerging, according to several people who spoke to the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, is not what some Haitian government ministers envisioned when they agreed back in October to appeal for the international community’s help.

Sources told the Herald that during the Port-au-Prince conversations, the Kenyans gave no commitment on whether they will make good on their offer to consider the urgent request, which has the backing of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

However, should they agree to do so, the Kenyans made clear that their deployment would depend on several factors. They include a U.N. Security Council resolution, which the United States has said it will seek “to give the Kenyans what they require to establish their presence in Haiti;” and a minimum threshold of 2,000 officers who are ready to be deployed. Kenya has said it would send 1,000 of its police, leaving other countries to contribute the rest.

But the mission’s mandate is stirring concerns among those who participated in the discussions as well as others who weren’t there but are experts on Haiti’s violent history with gangs and U.N. peacekeeping operations.

“To simplify an intervention in Haiti with the security of public buildings or airports, for me this is not effective,” said a former United Nations peacekeeper who worked in Haiti with the U.N. mission that spent 13 years battling gangs and providing stability. “How do we imagine such a static force to be effective? We need to have action against the gangs.”

The security expert, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly, said any multinational force going into Haiti has to have a mandate of bringing relief to the population, more than 200,000 of whom have been forcefully displaced from their homes in the last two years by armed groups, according to the U.N.

“The gangs are attacking facilities, attacking the police, killing people, forcing the displacement of people from their houses, and you don’t have a plan to stop this?” he said. “Amazing.”

Guterres has said that Haiti needs “a robust use of force” by foreign police and military units to disarm gangs, now controlling most of the capital and spreading elsewhere around the country. Last month, he was asked by the U.N. Security Council to provide a report on Haiti’s options to combat the armed groups. Ahead of the report, the U.N. office in Haiti met with Prime Minister Ariel Henry and presented four scenarios on how a multinational force might help the Haitian police and its possible size. Options ranged from the force providing logistical and operational support to helping police to helping disarm gangs through combined operations with the Haitian police. The government requested a hybrid of the two.

During the consultations with the U.N. the Haitian government had reiterated that armed gangs were committing acts of extreme violence and human rights abuses, and the police do not have the capacity to restore security. Later, government ministers, including Henry, voiced concerns among themselves that just using an international force to secure critical infrastructure would not work, two people confirmed to the Herald.

Still, both Biden administration officials and the Kenyans have pressed that approach. State Department officials have said it’s up to the Haitian government to define with the Kenyans how the mission should be shaped. But they’ve also repeatedly highlighted that a non-U.N. multinational force, such as what’s being considered, would free up the Haiti National Police to focus on battling gangs while the foreign officers protect critical infrastructures.

The Kenyan foreign ministry also used similar language last month when it announced that it was considering sending 1,000 police to help train and assist the Haiti National Police to “restore normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations.”

The problem with the proposal, critics say, is that to get to the so-called critical infrastructure, the multinational force would have to go through gang controlled areas, even though the facilities themselves aren’t technically under the control of gangs.

The proposal also does not take into account the difficult reality of the country’s beleaguered police force, which less than two hours after the Kenyans left, announced a new departmental director for the Port-au-Prince region, where gangs last week invaded several neighborhoods.

Neither the police nor the Haitian prime minister’s office gave a reason for the change. Instead, the prime minister’s office said in a statement Wednesday that the working session between the Kenyans and the police’s high command allowed the latter “to clarify what they wanted and expected from the assistance that will be provided to strengthen the police and enable it to be more efficient.”

“One of the requests of the National Police, within the framework of this aid, that was underscored by the high command, is the formation of intervention units within the institution so that it can face the security challenges,” the statement said.

The U.N. has said there are 14,295 officers on the Haiti police payroll as of June 30, but only 3,300 officers are actually on public safety duty throughout the country on any given day. Not all are engaged in anti-gang operations and no one can say with certainty just how many officers there are in the force because many have recently left for the United States under a humanitarian parole program.

In addition to the defections, internal tensions and corruption have helped make the force so ineffective that the population has resorted to taking justice into its own hands by forming vigilante groups to target and kill suspected gang members.

“What is the financial support for the gangs? It is kidnappings, smuggling, drugs, extortion. And you are not going to attack the gangs? You’re not going to attack these four points?” said the former peacekeeper. “You’re going to give them the freedom to continue to control Gonaives, to continue to control the neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince?”

Any foreign intervention, he said, must include a plan to neutralize

the gangs as well as to tackle organized crime, help the police and put pressure on the Haitian government. It also needs to address government corruption and investment in communities using Haitian government revenues. Otherwise, he said, it will not succeed.

“Frankly speaking, they are playing a game here with the suffering of the people,” he said. “They only want to provide security for facilities, and for politicians to exercise incompetence. What are the benefits this plan is bringing to the population? Securing facilities is not the end state, the end state is the population.”

