Kenya will remain in charge of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSSM) in Haiti, even though the US is pushing for a UN peacekeeping force.
This comes after a U.S. proposal to convert the Kenyan-led Haiti police force into a UN peacekeeping force was vetoed by both China and Russia. This is the second time that the two countries have opposed the proposed changes.
On Wednesday, November 20, the two countries expressed their adamant opposition to the recent development at a UN Security Council meeting. In an attempt to initiate the change, the United States started lobbying the 15-member UN Security Council to sign a draft resolution last week.
The US had moved for the Haiti mission to be a UN peacekeeping mission in early September as a way of securing regular financing for the multinational force, which has faced a serious cash crunch. The MSS functions within the larger framework of the United Nations Security Council.
China’s Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang claimed that the Council extended the mandate of the multinational force only a month ago, and discussing its transformation to a peacekeeping operation would interfere and make it harder to tackle its funding shortfall and get all the police pledged to Haiti.
"Peacekeepers should only be deployed when there is peace to keep, and there is no peace in Haiti. Deploying a peacekeeping operation at this time is nothing more than putting peacekeepers on the front lines of the battles with gangs,” Geng stressed.
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, laid blame on the US and other countries that pledged support for the mission for failing to fund the mission. At the same time, he condemned the gang violence in Haiti.
“Conditions on the ground in Haiti are not appropriate for UN peacekeepers,” he said. He added, “Their role is to maintain peace and not to fight crime in urban areas or to save a dysfunctional state that has been plunged into domestic conflict.”
The Haitian government has called for a UN peacekeeping mission to help quell the crisis in the country. This request has been supported by the Organisationn of American States. However, the proposal has drawn mixed reactions among Haitians.
Kenya, on its part, has expressed its support of the Haitian government’s request to the Security Council to authorise planning for the transformation of the multinational force to a UN peacekeeping force.
Monica Juma, the National Security Advisor to President William Ruto, while making her virtual address voiced Kenya’s support in that regard.
“Today, Haiti has appealed to the Security Council to consider the transformation of the MSS mission to a UN peacekeeping operation in the near future. Kenya strongly supports this appeal. A peacekeeping operation will avail greater resources to the mission in a predictable and sustainable manner. It will also provide a broader platform for collaboration and participation of more patterns,” she noted.
The new development is set to be a big blow to the Kenyan-led operations of the MSS mission. This marks the second time China and Russia have rejected the US-backed proposal.
The decision by the two countries to turn down the proposal was not in doubt as both countries have opposed past UN interventions in Haiti and have used the current crisis to publicly criticize outgoing President Joe Biden's policies in the Caribbean nation.
