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Members of the second contingent of Kenyan police greet each other after arriving in the Caribbean country as part of a peacekeeping mission, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 16, 2024.
Double duty: Kenya and Bangladesh try to balance domestic crises with Haiti aid
Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conillecalled for gangs to surrender their weapons and recognize the state’s authority late Wednesday, as a Kenyan-led police mission there enjoys some early success.
Some 200 officers arrived in late June and are trying to take back the capital from gangs that launched a series of highly coordinated attacks in February, ousting former Prime Minister Ariel Henry and seizing about 80% of the capital. The mission received another 200 Kenyan officers on Tuesday, and, within the coming months, the multinational force is expected to see recruits from other countries, including Bangladesh. But oddly enough, both Nairobi and Dhaka are facing severe challenges to law and order at home.
Kenya is entering its second month of deadly protests calling for the resignation of President William Ruto. But Ruto has doubled down, banning protests in Nairobi mere hours before a demonstration was planned for Thursday. Protests are likely to continue and will be met by a violent police response.
Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, at least 32 people have been killed in police clashes during nationwide, student-led protests this week. The young activists are demonstrating over quotas that reserve 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence. Protesters announced they will force a nationwide shutdown in response to the police brutality in one of the most severe challenges yet to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has ruled for 20 years.
We’re watching for signs of whether the security mission’s main contributors feel they need to put their own houses in order before helping Haiti.
Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro looks on during his swearing-in ceremony as caretaker president following the death of President Hugo Chavez in Caracas March 8, 2013.
Hard Numbers: Venezuelan opposition arrests, Bangkok’s murder mystery, Acropolis closed amid heat wave, More Kenyan police arrive in Haiti, Voting day for von der Leyen
102: Ahead of presidential elections set for July 28, Venezuelan authorities have arrested at least 102 people linked to the political opposition this year, according to Foro Penal, a local legal aid non-profit. Three-quarters of them were jailed after the official presidential campaign period began on July 4. On Wednesday, police arrested the security chief of opposition leader Marina Corina Machado. Polls show strongman President Nicolas Madurotrailing badly ahead of the vote.
6: Authorities said Wednesday that traces of cyanide were found in the blood of six Vietnamese nationals, two of whom had dual US citizenship, in a luxury suite of a Grand Hyatt in Bangkok. The group was last seen alive on Monday by a waiter delivering room service. Police say there was a possible financial motive related to an investment … and that the suspected perpetrator is among the six dead.
5: Greece’s most-visited archaeological site, the Acropolis, was closed for five hours by the Ministry of Culture on Wednesday amid a brutal southern European heat wave. Wildfires, meanwhile, are proving difficult to contain amid the extreme heat and led to the closure of a major border crossing between Greece and North Macedonia for several hours on Wednesday.
200: Another 200 Kenyan police officers joined the UN-backed mission in Haiti this week to support local authorities against the violent gangs who took over the capital city of Port-au-Prince in a joint offensive last February. The Kenyan-led mission also expects new arrivals from Jamaica, Bangladesh, Chad, and others to help grow the force to 2,500 personnel in the coming weeks.
361: In the EU parliament later today, MEPs will decide whether to confirm Ursula von der Leyen as Commission president in a knife-edge vote that will either result in another five-year mandate for the EU executive’s first female leader or tip the bloc into a temporary crisis. Despite no other candidate standing, it looks like she will just barely, if at all, get the 361 votes she needs.
Haiti's Prime Minister Garry Conille shakes hands with members of the first contingent of Kenyan police as part of a peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti June 26, 2024.
Haiti takes back major hospital from gangs
On Tuesday, Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conillevisited the country’s largest hospital in the capital city of Port-au-Prince to celebrate taking it back from armed gangs on Sunday.
Haiti has been engulfed in deadly gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Since then, over 200 armed gangs formed large alliances that brought Haiti to a state of anarchy, with intensifying violence that eventually forced former Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation this spring. Coordinated gang attacks in February — strategically timed to occur while Henry was overseas — seized control of harbors and airports, effectively cutting the country off from the world.
Conille, a former doctor himself, described the hospital as a “war zone” that had been left inoperable by the violence. In recent months, gangs have taken control of 80% of the capital and driven Haiti’s already weak health system to the brink of collapse.
The Haitian government’s reclamation of this hospital, expected to be back in full service by February 2026, is a rare victory for Haiti and an early success for the UN-backed, Kenyan-led police mission that has been fighting on the ground since it deployed on June 25.
What’s next? Can Haitians with the help of their Kenyan allies hold the territory they’ve retaken while also ingratiating themselves with ordinary people who have endured years of violence and scarcity? If they can win back territory without losing hearts and minds, they may create a window to begin the long road to recovery.
Gang member in carrying gun in Haiti
The very bad thing that is going from Florida to Haiti
As Haiti sinks ever deeper into a maelstrom of gang violence, state failure, and vigilantism, US authorities are trying to cut off one big aggravating factor: US guns.
