More Kenyan police officers arrive in Haiti

By James Blears

There are now four hundred Kenyan police officers deployed in Haiti, offering their expertise and experience to its nine thousand law and order officers, who are thinly spread throughout a nation of more than eleven million people.

Like those who have come before them, they are being deployed around the Capital Port Au Prince, eighty percent of which is still dominated by the street gangs. 

Authorities remain tight lipped and haven't confirmed their role or duties, but they are guarding government buildings and other key installations including the international airport, which only re-opened in May, after a three-months onslaught by organized crime.

The port was constantly attacked and blockaded, and police stations were overrun. Haiti`s two main prisons were stormed, setting lose three thousand inmates, who are still on the run. 

Further Keyan reinforcements will soon be coming, bolstered by more police and soldiers from Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Benin, Chad and Bangladesh. 

The United States, Canada and France have pledged 600 million dollars of annual aid, but have declined to commit any of their forces. 

The overall aim and strategy is to regain at least partial stability, to enable free and fair elections - most crucially a Presidential one - in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Peace-keeping missions are welcome, but past ones have proved a double-edged sword.

A UN Contingent which stayed in Haiti from 2004 to 2017 accidently introduced cholera, and the resulting epidemic killed ten thousand Haitians.