Friday August 16, 2024
The head of the Kenyan support mission in Haiti is refuting allegations that his forces had to be rescued by Haitian police after armed gangs fired on them during a recent joint operation to protect a city 28 miles east of Port-au-Prince from being overtaken.
Godfrey Otunge, the force commander of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, told the Miami Herald that while his officers were fired upon by armed gangs during the operation with the Haiti National Police last month in rural Ganthier near Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republican, the combined forces acted together to return fire.
“At no given time did the HNP or MSS seem to be competing with each other,” Otunge said.
The Kenyan force is in Haiti following a United Nations Security Council mandate that authorized its role supporting the Haitian police force to take on the gangs, which control more than 80 percent of the Haitian capital.
On Monday Frantz Duval, the editor in chief of the country’s oldest daily, Le Nouvelliste, cited the failed operation in Ganthier as an example of how promises by both the United States and Canada to help Haiti restore security have fallen short.
Little has changed in Haiti, Duval said, since Feb. 29, when the gangs united and launched an offensive to bring down the government. Nor has much changed, Duval added, since the first contingent of 400 Kenyan police officers began arriving in Haiti on June 25. To drive home the point, Duval highlighted the operation in Ganthier, which came under fresh attacks on July 21 from the powerful 400 Mawozo gang.
“The Kenyans went on a mission to Ganthier with the HNP,” Duval said, using the initials for the Haiti National Police. “When things went awry it was the HNP that provided cover to the Kenyans… because the Haitians are better equipped than the Kenyans.”
Duval did not reveal his sources. However, in the three weeks since Ganthier has been under gang control, the paper’s journalists have been digging into the incident to understand what went wrong.
The reporters found that public frustrations over the Kenya mission are shared by the country’s transitional government. Under pressure from panicked residents of Ganthier and neighboring Fond-Parisien to help, Haitian officials have been increasingly critical of the Kenya security mission, citing a lack of equipment, from helicopters to armored vehicles, to the lack of personnel.
In the weeks since the mission’s deployment began, armed gangs have not only taken control of Ganthier but are also close to taking over the cities of Fond-Parisien, Arcahaie and Gressier in the areas around the capital. After the Kenya mission and Haitian police failed to secure Ganthier, residents told the Miami Herald the Kenyan forces did not fire back at the gangs and ultimately left Ganthier.
Last week, during a meeting in Port-au-Prince with representatives of Haiti’s international partners, Prime Minister Garry Conille expressed his impatience and frustrations with the mission’s current limitations and called for a rapid build up of personnel, equipment and funding.
The operation in Ganthier was the first major joint mission by Kenyan and Haitian police, who were trying to secure the city during a gang attemot to take it over. Though Haitian police later declared victory, the city remains under gang control. Gangs attacked the city for a second time, ambushing Haitian police officers in the middle of the night as they slept inside a customs office. The attacks led the police forces to abandon Ganthier, which now resembles a ghost town. In neighboring Fond-Parisien, a citizen’s brigade has set up its own roadblocks to try to stop the expansion of the 400 Mawozo gang.
Otunge said forces deployed twice to Ganthier after the 400 Mawozo gang’s first attack. An initial attempt to enter the city, he said, had to be aborted after a bulldozer developed problems and the police had to wait for a mechanic. The cops were using the equipment to remove shipping containers the gang had used to block the main highway from Port-au-Prince into the city. After the bulldozer was fixed, the troops returned and gained access, the Kenyan force commander said.
“My officers and my vehicles were shot at,” Otunge said, “and the officers fought fiercely together with the HNP.”
During a debriefing later both the Haiti cops and the Kenyan force praised the team effort and said if they continue to work together “they are going to win it,” Otunge added.
The Kenya force commander said that when the mission’s convoy of eight armored vehicles rolled into Ganthier, they were confronted by charred government offices and a police station that had been turned to rubble after the gangs bulldozed it. Because of the lack of accommodations and the force having food for only one night, the troops returned to Port-au-Prince the next day.
Otunge rejected any notion that during an exchange of fire with gangs as forces left the city Haitian police had to come to the Kenyans’ rescue.
The mission’s supporters, including the U.S., which has provided more than $300 million in support, have been sensitive about any implications that it is not working, despite being seriously underfunded, understaffed and ill-equipped.
In a series of postings on X on Monday, the Biden administration’s top diplomat for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the mission as well as to Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, which currently faces accusations that some of its members have demanded bribes from the heads of goverment agencies.
Quoting President Biden, Nichols said “Haitians deserve to feel safe in their homes, build better lives for their families, and enjoy democratic freedoms. While these goals may not be accomplished overnight, the Haiti Multinational Security Support mission provides the best chance of achieving them.”
Otunge, who provided video clips of his forces moving containers of the road and of the destruction they found in Ganthier, doesn’t dispute that the situation in the farming community is challenging — or that the mission needs equipment and more personnel. However, he said the mission is determined to work with the Haiti National police to tackle the country’s security problems.
When the forces entered Ganthier, they were greeted warmly by the city’s residents, who began singing, “Kenya! Kenya!,” he said.
