Gov’t Deploys Second Batch Of 200 Police Officers To Haiti

By: Joseph Mutua Ndon­ga

Worth Not­ing:

• 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 ini­tial reports indi­cat­ed that the total num­ber of offi­cers to be deployed stood at 1,000.
• It is worth not­ing the deploy­ment of the first batch came just few days after then Inspec­tor Gen­er­al of Police (IGP) Japheth Koome (he resigned a few days lat­er) host­ed a del­e­ga­tion of police offi­cers from Haiti at police head­quar­ters in Nairo­bi.
• The IGP assured them that the gov­ern­ment of Kenya has final­ized plans to deploy Kenyan police offi­cers to Haiti.

The sec­ond batch of 200 police offi­cers left the coun­try a few days ago to join their col­leagues from oth­er coun­tries in Haiti. This brings the total num­ber of Kenyan troops to 400.

The deploy­ment had ear­li­er been delayed because of three main rea­sons.

One, clear­ing the hur­dles placed in the way of anchor­ing this process in 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 same case applied to offi­cers from oth­er coun­tries that had respond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to Unit­ed Nation’s Peace Keep­ing Mis­sion.

Media reports indi­cat­ed that on arrival the first and sec­ond batch­es of the Kenyan troops were warm­ly received by the great peo­ple of Haiti. This is after land­ing at Port-au-Prince, the cap­i­tal city.

There­after, they start­ed under­tak­ing the spe­cif­ic secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions of patrolling cap­i­tal city.

They are oper­at­ing under the ban­ner of Mul­ti­lat­er­al Secu­ri­ty Sup­port Mis­sion (MSSM). The US is play­ing a key role in this mis­sion.

This explains why a few a days ear­li­er the US had sup­plied Kenyan offi­cers with Armoured Per­son­nel Car­ri­ers (APCs).

So far so good. Media reports have indi­cat­ed the offi­cers were doing well.

This is con­trary to the impres­sion cre­at­ed by the crit­ics of Pres­i­dent William Ruto that they had been sent into a death-trap.

For starters, the main objec­tive of this oper­a­tion is restore peace and sta­bil­i­ty in this trou­bled coun­try.

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 ini­tial reports indi­cat­ed that the total num­ber of offi­cers to be deployed stood at 1,000.

It is worth not­ing the deploy­ment of the first batch came just few days after then Inspec­tor Gen­er­al of Police (IGP) Japheth Koome (he resigned a few days lat­er) host­ed a del­e­ga­tion of police offi­cers from Haiti at police head­quar­ters in Nairo­bi.

The IGP assured them that the gov­ern­ment of Kenya has final­ized plans to deploy Kenyan police offi­cers to Haiti.

Being one of the coun­tries that heard your cry, Kenya is com­mit­ted to help in restor­ing peace and sta­bil­i­ty in your coun­try.

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.

An advance team led by Deputy IG Noor Gabow which had a few days ear­li­er vis­it­ed Haiti to ass­es the sit­u­a­tion had just returned back to coun­try.

Besides Kenya, Chad, Burun­di, Nige­ria and 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, Bren­da, 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 recent state vis­it to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca (USA).

The deci­sion to deploy 1,000 offi­cers had been made before Pres­i­dent Joe Biden made the deci­sion to invite him.

For­eign Affairs Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary Korir Sin­goei kept updat­ing the coun­try on why deploy­ment had been delayed.

He always denied rumors being ped­dled around that the gov­ern­ment had devel­oped cold feet.

We have made this deci­sion 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.

I had ear­li­er writ­ten an arti­cle in this col­umn. I not­ed.

The crit­ics of Pres­i­dent William Ruto want Kenyans to believe that Kenya is the only coun­try send­ing offi­cers to that coun­try. This is not true.

Pres­i­dent William Ruto had ear­li­er host­ed the Prime Min­is­ter of Haiti Hen­ri Ariel at State House Nairo­bi. The two lead­ers signed an agree­ment paving the way for deploy­ment. The PM resigned a few days lat­er.

Reports indi­cate that Kenyan par­lia­ment and the Court of Appeal had okayed the deploy­ment. This showed the law was being fol­lowed to the let­ter and spir­it.

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 deci­sions that the Pres­i­dent had made so far were with­in the law.

I heard then Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary for Inte­ri­or Kithure Kindi­ki elab­o­rat­ing this mat­ter fur­ther.

He stat­ed that the deploy­ment can­not be done with­out an approval of Par­lia­ment. Grant­ed, I’m per­suad­ed to believe Pres­i­dent Ruto equal­ly shares his sen­ti­ments.

The con­sti­tu­tion is the supreme law of the land.

It is wrong to point an accus­ing at Pres­i­dent Ruto.

Giv­en this sce­nario, the grounds cit­ed by those opposed are weak.

Kenyans can only lis­ten to them if they man­age to con­vince the court that the three sec­tions are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and should be removed from NPS Act.

As we know, the peo­ple of Haiti had been in big trou­ble. The vicious maraud­ing crim­i­nal gangs have forcibly tak­en over and over­run thi­er coun­try

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 had been closed and the main 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 was 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 the colo­nial slav­ery. The peo­ple liv­ing in this caribbean nation are Africans.

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, their com­ments reeked more of hypocrisy and insin­cer­i­ty.

I also total­ly dis­agree that Pres­i­dent Ruto was doing this in order to earn inter­na­tion­al rec­og­niza­tion, most­ly from the white peo­ple.

The Pres­i­dent had already curved a niche of a renowned leader because of his style of lead­er­ship at home.

The world lead­ers par­tic­u­lar­ly liked him because of strong­ly believ­ing in tenets of democ­ra­cy, con­sti­tu­tion and rule of law.

Besides, Dr Ruto believes in the con­cept of Pan-African­ism. This has thrust him into the inter­na­tion­al stage where he has been cham­pi­oning the course of our peo­ple.

Joseph Mutua Ndon­ga is a writer and polit­i­cal ana­lyst based in Nairo­bi