On Sunday, August 20 th , a high-level delegation of Kenyan officials arrived in Port-au-Prince to
meet with the leadership and all stakeholders to evaluate the needs of the national police and
generally see how best they can come to the aid of the Haitian people, according to Ambassador
Georges Orina, Director general of bilateral Affairs and policy at the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Diasporan Affairs, who also happens to be the head of the delegation.. On Monday,
the government of interim Prime Minster Ariel Henry, the Transitional council as well as the
diplomatic corps met with the Kenyan delegation. There were high level meetings in the
morning, culminating in a working lunch with the delegation. The fact-finding mission that is
expected to wrap up on Wednesday, started with a meeting in New York with stakeholder
countries and groups that are trying to decide how best to move the country out of the morass
that its in, with rampant and uncontrollable violence and kidnapping as well as food insecurity
and health concerns. The Kenyan officials said the delegates from countries they met with in
New York said they understand the Haitian demands and the urgent need to put an end to a
situation that is paralyzing the smooth functioning of the country and putting the future of its
citizens in danger. The 10-member delegation plans another round of meetings with the national
police leadership before debriefing PM Ariel Henry on the mission before setting off on
Wednesday.
There have been mixed reactions to the visit of the Kenyan officials by almost all sectors of the
political life of the country. In a message posted on his tweeter page, the spokesperson for
popular democratic sector, Secteur Démocratique et Populaire (SDP), party, André Michel,
welcomes the Kenyan delegation, stating that the people cannot get out of the yoke of the
kidnappings and insecurity without the help of an international force. The Haitian people agree
with the deployment of a multinational force to support the police in the fight against insecurity
and violence. However, the former Justice Minister, Paul Denis does not seem to share the above
opinion . The head of the INIFOS party declared that he doesn’t expect anything positive to
come out of the delegation currently in the country to learn and eventually lead a multinational
force to combat the crisis because there’s no political will to resolve the security problem in the
country. Dr. Hénold Buteau of the alternative socialist party, Parti Alternative “Socialiste”, also
shared the same doubtful sentiment, noting that he does not hold a dogmatic position on the
issue, but questions who is going to order this force and what the rules of engagement will be.
Perhaps the most vocal critic of the mission is the former police officer turned gang leader of the
powerful G9 Family and Allies gang (FRG9), Jimmy Cherizier, also known as Barbecue, who
said he would welcome a multinational police force to help Haiti restore security, under certain
circumstances. According to him, if, when, the foreign forces arrive, they arrest the corrupt
oligarchs, and politicians who are selling weapons and ammunition to the people in the
underprivileged neighborhoods, he will applaud them. If the first thing they do when they arrive
in the country is arrest Prime Minister Ariel Henry, they’ll applaud the foreign forces, and if the
latter are seen as working to reestablish security in the country so life can get back to normal,
they’ll applaud them. But he did issue a warning that if the foreign forces arrive in 2023 or 2024,
and are seen sexually assaulting women, raping young boys just as the Uruguayan soldiers did in
- Or, if they bring cholera back, and if that is what they are coming to do in the
underprivileged neighborhoods, along with opening fire on the people, killing the people or
massacring them, then the Haitian people will fight them until their last drop of blood is shed.
Already, the factfinding mission appears to have made a political blunder on the very first day in
the country. According to the news, as soon as the delegation made its way into the country, the
first order of business was to pay a visit to the US embassy. This visit did not sit well with most
people and revived discussions about the potential success of the mission and what was the
reasoning behind such a visit. To most skeptics, the arrival of a multinational force in Haiti will
not solve the problems of insecurity, and since the Americans were reluctant to assume the
leadership of this force, it appears they may be working behind the scenes to use the Kenyans for
the benefit of their interests. Amnesty International also laid out its conditions that must be in
place before any international force is deployed. According to the human rights organization,
clear guarantees, measures, mechanisms, mandatory and enforceable parameters must be set to
prevent unlawful use of force and prevent negligence causing harm to local populations and any
other abuses by individuals deployed as part of any multinational force.
Finally, tropical storm warnings are in effect for the southern and northern coasts of the
Dominican Republic and the southern coast of Haiti early Tuesday, as Tropical Storm Franklin
threatened to bring significant and potentially life-threatening flash flooding to the island. Early
Tuesday, Franklin was about 230 miles southwest of Santo Domingo, sustaining winds of about
50 miles per hour and was slowly moving to the northwest at 7 mph. The center of the storm was
expected to slowly drift and reach the southern coast of Hispaniola on Tuesday. The civil
protection agency calls on communities vulnerable to the dangers of Tropical Storm Franklin to
prepare for the risks of rockslides, heavy rains and landslides and flooding. Local authorities and
disaster risk management coordination structures are encouraged to continue issuing alerts,
depending on the evolution of the situation while permanent measures will be put in place to
better support the population, including the services responsible for evacuation and shelter
management, trying to reassure civil protection. The agency continues to assist more than 5,000
people, gathered in 15 sites, who have already been displaced due to armed violence in several
areas of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Dela Harlley