RUTO PLEDGES EXTRA 600 COPS FOR HAITI

An extra 600 Kenyan police officers will soon be on their way to Haiti - bringing the number deployed to the troubled island nation to 1,000. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, announced the decision on Friday.

Speaking alongside his Haitian counterpart, interim prime minister Garry Conille, who was in Nairobi, Ruto claimed that the mission had already seen some successes, wresting back control of key areas and infrastructure from gangs.

The annual upkeep of the deployment is estimated at $600 million, with the US contributing over $300 million so far. But Kenyan officers in Haiti have complained of delayed payments.

Ruto has tried to sell the unpopular (and, according to Kenya’s High Court, unconstitutional) mission as an act of pan-African solidarity. However, it’s being closely coordinated by the Americans, who have a long track record of destabilising Haiti. It’s also widely seen as a violation of sovereignty, with Kenya doing duty as the blackface of US imperialism

It’s not the first time foreign boots are on Haitian ground. UN soldiers are accused of killing civilians and of numerous sexual offences, leaving behind many fatherless children. Moreover, a sewage leak at a UN base on the Caribbean island resulted in some 10,000 deaths.

The US wants to transform the Kenyan deployment into a wider UN peacekeeping mission, but the proposal was blocked by China and Russia - who argued that the current mission must reach full capacity before any such shift can be considered. This means Kenyan officers could remain stationed in Haiti till October 2025, at Washington’s expense.