Agents of the DHS are targeting port facilities in South Florida, where traffickers take advantage of loopholes in US customs rules that all allow them to hide powerful weapons in containers of commercial goods or humanitarian aid.
Once in Haiti, smugglers find a thriving market – a UN report from 2023 says a pistol purchased for $400-500 at a US gun show can fetch as much as $10,000 on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Higher-powered rifles favored by gangs cost even more.
This is part of a wider problem of the so-called “iron river” of weapons flowing southward from US states with lax gun laws into the hands of Latin American criminals. According to Washington, half of all “crime guns” in the region come from the US, and the figure is as high as 80% in the Caribbean.
Last month, a US judge ruled that Mexico, for example, could proceed with a lawsuit against Arizona-based gun dealers, which accuses them of trafficking weapons to Mexican drug cartels. If and when Haiti is ever in a condition to press similar charges, the beleaguered nation may have quite a case of its own.
Hong Kong's new security law ends remaining political independence
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How will the new security law affect all aspects of life in Hong Kong?
Takes away small remaining vestiges of political independence, none of which people expected were going to be maintained for long. The Chinese government really fast tracked this, which did, you know, antagonize a lot of people on the island. But at the same time, I mean, they're already basically shut down, you know, free Democratic media and made it impossible to engage in demonstrations that were seen as difficult or upsetting to the mainland. I mean, Hong Kong is no longer a bridge into mainland China. It is now a component of a greater Chinese economy. And to the extent that economy starts turning around and doing better, Hong Kong will do well. It's not right now, so it's not performing quite as effectively. And, you know, a lot of the expats have already gotten out of Dodge.
Is Haiti becoming a failed state?
Does look that way. I mean, we certainly don't yet have any significant policing on the ground, nor do we yet have any international peacekeepers. And even if we have them, the historical experience with them has been checkered at best. There's no effective leadership in the country. So interesting, you know, they share an island with a border right down the middle with the Dominican Republic, and the DR is one of the most effective economies in Latin America today. Just goes to show you that governance really, really matters. So painful to see this happening and so close to the United States. American willingness to put a little bit of money in, sure, but to do anything significant to try to create stability. Not at all.
Will Trump's difficulty paying his legal judgments hurt his campaign?
You would think it would, because, you know, historically, the United States has the most expensive and long electoral campaign in the world. And if you don't have money, you're not supposed to run it very effectively. But of course, Trump also is unique in his ability to get just dominate the media cycle for free. He makes headlines and he lives in everybody's head. And in that regard, it's not as important for him to have a huge amount of cash. He's also former president. And, you know, having a former president, a sitting president running against each other, it's not like he's a non incumbent that doesn't have brand recognition. That's also important for him. But at the margins, yeah, I don't think it's as important as, you know, how people feel about abortion or immigration or the economy or democracy. But is it on the top ten? Yeah, probably the top ten, may almost crack top five.
Kenya’s mission to Haiti hits early roadblock
It’s been barely a week since the UN approved Kenya’s proposal to lead a police force to quash Haiti’s gangs – and the wheels are already coming off.
Kenya’s high court on Monday temporarily froze the deployment, citing a lawsuit by a local politician who says President William Ruto’s approval of the plan was unconstitutional. The government has to respond to the lawsuit this week but won’t get a full hearing until Oct. 24.
The Haiti plan, part of Ruto’s bid to raise Kenya’s global profile, has caused broader blowback among Kenyan elites, says Mercy Kaburu, a professor at United States International University in Nairobi. “The situation of Haiti is understandably dangerous, and there are concerns as to why President Ruto has agreed to deploy Kenyan police.”
The country’s main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has blasted the Haiti mission – and at a time when Ruto is already struggling with broader discontent about the economy. Last week, the president reshuffled his cabinet, moving his foreign minister to the tourism portfolio in a move that suggested infighting within Ruto’s circle.
Will Ruto back down on Haiti? The US and the UN both strongly support the mission, as does the Haitian government.
“He is all in on Haiti,” says Connor Vasey, a Kenya expert at Eurasia Group.
But Kenya’s own courts may yet have the final word.
For more on why Kenya wants the daunting task of battling Haiti’s gangs, see our explainer here.People fleeing gang violence take shelter at a sports arena, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The clock starts ticking on Haiti’s border
The Dominican Republic has suspended all new visas for Haitians, and threatened to close the border with its neighbor entirely by Thursday unless a dispute over water rights is resolved before then.
Workmen in Haiti have recently been spotted building a canal that diverts the waters of the Dajabon River, which forms part of the border. The Dominicans say this violates international agreements on sharing the water, and want Haiti to stop the construction.
Haiti-DR tensions have risen over the past year. Haiti’s deepening political and economic crisis has driven more Haitians to seek refuge in their eastern neighbor. Citing concerns about the Dominican Republic’s ability to absorb refugees, Dominican President Luis Abinader has sent troops to the frontier, expelled tens of thousands of Haitians and people of Haitian origin, and begun construction of a border wall.
