Kenyan high court rules against police deployment in Haiti

Kenya, along with the US, had been hoping to send forces to intervene in Haiti which is currently suffering a humanitarian crisis according to the UNFPA.

UN troops previously intervened in Haiti in 2010 as pictured here. Some fear a repeat intervention may be unwise - photo by the US government

On the 26th of January 2024, the Kenyan High Court ruled against the government’s attempts to deploy police into Haiti, stating that the UN Security Council lacked the authority to send Kenyan police into the country without direct agreement from the host government. The council’s authority has been confined to deploying the military, but not the police.  The ruling comes amidst what the UN has described as a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Haiti, with surging crime, political instability and economic crisis leaving an estimated 5.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and paving the way for the rise of gangs, thought to now have control of 80 percent of the Haitian capital. 

The Kenyan government has since promised to appeal against the court’s ruling, having originally wanted police on the ground by January. At a recent summit in Rome, Kenyan President William Ruto confirmed that efforts were being made to gain the needed request from Haiti and that he expected it soon. This effort reflects how Kenya has taken a more active role in regional and international politics under Ruto, in a bid to become the major champion of African interests.

The ruling follows the approval of Kenyan police intervention by the Security Council in October. Initially, the US had hoped for Canadian intervention in Haiti to avoid commiting American troops. President Justin Trudeau resisted however, arguing that an influx of foreign troops would not bring stability to Haiti, alluding to past failures of foreign involvement such as the US interventions in 1994 and 2004. Amid Canadian reticence, Kenya agreed to the resolution. Dr Alfred N Mutua, the current Kenyan Minister of Tourism and Wildlife, wrote on X in October 2023 “this mandate is not only about peace and security, but also about the rebuilding of Haiti – its politics, its economic development and social stability”. Yet Enock Chacha Mwita, the judge who issued the ruling, said that “any decision by any state organ or state officer to deploy police officers to Haiti … contravenes the [Kenyan] constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.”

Our Analysis: intervention in Haiti remains a point of contention

While a need for order is certainly felt by many, intervention in Haiti is a difficult matter. In the past, intervention attempts, including American occupation between 1915 and 1934, have failed to create long-term stability, in fact they are often blamed as creating further harm. Most recently, a report published in 2019 stated that UN peacekeepers in Haiti had fathered and abandoned children with citizens, raped and sexually abused those they were ordered to protect, and were the likely cause of a cholera outbreak in 2010, resulting in thousands of deaths.

“In [pushing for intervention], some have argued Kenya is acting simply as a proxy for the US, supporting their position on the back of Canadian criticism.”

Further issues of Kenyan intervention involve worries about the police themselves. Originally, the pledge accepted by the UN Security Council, alongside the US and Canada, was that a contingent of 1,000 police officers would help to train and assist Haitian police to restore normality. However, the police have little experience overseas and tend to speak English and Swahili, in contrast to the dominant languages in Haiti of Krèyol and French. Human rights groups have also responded with concern, suggesting that this could worsen the security crisis in the region due to the poor record of the Kenyan police force. In 2023, Human Rights Watch stated that the Kenyan authorities had not taken sufficient action to hold police officers and commanders to account after experiences of police brutality, including the beating and killing of protesters by Kenyan riot police during the Covid-19 curfews.

However, without intervention there are fears that the current violence will only get worse. The UN’s special representative for Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, told the UN Security Council that the number of people violently targeted by gangs had surged by 122% in 2023. This has occurred amid a depletion  of Haiti’s own police. Last month, the Haitian forces’s principal trade union revealed that national police had lost nearly 3,300 officers in the past three years.

Violence was able to emerge in part due to the power vacuum left by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Ariel Henry was chosen as Prime Minister twenty four hours prior to Moïse’s killing and, despite a 2022 deal committing him to hold elections in 2023, these elections have since been deferred, with the prime minister claiming that increasing gang violence has undermined Haiti’s ability to hold a free and fair election. As a result, Haiti has not had a single elected government official since January 2023. A sense of unaccountability, alongside the government's failure to respond to severe food and water shortages, has contributed to the growing unpopularity of Henry, leading to protests in 2022. 

Ariel Henry, Haiti’s acting PM, has worked hard to sure up international support to counter his domestic unpopularity. He is pictured here with Argentian President Alberto Fernandez in January 2023 - photo via Casa Rosada

The difficulty of this situation has produced mixed responses from Hatians themselves. Anxieties over international intervention reflect fears that boots on the ground will be used to prop up Henry. In this, some have argued Kenya is acting simply as a proxy for the US, supporting their position on the back of Canada’s criticism. All the same, some Haitian citizens have viewed this move as the only option to restore order. Certainly a common response to the initial calls for international intervention has been outraged at the absence of their own government.

Despite the High Court ruling against the intervention on constitutional grounds, Henry continues to command support outside of the region. According to Jean Junior Joseph, a spokesman for Henry, the prime minister is continuing “diplomatic efforts with the support of the international community.” Other countries such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Senegal, have agreed to send police or military officers, while the United States pledged $200 million, including logistics and equipment.

However it is unclear whether this effort will include Kenya. Dr Aukot, who helped draft the Kenyan constitution wrote “Only a legitimately elected president who then forms a legitimate government pursuant to the Haiti constitution can make such a request. An imposed PM, Ariel Henry, cannot make such a request”. There has been some disagreement surrounding the difficulty of the reciprocal law. Evans Ogada, from the Law Society of Kenya, said Ruto should expect obstacles ahead with Haiti not having a parliament since 2020 making it unable to get a reciprocal law, alongside treaty having to go through “the rigours of parliament, public participation here, and, of course, approval by cabinet”. However, experts outside of Kenya have suggested that the deal would not necessarily need parliamentary approval in Haiti. Going forward, it is unclear  how easy the appeal will be to gain for Ruto, but it is likely that he will face further challenges.