Haiti Mission: How Kenya was duped, left whining as the world looks away

On the sidelines United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) President William Ruto lamented about the misery that has faced the mission, which has of today claimed the lives of 3 Kenyan police officers. 

In the September 22 side event co-hosted by Kenya and the United States, Ruto painted a picture of the international community’s neglect of the Kenya-led Haiti mission. 

He complained that Kenyan security officers have been abandoned and in a bad shape as they battle gritty armed Haitian gangs because of broken promises. He passionately urged global leaders to step up and act before small gains are lost forever. 

The President spoke even as only a few days are left before the expiry of the mandate of the mission, which awaits renewal by the UN Security council. 

A frustrated mission

President Ruto said the greatest challenge facing the MSS is logistics, transport and support. The Head of State sadly explained how Kenyan officers, were left to their own devices during the mission forcing them to operate incapacitated while battling the Haitian gangs. He also expressed frustration with the hard politics surrounding the Haiti issue. 

Among the participants at the UNGA side event were representatives from Haiti, its neighbors in the Caribbean and representatives from the UN Security Council including the three African members, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

President Ruto said that only the United States had given the Kenyan-led operation second-hand vehicles, in poor condition as most of them broke down, often putting Kenyan officers in danger especially in hostile gang-infested areas. 

He also noted that when Kenya volunteered for the mission, it was on the understanding that the international community would provide financial support and critical equipment. However, he regretted that there was no further help from the international community. 

Doomed from the start?

Back at home, President Ruto’s admission of a dithering MSS mission was not allowed to pass unchecked. Foreign affairs policy expert Ahmed Hashi took on the President’s admission of the poorly performing mission to question why Kenya deployed officers on the ground in Haiti without exhaustive consultations, resources and training to operate effectively. 

Hashi, speaking to Spice FM on Wednesday, decried President Ruto’s handling of the Kenya-led MSS mission in Haiti, saying the logistical challenges stated by the President at the sidelines of the UNGA meeting in New York point to poor preparation. 

Hashi pressed on, “President Ruto was saying that they got second-hand cars in Haiti. They didn't get the support that they needed… didn't President Ruto and his foreign minister have a checklist of what they needed before going to Haiti?” he asked. Hashi emphasized that any international stabilization or peace mission requires basic planning, including training on specialized equipment and ensuring sufficient air cover.

Hashi warned that Kenya risks down-grading its international stabilization and peace-keeping credibility by appealing to Western powers for logistical support instead of building its own capacity. 

He stated, “You can’t keep going to the Americans or the Europeans and say, we’re building world peace, but are not being provided with the infrastructure for our soldiers.” 

He said Kenya needs to strengthen its sovereign mechanisms for going into a stabilization or peace mission, and in that way have the capacity to come to the table and say, “This is what I’m going to contribute to the U.N., and therefore I have the right to a seat,” in reference to the President’s assertion that Africa should be given a permanent security seat at the UN.

No sooner had Hashi’s criticism landed than a new one erupted on Wednesday evening when Wiper Patriotic Front (WPF) party leader Kalonzo Musyoka criticized President Ruto’s role in the poor performance of Kenyan officers in the MSS, Haiti peacekeeping mission, saying the deployment was “misadvised from the word go.”

Kalonzo Musyoka spoke during an interview on Citizen TV’s JKLive show on Wednesday night, where he criticized the President for lamenting at the UNGA  about underfunding, yet the mission was predestined to flop from the start. A seasoned foreign affairs top-official, Kalonzo questioned the credibility of the mission, saying it lacked a proper UN Security Council mandate and was unlikely to succeed without global backing.

To add salt to injury, while appearing at the breakfast show this morning at Citizen TV, Makueni Senator Dan Maanzo alleged that President Ruto blindly agreed to be part of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti. Pressing on he said, President Ruto failed to hold thorough deliberations before committing to the deal, only to encounter serious failings and the prospect of a failed mission.

Senator Maanzo went on, "I've met Haitians in Washington D.C and they were lobbying that Kenya does not go to their country because this is putting blacks to fight with blacks. I thought President Ruto was duped and agreed to be duped in this deal." 

Adding confusion on to the misfiring MSS mission, were the President’s remarks at the UNGA that, “I must use this occasion to honor the Kenyan officers, Samuel Kitwai, Benedict Kabiru and Kennedy Nzuve who lost their lives in the line of duty.” 

This was baffling, as back at home, one of the said officers, Benedict Kabiru, had not been declared “deceased” until the President’s remarks came out at the international UNGA conference, to the despair and pain of his family, who knew he was listed as missing. 

This threw the Attorney General’s office into disarray when the AG, in a Nairobi court, admitted yesterday she had not received news of such information from the police service even as she requested for more time to clarify the information.

Lonely at the frontline

Kenya leads the MSS mission with 735 out of a total 989 officers, supported by tiny contingents from Guatemala, El Salvador, Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Canada. 

Since the initial deployment of the MSS mission, difficulties in funding, operational and logistical gaps have left the forces in Haiti crippled and unable to carry out their mandate. 

The US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, however, says MSS mission will soon transform to the Gang Suppression Force (GSF). This is a proposal the US and Panama put forward last month to the UN as a draft resolution to take over the mandate of the MSS and it will be supported by a UN field Office. 

This new force would consist of more than 5,500 personnel, "more than five times the size of the current MSS mission," Landau added. The mandate of the MSS is expiring on October 2, 2025.

The proposal to form a new entity, the GSF, is a product of the U.S. and Panama, which last year proposed a conversion of the Kenya-led MSS into a formal UN peacekeeping force but was subsequently vetoed by both Russia and China. 

Landau said "Haiti stands at a crossroads. Port-au-Prince faces an escalating security crisis with gangs terrorizing communities, extorting families and recruiting desperate children to commit horrors on behalf of gang leaders. 

The US insists the Kenya-led MSS lacks "the mandate and the resources necessary to address the mounting scale of the challenge" in Haiti.

The MSS, first established in October 2023, was meant to help Haitians to build a peaceful, secure and politically stable future, by pushing back gang violence. 

But the story of MSS, like other missions before it in Haiti, will go to the annals of history, a failure. 

President Ruto, in resignation to the fate of the MSS mission said Kenya was ready to participate in any new mission, but warned: "If we don't correct the mistakes of the past, we will, most unlikely succeed."