Trump will back Haiti mission, Kenya says

Kenyan police officers patrol the area near the national palace, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. [File, Standard]

Kenya’s peacekeeping mission in Haiti aligns with United States President-elect Donald Trump’s policy of dealing with immigration issues, the Kenyan government has said. 

Thus, the State has expressed confidence that there will be no “major change in policy” that may affect the Kenya’s security mission in Haiti backed by the US under the outgoing President Joe Biden administration. 

Speaking to The Standard on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’oei further said Trump’s presidency will not put the security mission in jeopardy as agreement was largely “between Kenya and Haiti.”

“The presence of the multinational security mission in Haiti helps or aligns with Trump’s vision of dealing with migration at source,” he said. 

“Part of the reason people migrate is on account of instability in their own host countries, the absence of opportunities, and the lack of economic growth,” he added. 

Trump’s victory was partly propelled by his stance on reducing illegal immigration in the US, a policy that Sing’oei believes has “a sense of alignment between what President Trump is saying and the goals that Kenya is pursuing in Haiti.” 

This comes amid calls from the opposition for Trump to withdraw support to Haiti mission when he assumes office. “We ask the new administration in the US to revisit the Haiti deployment and cancel the mission,” said DAP-K leader Eugene Wamalwa. 

Wamalwa argued that the ratio of police to Kenyan citizens is “dangerously low,” a condition that has left women and children unprotected resulting to the growing problem of abductions and killings in the country. 

In the wake of the uncertainty surrounding the mission, Kenya has embarked on a plan to transition its security mission in Haiti into a UN peacekeeping operation. 

President William Ruto recently proposed the plan to have the mission fully operated under UN peacekeeping forces citing it as a way to strengthen the mission’s capacity to stabilise Haiti.

“We discussed the transition of the mission into a UN peacekeeping operation to enhance the capability of the mission to help stabilise Haiti,” Ruto said after a phone conversation with Blinken. 

The US and Ecuador have also suggested replacing the Kenya-led mission with a more traditional UN-led peacekeeping operation.

Kenya has already deployed 400 police officers to the gang-ravaged country with 600 others also expected to join them.