US seeks to turn Kenya mission in Haiti into UN peacekeeping operation

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More than two months after the first contingents of Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti to head a largely U.S.-funded multinational security force, the Biden administration is exploring the possibility of transitioning to a traditional United Nations peacekeeping operation.

The State Department, which in the face of funding and equipment shortfalls has been mulling over the possibility of transforming the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support, has notified U.S. lawmakers of its intentions, a source familiar with the matter told the Miami Herald.

An official with the White House National Security Council confirmed to McClatchy and the Herald that plans are under consideration to alter the nature of the force. The direction was also confirmed by a third source.

“In coordination with partners, the United States is exploring options to bolster the Multinational Security Support mission and ensure the support that the MSS is providing Haitians is sustained long-term and ultimately paves the way to security conditions permitting free and fair elections,” the national security official said.

The switch is both an acknowledgment of the administration’s struggle to attract voluntary contributions for the mission, which the administration says roughly costs $200 million every six months to operate, and of its failure to quickly restore order in Haiti despite public pronouncements that there has been progress since the Kenyans’ arrival.

A traditional U.N. peacekeeping operation would end the mission’s problems with funding, because it would be paid for through member nations’ traditionally assessed contributions. It would also provide more equipment like helicopters, which the current Kenya-led mission lacks, and possibly a hospital capable of performing surgeries. Also the U.N. would be able to mobilize military forces, rather than just cops, from other nations in a way that the U.S. has been unable to do.

A peacekeeping mission would need the approval of the U.N. Security Council, and there are questions about whether its members, especially China and Russia, would support it.

Renata Segura, program director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Crisis Group, said she thinks the move is a demonstration of how difficult it is to mobilize support for this kind of mission outside of the traditional U.N. channels.

“The initial lack of support to the MSS from outspoken sectors of Haitian civil society certainly made many potential donors, mission leaders very reluctant to engage. But beyond that, there is a clear Haiti fatigue— with many donors wondering if this most recent experiment would solve what previous interventions couldn’t,” she said.

Robert Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the U.N., who visited Haiti last week, said there needs to be a discussion about how to beef up the security mission.

“The obvious answer to that is through a peacekeeping mission. But we need to understand the political challenges,” he said in an interview after his visit. “Only the Security Council can approve this peacekeeping mission. And a peacekeeping mission has to be funded, but it also has to be approved by the [Permanent 5 members] and that includes China and Russia.

“The reason we have the [Kenya] mission we have is because China and Russia wouldn’t agree to anything else,” said Rae, who was recently elected president of the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. “We need to understand that’s what needs to come together in order for it to happen.”

Rae said the challenge is to make sure that both the Haiti National Police, the Kenya mission and the humanitarian and development agencies working in the troubled Caribbean country have the financial support to confront the worst humanitarian crisis since a devastating 2010 earthquake left more than 300,000 Haitians dead.

“That doesn’t depend on a change of heart from Russia or China, that depends on the willingness of the rest of the world to step up and address the problems,” Rae said, referring to the ongoing struggle to raise money for the security mission and a $674 million U.N. humanitarian appeal to help the nearly 600,000 Haitians who have been forced out of their homes by armed gangs over the last three years and the more than five million currently facing hunger.

The violence is also disrupting access to healthcare and has led to more than 2,500 deaths or injuries in the first three months of the year, according to the U.N.

Canada recently sent its contribution of $59 million Canadian dollars to a U.N.-controlled Trust Fund set up for the Kenya mission’s operations, while the U.S. remains the largest financial contributor. The Biden administration has provided more than $300 million that has, among other things, paid for the construction of a base near Port-au-Prince’s international airport and dozens of armored vehicles for the foreign police officers.

There are currently 400 Kenyans police officers in Haiti tasked with helping the Haitian police take on gangs that have continued to force people out of their homes. The Kenyans are expected to be joined in the coming days by a contingent of about 250 military and police officers from Jamaica.

Critics of the MSS mission have argued that even at 2,500 personnel, which was initially projected, the force is too small to make a difference. Haitian government officials, who are in the early stages of trying to organize elections, have also quietly voiced criticism of the mission. Their concerns range from the lack of equipment to the lack of foreign cops to secure polling sites when armed groups control more than 85 percent of the capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to Port-au-Prince this week to meet with Prime Minister Garry Conille and the head of the Transitional Presidential Council, Edgard Leblanc. He will also meet with a handful of political party leaders involved in setting up the presidential council, which has been at the center of a bribery scandal involving three of its seven voting members.

A large part of Blinken’s focus is expected to be on security and the multinational mission, which comes up for renewal before the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 30.

The mission was first authorized by the Security Council in October 2023 for a year. But court challenges in Nairobi over President William Ruto’s decision to deploy 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti, a months-long congressional hold by GOP lawmakers on funding and a deadly gang insurgency in Haiti delayed the deployment until June.

The first contingent of 200 Kenyans arrived in Port-au-Prince on June 25 and a second group on July 16. Despite their presence, several neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital have since fallen under gang control and Haitians, both in the population and the police, have quietly expressed disappointment with the mission.

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