WASHINGTON, CMC – The United States and Kenya Thursday defended their respective positions regarding the deployment of the United Nations Security Council-sanctioned multinational security support (MSS) mission for Haiti, where efforts are continuing to end the political and socio-economic crisis in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.
Both President Joe Biden and the visiting Kenyan President, William Ruto, agreed that there was a need to end the situation in Haiti, which has been without a head of state since July 7, 2021, when President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his private residence overlooking the capital Port au Prince.
“This is a crisis…we think it can’t be dealt with with the multinational approach with Kenya leading the way, thus providing intelligence and equipment,” Biden told reporters at a news conference.
Ruto said that “gangs and criminals do not have nationalities, they have no religion, they have no language, their language is one to deal with them firmly, decisively within the parameters of the law.
“And that’s why we are building a coalition of nations beyond Kenya and the US, many of whom are making contributions towards the MSS in Haiti to secure that country and to break the back of the gangs and the criminals that have visited untold suffering in that country,” Ruto added.
The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Chad, Jamaica, and Kenya have officially notified the Secretary-General of their intent to contribute personnel to the support mission.
Haiti is wracked by violence that has escalated to unprecedented levels. In an address to the United Nations Security Council last month, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Maria Isabel Salvador, said, “It is impossible to overstate the increase in gang activity across Port-au-Prince and beyond, the deterioration of the human rights situation and the deepening of the humanitarian crisis.”
On Wednesday, Bruno Maes, the representative of The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Haiti, warned that Haiti’s health system is now “on the verge of collapse.”
The UN said that there are only six out of 10 hospitals that still have some operational capacity as the gang-led chaos continues across the capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving vulnerable children deprived of essential care.
Maes said that the increased violence, along with “mass displacement, dangerous epidemics, and increasing malnutrition,” has stretched the country’s health system to the limit, and the “strangling of supply chains” may fully break it.
President Biden defended Washington’s decision not to send military personnel to Haiti as part of the MSS but acknowledged that it is providing millions of dollars in support for equipment and other services.
“We concluded that for the United States to deploy forces in the hemisphere…this raises all kinds of questions that could easily be misrepresented by what we are trying to do and be able to be used by those who disagree with us and against the interest of Haiti and the United States.
“So we set out to find a partner or partners who would lead that effort, and we would participate in, not with American forces but with supplies and making sure they have what they need,” Biden said, thanks to Kenya for leading the MSS.
“We will supply logistics, intelligence, and equipment, and as a matter of fact, some equipment has already arrived,” Biden said, adding, “We are working with Congress to provide US$300 million to the MSS mission in addition to US$60 million for equipment assistance, and we are continuing to bring contributions from partners…”
“President Ruto and I agreed the people deserve better, they deserve peace and security, and I thank him for taking on this responsibility.”
Ruto said Kenya has in the past deployed peacekeeping troops in several countries and that his country believes that peace and security anywhere in the world, including Haiti, “is the collective responsibility of all nations and all people, who believe in freedom, self-determination, democracy, and justice.
“It is why Kenya took up this responsibility: We have been participating in peacemaking, and we have been participating in peacekeeping over the last 40 years in 47 countries, including tough neighborhoods like what we will face in Haiti.
“We are going to take up that responsibility alongside the Haitian police, and we have a clear modus operandi of how we are going to relate to the situation on the ground that has been agreed upon under the United Nations framework.”
President Biden refuted claims that Washington was supporting Kenya in entering Haiti, thousands of miles away from Africa, saying, “ Haiti is an area in the Caribbean that is very volatile…and we are in a situation where we want to do all we can without us looking like again America stepping over and decide this is what must be done.
“Haitians are looking for help as well as the folks in the Caribbean are looking for help,” he added, with President Ruto saying, “Kenya’s participation in Haiti is not so much about what has happened in the past.
It is about what we believe in—the peace and security of humanity. We don’t find that the US is committing Kenya because the US cannot commit Kenya. I am the President of Kenya; it is me to make that decision, and it is the people of Kenya to commit their own troops using their own structures,” Ruto said, reminding journalists that the deployment has received the support of the Kenyan parliament.
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