PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The first U.N.-supported contingent of foreign police arrived in Haiti on Tuesday, nearly two years after the troubled Caribbean country requested urgent help to quell a wave of gang violence.
Two hundred Kenyan police landed in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, whose main international airport reopened at the end of May, after being closed for almost three months due to violence.
At the moment it is unknown what the first task for Kenyans will be, but they will face violent gangs that control 80% of the capital of Haiti, who have left more than 580,000 people homeless throughout the country and who continue to loot neighborhoods. in order to control more territory. Gangs have also killed several thousand people in recent years.
The arrival of the Kenyans is the fourth large-scale foreign military intervention in Haiti. While some Haitians welcome its arrival, others view it with reservation, given that the previous intervention – the UN peacekeeping mission, carried out between 2004 and 2017 – was marred by accusations of sexual violence and the spread of cholera, which killed 10,000 people.
Romain Le Cour, senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, called on the international community and government officials to share details, including the mission’s rules of engagement and concept of operation.
“What is going to happen with respect to the gangs?” he questioned. “Is it a static mission? Is it a dynamic mission? All those details are still unknown, and I think it is time for there to really be transparency.”
Hours after the Kenyans landed, Prime Minister Garry Conille thanked the East African country for its solidarity, recalling that gangs have destroyed homes and hospitals and burned libraries, making Haiti an “uninhabitable” country.
“The country is going through very difficult times,” he said at a press conference. “Enough is enough… We are going to start working little by little to take back the country.”
Conille said the Kenyans would be deployed in the coming days, but gave no details. She was accompanied by Monica Juma, a former Kenyan foreign minister who is now national security advisor to Kenyan President William Ruto. She said Kenyans “will serve as agents of peace, of stability, of hope.”
“We are united in our commitment to support the Haitian National Police to restore public order and security,” Juma said. “We hope this does not become a permanent mission.”
The deployment comes nearly four months after gangs launched coordinated attacks on key government infrastructure in Haiti’s capital and elsewhere. They took control of more than two dozen police stations, fired on the main international airport and stormed two of Haiti’s largest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 prisoners.
“We have been asking for security for a long time,” said Orgline Bossicot, a 47-year-old mother of two who sells carrots and charcoal as a wholesale distributor.
Gang violence has dented her sales, and she tries to stay on the streets as late as possible before sunset to make up for the losses, despite her fear.
“You don’t know who’s waiting around the corner,” he said, adding that he hopes the Kenyan police will join forces with local authorities.
Critics say the coordinated gang attacks, which began on February 29, could have been avoided if the foreign force had been deployed sooner, but setbacks, including a legal objection filed in Kenya and political turmoil in Haiti, delayed their action. arrival.
The attacks prevented then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was in Kenya at the time to promote the deployment, from returning to Haiti. Henry resigned at the end of April in the face of increased violence. A nine-member transitional presidential council subsequently elected Conille as prime minister and named a new cabinet in mid-June.
Still, gang violence has persisted, and experts say it will continue unless the government also addresses the socioeconomic factors that fuel the existence of these groups in a deeply impoverished country, with a police department that is understaffed and Sufficient resources.
Le Cour said the gangs’ reaction to the mission is difficult to predict. “Some might fight. Others might want to negotiate and engage in dialogue with the Haitian government,” he indicated.
In a recent video, Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer who now heads a powerful gang federation known as the G9 Family and Allies, addressed the new prime minister for the first time.
“Don’t play into the hands of traditional politicians and businessmen, who used violence for political and economic purposes,” said Chérizier, better known as Barbecue. “The problem that exists today can only be resolved through dialogue.”
When questioned about Barbecue’s comments on Tuesday, Conille responded with a message of his own: “Put down your weapons and recognize the authority of the State, and then we’ll see where we’re going.”
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
