Across Haiti, anticipation is mixed with fear as the Caribbean nation welcomes the fourth major foreign intervention in its history to combat gang violence.
Several hundred police officers from Kenya met with Prime Minister Garry Conille earlier on Wednesday as they prepare to deploy in the coming days.
Expectations are high
Haitians are scared and fed up with the gangs that have ransacked the capital Port-au-Prince and its environs, killing, raping and kidnapping thousands of people in recent years and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and jobless. “I ask the prime minister and the Kenyans to rid Haiti of these gangs,” said Mathurin Jean François, a 30-year-old math teacher who has been out of work for two years after gang violence forced his school to close.
“Many people are suffering.”
The first UN-backed foreign police contingent arrived on Monday. Police and soldiers from the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica will join later for a total of 2,500 personnel.
“Haiti’s strategy is to restore security house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood, town by town,” Conille said Wednesday during a meeting with Kenyan police.
On February 29, mobs launched coordinated attacks that eventually led to the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. They raided more than two dozen police stations, opened fire on the main international airport, forcing its closure for nearly three months, and stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 prisoners.
Sabrina Karim, an assistant professor at Cornell University in New York who focuses on conflict and peace processes, said the Kenyan-led mission in Haiti will have to prove effective.
“This is a very difficult task that requires experience and strong local knowledge,” she said, noting that the Kenyans must win the trust of Haitians, who are already distrustful of a government long linked to corruption and gangs. “The accountability part is really important. Ultimately it will be for the Haitian people to decide whether to accept the mission,” he said.
Previous interventions have gone awry. The UN’s 2004-2017 peacekeeping mission was marred by allegations of sexual assault and the outbreak of cholera, which killed nearly 10,000 people.
Nonprofits working in Haiti have said they are concerned about the Kenyan-led mission, especially since the UN recently revealed that 30% to 50% of armed group members are now children.
“The risk of child casualties is significant,” the US-based nonprofit Save the Children said in a statement. “In Haiti, increasing numbers of children are being forced by hunger and desperation to join armed groups. These children are victims of child rights abuses and should be treated as children, not militias.”
He said aid organizations had received “alarming reports” of armed groups using children and young people in clashes with Haitian police.
For now, Haitians are watching the Kenyans closely with mixed feelings.