Closing the border wouldn’t just shut out refugees. It would also exacerbate Haiti’s economic suffering – last year, nearly a quarter of the goods that Haiti imported came from the Dominican Republic.
Can Haiti even do what the DR is asking? The Haitian government of Ariel Henry – who took over after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 – is weak and deeply unpopular. With gangs controlling nearly 80% of Port-au-Prince, does Henry even have the ability to enforce his will 120 miles away in Dajabon? We have about 24 hours to find out.
Residents of the Carrefour Feuilles neighborhood gather outside a military base demanding help after they had to flee their homes when gangs took over, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in August 2023.
The country that wants to take on Haiti’s gangs
Who on earth would want to fight the gangs of Haiti?
Kenya, for one.
In early August, the East African nation offered to lead a UN-backed policing mission to corral the gangs that have wreaked havoc on Haiti ever since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 plunged the Caribbean nation into fresh political and economic chaos.
Several weeks later, a Kenyan security team spent several days in Port-au-Prince, meeting with local officials, UN representatives, and US diplomats to craft a peacekeeping proposal.
The situation there continues to deteriorate by the day. Gangs now control 80% of the Haitian capital. Gang-related violence and kidnappings have displaced at least 165,000 Haitians. In late 2022, a gang takeover of fuel depots put nearly half of the country’s 11 million people at risk of starvation.
The chaos has paralyzed the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who took over after Moise’s death but has no electoral mandate. Elections would be nearly impossible to hold under the current conditions.
Both Henry and the UN have called for outside help. The US too, which this week called on all of its own citizens to leave Haiti, has backed the idea.
If it happens, it would be the first time any African Union country has led a major peacekeeping operation beyond the continent.
But why, exactly, is Kenya signing up for this? After all, warring with Haitian gangs sounds like a distinctly thankless and possibly fruitless task.
Nairobi framed its proposal as a mission of brotherly assistance to people of African descent. But analysts say it’s part of a broader agenda to raise Kenya’s international profile.
Kenya has a long history of participating in international forces within Africa – Sierra Leone in the late 1990s, Somalia since 2011, and the Democratic Republic of Congo since late last year. But since President William Ruto came to power last year in a bitterly contested election, Nairobi’s foreign policy has become “significantly more adventurous,” says Connor Vasey, an East Africa specialist at Eurasia Group.
In addition to the DRC intervention, Ruto hosted the peace talks that ended the war between Ethiopia’s government and Tigray rebels, and he leads a multilateral group mediating Sudan’s current civil war as well. Next week, he is hosting the United Nations’ African Climate Week in Nairobi.
By looking toward Haiti, Ruto is signaling that he wants to take Kenya’s role on the international stage to the next level, says Mercy Kaburu, an assistant professor at United States International University in Nairobi.
“Under this new government,” she says, “Kenya is asserting itself as an African country that is willing to go out of its comfort zone, a country that can undertake more complicated global roles.”
Is there a US angle here? Yes. Washington is keen to see the situation in Haiti stabilize. The humanitarian crisis has driven a surge in irregular immigration from Haiti to the US, and the country’s descent into a gang-wracked failed state is an open invitation to drug cartels and other transnational criminal organizations to take root there.
But at the same time, the US – which has its own checkered history of interventions in Haiti – has ruled out intervening directly. If Kenya wants in, Washington seems glad to back Nairobi. And Ruto has, in fact, been keen to deepen ties with Washington again after his predecessor forged stronger relations with China.
Vasey at Eurasia Group says there’s reason to believe the US may offer some “financial incentives” to Kenya in exchange for taking on the Haiti mission. Last year, the US sent close to a billion dollars of aid to Kenya.
Not everyone loves the idea of Kenyan intervention. Rights groups point out that Kenya’s police have a history of using excessive force and carrying out extrajudicial killings at home.
Language barriers could also be an issue, as Kenyan policemen generally don’t speak French, much less Haitian Creole.
And among ordinary Haitians, there has long been a deep skepticism of foreign interventions of any kind. They have never brought lasting peace but they have, on occasion, brought epidemics of cholera, as the UN peacekeepers from Nepal did a decade ago. The sight of a government with no popular mandate inviting yet another foreign intervention may not go over well with ordinary Haitians.
The stakes are high. Thousands of ordinary Haitians have braved the streets in recent weeks to protest against the gangs. And many Haitians, desperate for order, have formed vigilante groups of their own, killing hundreds of suspected gang members. Last weekend, a church group armed with sticks and machetes clashed with a local gang outside of Port-au-Prince, leaving at least 7 people dead.
With that kind of violence, even Kenya seems worried. The Kenyan mission to Haiti resulted in a more limited proposal than what Haitian officials had hoped for. Rather than a broad strategy for tackling the gangs, Kenya suggested a narrower focus on securing critical infrastructure. And, according to one report, Kenyan officials were so spooked by the escalating violence that they barely left the Port-au-Prince airport.
What’s next: Kenya will need to finalize its proposal and take it to the UN for a vote. That could happen in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Haitians continue to live a daily hell with no end in sight.