US pushes UN to upgrade Haiti force to peacekeepers

 

The smoldering remains of the bodies of alleged gang members lay in the street in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 19, 2024. [AFP]

A Kenyan-led police force trying to restore order in gang-ridden Haiti should be turned into a UN peacekeeping mission, the United States said Wednesday, pressing an idea opposed by China and Russia.

The current force is under-staffed and under-equipped as it takes on Haiti's powerful, well-armed gangs, and shifting to a formal UN mission would provide more money, personnel and logistical support, said Dorothy Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations.

A year ago, the United Nations approved the creation of a multinational force headed by Kenya. It started deploying in June and now has 400 officers, out of a planned total of 2,500.

Haiti currently has no president or parliament and is ruled by a weak transitional body, which is struggling to manage extreme violence linked to criminal gangs, poverty and other challenges.

The gangs regularly carry out kidnappings, rape, robberies and other crimes, and the UN said Wednesday they had extended their control to about 85 per cent of the capital city Port-au-Prince.

The Kenya-led force is supported by the United Nations but is not a full UN mission.

The UN Security Council rejected a similar US bid to upgrade the mission in September.

Haiti's transitional body has made the same request since then.

"We urge the members of the Security Council not to turn your backs on Haiti, on my region, on the Latin American region, and the Caribbean region," said Andres Efren Montalvo Sosa, the deputy ambassador of Ecuador.

Several Security Council members support the idea of a UN peacekeeping mission for Haiti, but Russia and China -- both with the power of a veto -- are against it.

The role of UN peacekeepers is to "maintain peace and not to fight crime in urban areas or to save a dysfunctional state that has been plunged into domestic conflict," said Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy.