Can the 300 gangs roaming Haiti cripple Kenya's peace mission?

President William Ruto during flagging off the the first batch of 400 police officers for the United Nations-led peace mission in Haiti, at National Police College, Embakasi 'A' Campus, Nairobi. [File, Standard] 

September is the month when world leaders annually congregate in New York City for the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA). 2024 was no different. Of particular interest to stakeholders in Kenya, the US and Caribbean, was President William Ruto’s address to the international community.

During his address to the UN, he doubled down on Kenya’s commitment to bring order and peace to the troubled island of Haiti, the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere. However, a major obstacle to peace prevails. Haitian gangs.

Will the gangs cripple Kenya’s mission in Haiti?

Haiti suffers from a cataclysm of challenges. The 300 gangs that roam the island make the security situation much worse.

With the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, the country descended into a state of lawlessness that entrenched might over right.

A milieu akin to a state of nature of all against all and survival for the fittest. Under these circumstances, gangs emerged to fill the vacuum of providing public safety.

This happened as the institutions of the Haitian state were either too weak and decayed or had collapsed altogether.

Haiti had no functional legislative body to make laws, tax the public and address national defense and foreign policy. It had no executive as the president had been assassinated in 2021, and the court system had failed .

The Haitian National Police also did not cover itself in glory having been implicated in collaborating with certain gangs to control different portions of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince in exchange for money, drugs and gang turf.

President Ruto’s address to the UN General Assembly was therefore high on generalities but low on specifics as to how Kenya was going to deal with the 300 gangs in Haiti, with a force of less than 450 police officers.

More worrying, was that the President pledged more police officers to bring the total force of Kenyan in Haiti to 2,500. A clear escalation of the struggle between the Kenyan police forces and the gangs to control different parts of the city of Port-au-Prince. The gangs in Haiti pose an existential threat to the Kenyan police force especially when the force is undermanned.

Another challenge for the Kenyans is the uncertainty of funding for the Kenya Police (Multinational Security Support Mission) to Haiti. This funding problem has led to the MSS suffering lack of equipment, intelligence and manpower.

Ten countries have pledged 3,100 troops, but only 431 have been deployed. The sparseness of boots on the ground does not auger well to aid the close to 700,000 internally displaced persons. Coupled with this, is the 1.6 million Haitians facing a food insecurity emergency. Gangs have exacerbated the situation with the proliferation of violence, killings, kidnappings, rapes and assassinations of Haitian civilians. According to the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P), gangs control 80% of the city of Port-au-Prince. In addition to this, in the first half of 2024, gangs have been responsible for the death of over 1660 civilians and 850 injuries. Gangs therefore pose a significant threat to cripple Kenya’s mission to Haiti.

Haitians have a history of fighting each other to the death, but uniting together to rally against foreign intervention. This is one of the reasons for the failure of previous UN missions to bring peace to Haiti

According to the UN Haiti has more than 500,000 weapons in the hands of various vigilante groups. The Kenyan police face the daunting task of attempting to rid the island of these weapons in circumstances that will require hand to hand combatin narrow spaces in the city that the gangs know very well.

As the Kenyan troops speak rudimentary to no French or Creole, communicating with the gangs and the public at large will be a challenge.

In addition to this, it is not clear under whose command the Kenyan troops will be when the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) is converted into a UN peacekeeping mission as intimated by President Ruto.

Two last questions related to a potential UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti and the potential of gangs to cripple it. How long will the Kenyan peacekeepers remain in Haiti? Also, how will President Ruto define success for the Kenyan police who will be part of the UN peacekeeping mission?  

The recent gang coalition between Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier and Gabriel

Jean-Pierre of G-Pep, does not make things any easier for the Kenyans policing this troubled island.   

 -Prof Monda teaches political science, international relations, and foreign policy at the City University of New York. @MondaProf