By Noureldein Ghanem
Amid the ongoing crisis in Haiti, numerous African nations, Kenya among them, have extended offers to deploy forces to tackle the escalating gang violence gripping the Caribbean nation.
Nairobi, poised to take the lead in a UN-sanctioned initiative, plans to dispatch 1,000 police officers to assist in restoring order to the violence-ridden country.
However, with Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry signalling his intent to step down pending the establishment of a transitional council, Kenya has opted to delay its deployment.
Nonetheless, President William Ruto of Kenya reiterated his commitment last week, pledging to fulfill the nation's promise by sending troops to Haiti once the transitional council is in place.
Kenya's stance, coupled with the United States' pressure on Nairobi to dispatch its officers, has sparked curiosity as to why the African nation initially volunteered to lead the mission.
"In the spirit of stability, integration and prosperity, Kenya just wants to be counted as a nation which stood with Haiti when it was needy," journalist and political theorist Abuga Makori told TRT World.
Taking into account various other missions Kenya has engaged in, Makori, based in Nairobi, highlighted that this isn't the inaugural endeavour of its type for Kenya, noting that the country "has consistently backed regional, continental, and global peacekeeping missions."
"Haiti mission, should it stand, won't be the first. Before, we had Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan [Darfur], Democratic Republic of Congo [just recently] and Somalia [ongoing]," Makori added.
"This is in line with its policy to support peace, stability, and prosperity among nations."
Is Kenya bound by preconditions?
Makori's comments were similar to those of Kenya's former foreign minister — now Minister of Tourism — Alfred Mutua, who told the BBC last October that the Haiti mission "would raise Kenya's global profile, which could benefit the country."
However, founder and editor at Haiti Liberte Kim Ives described the statement as an excuse, saying Kenya "desperately needs money, and the US is offering them many hundreds of millions."
The US offered to support the mission financially with up to $133 million, including for security and humanitarian aid.
Ives told TRT World that one of the prerequisites set by the US for the formation of a transitional council to govern Haiti was that candidates must consent to a multinational security assistance mission, with Kenya designated to lead it.
However, two of the parties involved retreated "due to popular disgust with the servility of the parties involved," Ives said.
"Because of this interventionist precondition that Washington established, Kenya's President [William] Ruto feels free to say that Kenya police will be deployed as soon as the now-6-member Presidential college is in place," he added.
"The entire situation is a complete farce because firstly, Henry lacked the legitimacy or authority to enter into any agreement with Kenya. Secondly, none of the members of the new Presidential College have formally signed off on or explicitly endorsed the deployment [although they have implicitly]."
Brotherly nations or puppet regimes?
Beyond politics, there could be other underlying reasons for why African countries offered to send deployments to Haiti.
Makori said that strong ethnic ties between African countries and the Caribbean nation are one of the reasons why African nations rushed to aid Haiti.
"Caribbean nations have strong [ethnic] ties with Africa. This is why making such a decision is easy for African countries," Makori said, stressing that Kenya doesn't need to wait for other nations to help a "brotherly nation."
Almost the entire Haitian population traces its origins back to Africa, with approximately 95 percent of its people being of African descent.
The other five percent is a mixture of Caucasian-African ancestry and a few European or Levantine heritage.
Haitians come from various parts of Africa, but the majority of the enslaved Africans who were taken by their colonisers to today's Haiti were mainly from Senegal, in western Africa, all the way to DRC in central Africa.
This expansive territory encompasses a multitude of nations, among them Benin and Chad, both of which have demonstrated readiness to provide support to Haiti.
However, according to Ives, the nations involved are purely motivated by financial gain and are perceived as "US puppet regimes."
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