US wants foreign force in Haiti doubled, scale back on Kenya’s role in taking on gangs
The US is drafting a resolution to present to the United Nations Security Council to "properly resource" Haiti's fight to reduce gang territorial control.
Kenya may soon let go of its command role in the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission in Haiti if a proposal by US President Donald Trump's administration is adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The move was partly revealed by the Organisation of American States (OAS) Permanent Council Deputy Chief of Mission Kimberly J. Penland on Wednesday, who told foreign leaders that the US is drafting a resolution to present to the United Nations Security Council to "properly resource" Haiti's fight to reduce gang territorial control.
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Penland prefaced who started by thanking Kenya "for its dedication, leadership and support for the last year" and answering the call to come to Haiti's rescue "at a critical moment, demonstrating enormous compassion and courage, putting its people in harm's way while thousands of miles away from home and preventing a complete collapse of the Haitian state said that "should the UN Security Council pursue this model, then the US will also seek robust regional participation to provide strategic leadership of the force," declining to go into details.
A report by the Miami Herald citing a source privy to the US' thinking at the UN said the proposal, which endorses a proposal by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to provide logistical and operational support using peacekeeping money, would also come with other changes if adopted.
"As armed gangs continue to sow chaos in Haiti, the United States is looking to double the size of the foreign forces deployed in the fight, with possibly another country, rather than Kenya, taking the lead," the newspaper reported.
The news, coming days after President William Ruto engaged US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the mission in Haiti, roughly coincides with the upcoming end of the mission's one-year mandate on October 2. The state is yet to comment on the matter.
Kenya has been pushing the UNSC to expedite the establishment of a UN support Office in Haiti that provides logistical and operational support to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission.
The UN Support Office is part of the recommendations that had been made by Secretary General Antonio Guterres earlier this year, aimed at keeping the mission running by catering to the mission's accommodation, medical needs, mobility, and information technology.
The Kenyan-led mission that began its operations in June last year after months of delays following court cases in Nairobi and Republican opposition in Congress, has made considerable progress in controlling gangs' attempts to take full control of the capital, Port au Prince, despite struggling from a lack of equipment to its inability to increase its troop numbers from 2500 to the needed 5,000.
The revelation of the plans by the US and its co-author, Panama, which include rebranding the mission and re-envisioning its operations, came during a presentation by OAS Secretary-General Albert Ramdin on a three-year, $2.6 billion roadmap for Haiti.
It comes two months after the US maintained that it's committed to supporting Haiti, but is no longer willing to take on a heavy financial burden. Instead, the US urged that members of the OAS assume a more prominent role in responding to the security crisis in Haiti, amongst them, a proposal to provide a mission "to deal with the issue of Haiti.
In June, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, in a speech before the OAS General Assembly in Antigua and Barbuda, criticised the group for failing to "provide a force" to stabilise Haiti and questioned its usefulness amid crises in Haiti and Venezuela.
"If the OAS is unwilling or unable to play a constructive role in Haiti, then we must seriously ask ourselves why the OAS exists," Landau said.
"A State Department spokesperson told the Herald that the U.S. has so far allocated over $835 million in financial and in kind-support for the mission, including $150 million in foreign assistance for logistics support and equipment, $60 million worth of equipment and services, and up to $625 million from the Defense Department."
"In comparison, a U.N. Trust Fund dedicated to raising money for the current Kenya-led mission has so far raised only $112.5 million. While Canada is the largest donor to the fund, no Latin American or Caribbean country has contributed. Caribbean nations, meanwhile, have pulled back their commitments or put them on hold. Jamaica, gearing up for national elections next month, still has only about two dozen people in Port-au-Prince, while both The Bahamas and Belize have reduced their small numbers. Barbados earlier this year said it would not be sending troops," the Miami Herald adds.
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