a A mutual agreement between Kenya and Haiti to send police from the East African nation to the violence-hit country has raised hopes that a Nairobi-led, UN-backed multinational peace mission could soon be dispatched. .
But the Kenyan government still faces legal hurdles in moving ahead with its plans after a court decision put the brakes on deployments to the gang-ravaged Caribbean nation.
Important questions arise about what happens next.
How soon can I start implementing it?
The plan has faced legal challenges at every turn since it was announced last year and was declared “unlawful” by Kenya's High Court in January this year.
Justice Enoch Chacha Mwita ruled that Kenya's National Security Council, which authorized the mission, only had the power to send troops abroad, not police officers.
But the judge said the Kenyan president can send police officers to a country if a reciprocal agreement exists.
The agreement was signed a week ago in the presence of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Kenyan President William Ruto, who declared: “We are ready for this deployment.”
Opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, who filed the petition in the Nairobi High Court last year, has vowed a new legal challenge.
“The whole arrangement was done in secret and is not in compliance with the ruling,” he said.
“Kenya needs to gazette this reciprocity agreement, which also means that Article 10 of the constitution encourages public participation,” said Akot, a lawyer who helped draft Kenya's 2010 constitution. Ta.
Does this agreement have public support?
Kenyans are questioning the wisdom of sending police officers to fight heavily armed gangs when they are facing security challenges in their own country.
And that's before considering language and cultural barriers.
“We are struggling to contain poorly-fired cattle herders and bandits in northern Kenya. How are we going to deal with gangs with machine guns?” Barber Patrick Atuya asked.
Jimi Wanjigi, a businessman and opposition politician, called on Ruto to visit Haiti before sending ill-equipped Kenyan police into a “war zone”.
Ruto “doesn't care about risking the lives of his sons and daughters of the police who are not trained for duty in such combat zones,” Wanjigi said on social media.
Human rights watchdogs also say Kenyan police have a history of using sometimes deadly force against civilians, posing an unacceptable risk in Haiti, where foreign forces have committed abuses in past interventions. It is also pointed out that
Kenya's police chief, Japhet Koume, defended his force's readiness for the mission, saying at a government conference last year: “We have never failed.”
What is the current situation in Haiti?
Last week, the marauding organizations that control all of Haiti announced a concerted effort to oust Henry, launching attacks on airports, prisons, police stations and other strategic targets in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Influential gang leader Jimmy Chéridier warned on Tuesday that the current turmoil would lead to civil war and “genocide” if the prime minister did not resign.
Mr Henry, who had been in power since the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, was scheduled to step down last month. But that's not happening.
The UN said at least 15,000 people had already been evacuated from the worst-hit areas of Port-au-Prince, but UN teams on the ground were unable to report a death toll.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been in turmoil for years, and Moïse's assassination threw the country into further turmoil.
No elections have been held since 2016, and the presidential position remains vacant. —AFP