An advance team of Kenyan security officials has arrived in Haiti to make final preparations for the deployment of a long-awaited police force to help take back the streets from gangs. If they find the facilities for the mission are adequately prepared, it could mean Kenyan cops hit the streets of Port-au-Prince within weeks or even days.
The arrival coincides with Kenyan President William Ruto’s state visit to Washington, DC, during which he and President Joe Biden are planning to discuss the deployment. The US has opened its wallet to the tune of $300 million to support the Kenyan mission to Haiti — after all, a stable Haiti is much more in Washington’s interest than Nairobi’s. But the ties go deeper.
The Biden administration has pulled Kenya closer to the center of its Africa policy as relations cool with Ethiopia and South Africa, formerly Washington’s best allies on the continent, and military juntas in the crucial Sahel region expel US forces. Kenya has a stable democracy and growing economy, and it has proven its commitment to regional stability with troop deployments to Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other conflicts.
But the deployment to Haiti presents big risks. It will be the first time an African country has led a security deployment outside the continent, and it will be under heavy scrutiny given the atrocious behavior of past foreign peacekeepers in Haiti. The UN force that operated there after the 2010 earthquake is accused of abandoning hundreds of children they fathered with Haitian women and of bringing cholera back to the country.
If Kenyan officers fall or are injured, a domestic political crisis could ensue for Ruto, whose constituents don’t necessarily see the sense in sending their boys to die on an island 7,500 miles away. We’re watching for how much Washington backs up Nairobi when the going gets tough — and with Haiti’s gangs promising a hard fight, that could be soon.