The Kenyan High Court on Friday blocked the UN-backed deployment of Kenyan police officers to Haiti to help the Caribbean country bring gang violence under control.
Kenya’s parliament passed a motion in November last year allowing the deployment of 1,000 officers to lead a multinational force in Haiti, but Judge Chacha Mwita said that the Kenyan National Security Council, which is led by the president, does not have the authority to deploy regular police outside the country.
“It is not contested that there is no reciprocal arrangement between Kenya and Haiti and for that reason, there can be no deployment of police to that country,” Mwita said.
Photo: AP
The judge said Kenya’s offer was noble, but needed to be carried out in accordance with the constitution.
Mwita made the ruling in response to an application from Thirdway Alliance Party leader Ekuru Aukot, who said that the government’s plan to send the officers to Haiti was illegal.
Kenyan government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura said it would appeal the decision.
“It was the Kenyan authorities that stepped forward ... and we thank them for doing so when so many countries are not stepping forward,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “We need urgent action, we need urgent funding, and we hope that member states will continue to do their part and then some.”
The decision was considered by many to be a blow to Haiti, which first requested the immediate deployment of a foreign armed force in October 2022.
“This is terrible news for Haitians,” International Crisis Group consultant Diego Da Rin said. “The vast majority of the population was waiting for external help to assist the police regain some control of the capital and the areas most affected by violence.”
Mercy Corps Country Director for Haiti, Laurent Uwumuremyi, supported the High Court’s decision saying that previous international peacekeeping missions — such as the UN mission MINUSTAH that was deployed there 2004-2017 — and international interventions have had disastrous consequences for Haiti.
“Solutions for Haiti, including those to bolster the Haitian National Police and the army to tamp down violence and return some semblance of security, should be led by Haitians,” Uwumuremyi said.
He said another international intervention might inadvertently worsen the situation, exposing more people to violence.
“It is critical that any intervention is done to restore stability, respects human rights and humanitarian laws, and does not jeopardize or hinder aid operations or worsen the violence,” he said.
An unprecedented surge in gang violence is plaguing Haiti, with the number of victims killed, injured and kidnapped more than doubling last year, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for the country said on Thursday.
“I cannot overstress the severity of the situation in Haiti, where multiple protracted crises have reached a critical point,” envoy Maria Isabel Salvador told the UN Security Council.
She said that the 8,400 victims of gang violence documented by her office last year — 122 percent more than in 2022 — were mainly targeted by gangs in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
About 300 gangs control an estimated 80 percent of the capital and accounted for 83 percent of last year’s killings and injuries, Salvador said.
She said they have expanded north into the Artibonite region, considered Haiti’s food basket, and south of the capital, where “gangs conducted large-scale attacks to control key zones” and systematically use sexual violence to exert control.
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