The Mt Kenya Times 
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
A few days ago, the third batch of 217 Kenyan police officers arrived safely in Haiti. Kenya, which is leading the United Nation (UN) led- Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), has been receiving international accolades.
This is because of high discipline its officers have been exhibiting while discharging their mandate of stabilizing Haiti which had been overrun and was being held hostage by organized criminal gangs.
This deployment comes at a time when the critics of President William Ruto were peddling lies and raw propaganda that the new administration of United States of America (USA) was opposed to the mission.
Without offering an iota of evidence, they would allege that the newly elected President Donald Trump disliked President William Ruto and hence the US will stop funding our officers.
Though this was a cheap and narrow thinking, they thought Kenyans will buy their card because they considered them to be highly gullible and ignorant.
Here are the facts The MSS is composed of many countries that responded positively to the request by the UN. Therefore, the mission is under the control and sponsorship of UN.
So, if for instance, the US opts to withdraw its contribution, this will affect all countries participating in this mission.
The latest deployment is a clear confirmation that President Trump supports the mission.
It is worth to recall the opinion was divided when President William Ruto announced that Kenya was among the countries that the United Nations (UN) had requested to participate in the mission.
The critics argued that Kenyan police was ill-equiped to deal with Haiti criminal gangs who had forcibly ousted their legitimate government and taken charge.
But the situation on ground have since proved wrong the critics.
Our officers have been demonstrating high level courage and experience when battling Haitian criminal gangs.
This flew in face of Dr Ruto’s critics who would have loved to see our officers subdued or even killed.
Our officers would not succeed if they were ill-prepared and ill-equiped.
MSS is under the stewardship of a Kenyan police Commander Geoffrey Otunge.
Kenya had pledged to send a contingent of 1,000 officers. The first batch saw 400 police officers deployed.
US, Canada and India are the countries which have so far supplied equipment to our officers in Haiti which include helicopters and Armoured Personnel vehicles.
The officers have so far managed to stabilize hospitals, schools, airport and major roads.
This is after completing their first assignment which was to rescue the capital city of Prince Au Port and its environs.
The mandate of the officers, who are working closely with Haitian National Police, have since been extended to cover 16 towns and municipalities.
In Kenya, our police officers had made a remarkable progress in battling organized criminal gangs such as Mungiki, Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), Saboat rag-tag militias and cells of Al Shaabab militants.
This will happen before these gangs reared an ugly head and posed a serious security threat to social fabric of Kenya.
In Haiti, the officers managed to reclaim the town of Mawozo.
This town is located along the border with Dominican Republic. Some of the arms used by criminals were believed to have been smuggled through this border.
The deployment of Kenyan Police has been delayed because of three hurdles. One, lack of clear legal framework. This matter was sorted out by Parliament following a debate and approval of bill anchoring the process in law. The President consequently signed the Bill into law.
Two, the camp where the officers would stay had not yet been completed.
Three, the resignation of the Prime Minister of Haiti.
This created a power vacuum. The GoK had to wait for this matter to be sorted out.
The new Prime Minister of Haiti thanked Kenya for responding to their distress call. We are very grateful to the people of Kenya and we request GoK to send more police officers.
The deployment of the first batch came hot on the heels of the visit by the delegation of police officers from Haiti.
Then IGP assured them that the government of Kenya has finalized plans to deploy Kenyan police officers to Haiti.
During this visit, the leader of Haiti police delegation thanked President Ruto and his government for responding positively to their distress call. He assured the Kenyan police that they will work closely with them and provide them with necessary support.
Besides Kenya, Chad, Burundi, Nigeria, Algeria, are among the countries in Africa which have so far agreed to send officers for the same mission.
They join those from Jamaica, Chile, Paraguay, Barbados, Bahamas, Barbuda Germany, France and Canada.
Contrary to the impression created by one of the mainstream newspaper, the deployment of the Kenyan officers had not been designed to coincide with President William Ruto’s state visit to the United States of America (USA).
The decision to deploy 1,000 officers had been made long before President Joe Biden sent the invite.
At the time, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Singoei kept updating the country on why deployment had been delayed.
Kenya has not developed cold feet. So, I urge you to ignore the rumors being peddled around.
As a government, we have put this matter on hold because of the resignation of the Prime Minister Henri Ariel.
Also, some ministers and top police officers have also been forced by the Haitian gangs to resign and flee.
So, there was no government in place to receive our officers and direct them on how to carry out the operations.
The Government of Kenya believes in the constitution and rule of law. So, in Haiti, it looked forward to work with a constitutional authority, PS Singoei reiterated.
The Haitian transitional council has since appointed a new Prime Minister.
Before, President William Ruto had hosted the Prime Minister of Haiti Henri Ariel at State House Nairobi. The PM resigned immediately after the two leaders signed an agreement paving the way for deployment.
Besides Kenyan parliament, reports indicated the Court of Appeal had okayed the deployment.
So the claims by Dr Ruto’s critics that he was forcing the decision down the throat of Kenyans did not hold any water.
Having read sections 107,108 and 109 of the National Police Service (NPS), I’m persuaded to believe that the President’s decision was within the law.
Then Cabinet Secretary for Interior Kithure Kindiki sought to elaborate this matter further.
He stated that the deployment cannot be done without an approval of Parliament.
As we know, the people of Haiti had been in big trouble.
For the starters, I want to share with them some of the atrocities that were being committed there.
The gangs were raping women and chopping the heads of thier fellow citizens. The children were not spared.
The hospitals and schools and airports had been closed and the major roads blocked. More than ten Police stations have run down. A prison have been broken into and thousands of prisoners secured their ‘freedom’.
The staff of humanitarian and charitable organizations were being targeted. They were blocked from accessing the camps where hundreds of thousands of Haitians had sought refugee to offer them food and medications.
This is the reason why Haitian leaders, who were on the run and some besieged, had pleaded with UN to intervene.
If you ask historians, this is what they would tell you about Haiti. This was the first country to emancipate itself from torture, forced labour and mental slavery subjected to them by colonialists. The people living in this caribbean nation are blacks.
President Ruto remembered this while explaining why Kenya is touched with thier pains and agony.
The people of Haiti are human beings just like us.
Taking cognizant that Kenya is a member of the community of nations, it is wrong to sit and watch when they are suffering.
It is worth noting this is not the first time that the government of Kenya is sending security personnel to join the Africa Union or United Nations peace keeping missions.
The history of the previous Kenyan administrations is replete with this.
The previous deployments were approved at a time when Kenya had fallen far short of meeting the UN requirement of the ratio of 1: 450. This means one police officer taking care of 450 citizens.
How come Ruto’s critics never raised it during the reigns of the previous governments?
So, thier comments reeked more of hypocrisy and insincerity.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga Is A Writer And Social Commentator
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