A diplomatic source agreed, warning that if the Kenya plan goes ahead and fails, Haitians, who have had to warm to the idea of another foreign intervention, will be angry and turn on those in charge.

The U.S., which supports a foreign intervention, has said it doesn’t want to lead a security mission into Haiti. However, officials in Washington, which wants a return to democratic order in Haiti through elections, say they recognize that the Haitian police need help tackling armed groups that continue to carry out indiscriminate attacks on women and children, including sexual violence and killings.

“Kenya stepping up in offering assistance is a positive development,” said Eddy Acevedo, who was an aide to former Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and is now the principal adviser on national security and foreign policy adviser at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “An international force is desperately needed to stabilize the security situation in Haiti, which is dire and continues to deteriorate.”

But if what the Kenyans are contemplating comes to pass, Acevedo said, “solely protecting key installations is not enough.”

“Who will protect the people of Haiti?” he said. “As the violence continues unabated, the focus needs to concentrate on combating the gangs, who control the majority of the territory of the capital.”

Where the plan came from

It is unclear whether the idea of the Kenyans protecting Haiti’s strategic installations came from the Haitian government or the United States.

In a June 7, 2023, letter to Guterres, Henry, the prime minister, reiterated his appeal for “robust support for the Haitian security forces” with the goal of reestablishing peace and security.

“It is not a question of coming to do the work in place of the Haitians,” he wrote. “Such a force would effectively serve as a deterrent in certain strategic areas such as ports and airports.”

The same day the letter was written, U.S. officials confirmed to McClatchy and the Miami Herald that Vice President Kamala Harris planned to use a visit with Caribbean leaders in The Bahamas the following day to push for “near-term support” for the Haiti National Police by securing “a limited number of critical infrastructure sites in Port-au-Prince, such as the airport and ports.”

Paul D. Williams, who studies peace operations, emerging security threats and warfare mainly in Africa and teaches at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, said he believes the chances of success for any anti-gang operation in Haiti “are very low.”

The reasons vary from the relatively small size of the mission being proposed to the lack of legitimacy of the current government, which has failed to find an agreement with opposition and civil society groups over the country’s governance and is once more facing calls of resignation from a leading civil-society coalition known as the Montana Accord.

“The key political issue for any multinational force is, how legitimate and capable is Haiti’s current government? If the government’s legitimacy is low this will tarnish any international force from the outset,” Williams said.

To help stabilize Haiti in the short term, Williams said, the mandate of any multinational force can’t be just police training, which would take a long time to have any impact.

“To be effective in the short-term, any force would need a stabilization component, which raises the stakes considerably as well as the likelihood of reciprocal violence. Combating organized criminal gangs is a notoriously difficult task for foreign peacekeepers, especially in a complex urban environment,” he said. “There are no good options for outsiders to eradicate these gangs.”

Then there is the issue of Kenya’s leadership. Amnesty International this week sent an an open letter to members of the U.N. Security Council raising several concerns about a possible deployment by Kenyan forces. In the letter, they point out the troubling history of abuses and impunity associated with past foreign interventions in Haiti, including a cholera epidemic that Nepalese soldiers inadvertently introduced in 2010, and sexual exploitation and abuse that some soldiers were accused of committing.

Amnesty International also raised issues over accusations of excessive use of force by Kenyan police — allegations U.S. officials say they are aware of and plan to address with the vetting of any officers sent to Haiti.

“Any deployment of foreign security forces must include clear, mandatory and enforceable parameters to prevent the unlawful use of force, negligence resulting in harm to local populations, and any other abuses by any individuals deployed as part of any multinational effort; these must also include clear measures to protect individuals against sexual exploitation and abuse,” the Amnesty letter said.

Human rights concerns were also raised with Kenyan delegation members during their Haiti conversations. A member of the foreign diplomatic corps also highlighted the fact the visit did not involve meetings with Haitian civil society and political parties.

Williams said Kenya’s leadership of any mission will be impeded by the negative legacies of the previous U.N. missions in Haiti, and its English-speaking personnel “won’t help, nor does it have much effective experience of foreign policing deployments.”

“Kenya also has more urgent international military deployments in Somalia” and the Democratic Republic of Congo, he added. “Will Kenya stay in Haiti when the going gets tough? Kenya previously withdrew its contingent from the U.N. Mission in South Sudan in 2016 after the U.N. sacked its force commander in that mission.”

People familiar with the talks with the Kenyan delegation pointed to one worrisome sign: the delegation saw very little of Port-au-Prince.

Several sources told the Herald that the Kenyans were so fearful of the volatility and the gangs, who days earlier had turned the capital into a war zone with attacks on several neighborhoods, that they stayed at U.S. embassy housing and chose to hold their meetings at a hotel across from the airport, just in case they needed to leave quickly.