Former U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Dan Foote said he believes there is a slight chance that Kenya’s plan to send 1,000 of its police officers to lead a peacekeeping mission in Haiti will be abandoned based on the African country’s president’s meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House this week.
In March, Kenya and Haiti signed a security deal that provides for 1,000 Kenyan police officers to lead a peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country to address chaos caused by gang violence since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
On Thursday, Kenyan President William Ruto and Biden touted their nations’ collaboration on the mission at a joint press conference and state lunch; however, Foote said the press conference between the two leaders resembled a type of “stage choreography.”
“I think there’s a slim possibility [that the Kenyans do not go to Haiti]. Ruto has, despite the fact the political winds in his country are really against this mission, decided to do it anyway. But it seemed like the mission was rushed along to coincide with last night’s dinner. It’s a little bit of stage choreography right now. From here on in, Haiti is no longer a big deal to President Ruto. It’s going to be a huge distraction,” Foote said on Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Foote, who has previously pointed out additional flaws of Kenyans being sent to Haiti on such a mission, said officers sent to Haiti in the current state of the country would be largely outnumbered by armed gang members.
“There’s 30,000-40,000 gang members. That’s the numbers that they’re throwing around right now out of Port-au-Prince. We’re talking about 2, 500 police from six different countries. So they’re not even a team who’s trained together at this point. I fear they’re going to be outmanned, outgunned, and outmatched,” Foote said.
When it comes to U.S. involvement in Haiti, Foote said Biden has “no interest in fixing the terrible catastrophe that he created over the last three years” in Haiti.
“President Biden has no interest in Haiti. He has no interest in fixing the terrible catastrophe that he created over the last three years by choosing, imposing, and sticking with Ariel Henry, a hated de facto prime minister who was forced to resign by the gangs who got together and closed the airport and let all the prisoners out of the country. The U.S. has still done nothing…It’s really a hypocritical situation that the U.S. could fix tomorrow if they wanted to. But as I said, Joe Biden is terrified of Haiti,” Foote said.
Regarding fixing the situation in Haiti, Foote said he would encourage the U.S. to take a hands-off approach and allow the Haitian people to have a national dialogue.
“If you give the Haitian people the space to come together in a national dialogue, they’ve done it in the past, they called it a constituent assembly, where people come to Port-au-Prince from around the country, every section of Haiti feels like they got some representation. Those people will come together in Port-au-Prince, and I guarantee you, within 12 weeks, probably a lot shorter, will come up with a united path forward for Haiti. That’s best for Haitians,” Foote explained.
“They’ve never had the opportunity to do that. Right now, they’re working under a U.S.-imposed government construct where seven or six or seven Haitians in a presidential council are going to choose the president. All Haitians are against that and it won’t work if we do that,” Foote added. “If you want real elections, you need the Haitians to come up with the solution.”
Further stressing the need for reform in Haiti, Foote noted, “We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to maybe let the Haitians get it right here.”
“We have nothing to lose. It cannot get much worse than this, and now is the time to do it. If we keep up with this imposed government, it’s going to fail,” Foote said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Joe Biden and Kenyan President William Ruto” by President Joe Biden.
