2023-08-25 04:00:00
Haitian police, government officials and some members of the foreign diplomatic corps have been hoping that a Kenyan offer to lead an international intervention in troubled Haiti would mean thousands of additional police officers would help dismantle and combat heavily armed kidnapping gangs.
Instead, however, the proposal is shaping up to be a bid to protect key government infrastructure such as the airport, seaports and major highways, which critics say will not stop the violence and will only end in failure.
“Most of the critical infrastructure they cited is in the hands of the gangs. Before you can protect this critical infrastructure, you first have to get it back,” a diplomatic source told the Miami Herald.
“not effective”
The “static protection force”, which a Haitian security expert calls “ineffective”, was introduced by a 10-member security assessment team headed by the director general of the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador George Urina, when they met Monday inside a small hotel. room, not far from the international airport of Port au Prince.
It was attended by members of the Haitian government, senior officers of the Haitian National Police, foreign diplomats and the special representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations.
The delegation, which was under US protection and accompanied by more than a dozen US State Department staff, included members of the East African nation’s Foreign Ministry and police officials, according to two sources familiar with its composition.
The delegation arrived on an American Airlines flight on Sunday and departed on Wednesday following two days of meetings that included a working session with the high command of the Haitian national police.
The aim of the working group was to assess the operational requirements for the police mission, which still needs to be approved by the Kenyan government and the United Nations Security Council.
it is not what they imagined
But what is emerging, according to several people who spoke to the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, is not what some Haitian government ministers envisioned when they agreed in October to ask the international community for help.
Sources told the Herald that during the talks in Port-au-Prince, the Kenyans made no commitment on whether they would honor their offer to consider the urgent request, which is backed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
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