September is the month when world leaders annually gather in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly. 2024 was no different.

Of particular interest to stakeholders in Kenya, the United States and the Caribbean was President Ruto’s speech to the international community.

During his speech to the United Nations, he doubled down on Kenya’s commitment to bring order and peace to the troubled island of Haiti, the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the main obstacle to peace prevails. Haitian gangs. Will Haitian gangs foil Kenya’s mission to Haiti?

Haiti is experiencing a cataclysmic challenge. 300 gangs roaming the island make the security situation much worse.

With the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, the country descended into a state of lawlessness that consolidated the power of the right wing. An environment similar to a state of nature where everyone is against everyone else and the strongest survives.

In these circumstances, gangs emerged to fill the vacuum in ensuring public safety. This happened when the institutions of the Haitian state were either too weak and failed or completely collapsed.

Haiti had no functional legislative body that could make laws, tax the public, and deal with national defense and foreign policy. It had no executive power because the president was assassinated in 2021 and the judicial system all but ground to a halt.

The Haitian National Police (HNP) has also made a name for itself, having been implicated in working with specific gangs to control various parts of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in exchange for money, drugs and gang turf.

That’s why President Ruto’s speech to the UN General Assembly contained many generalities but little detail on how Kenya intends to deal with Haiti’s 300 gangs employing fewer than 450 police officers.

What was more disturbing was that the president announced an increase in the number of police officers to bring the total number of Kenyans in Haiti to 2,500. A clear escalation of the fight between the Kenyan police and gangs for control over various parts of the city of Port-au-Prince.

Gangs in Haiti pose an existential threat to the Kenyan police, especially when they are undermanned.

Another challenge for Kenyans is the uncertainty regarding the funding of the Kenya Police (Multinational Security Assistance Mission) in Haiti. This funding problem has led to MSS suffering from a lack of equipment, intelligence and manpower. 10 countries pledged to send 3,100 troops, but only 431 were deployed.

The lack of boots on the ground does not bode well for assistance to the nearly 700,000 internally displaced people. Added to this is the situation where 1.6 million Haitians are facing a food insecurity crisis.

Gangs escalated the situation with the spread of violence, killings, kidnappings, rapes and killings of Haitian civilians.

According to the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P), gangs control 80% of the city of Port-au-Prince. Additionally, in the first half of 2024, gangs are responsible for over 1,660 civilian deaths and 850 injuries. Gangs therefore pose a serious threat and hinder Kenya’s mission in Haiti.

Haitians have long fought each other to the death, but they are united to oppose foreign intervention. This is one of the reasons why previous UN missions to bring peace to Haiti failed.

According to the United Nations, Haiti has more than 500,000 weapons in the hands of various vigilante groups.

Kenyan police face the difficult task of clearing the island of these weapons in circumstances that will require hand-to-hand combat in the very narrow spaces of the city that the gangs know very well.

Since Kenyan soldiers do not speak basic French or Creole, communicating with gangs and the general public will be a challenge.

Moreover, it is unclear under whose command Kenyan troops will be placed when the Multinational Security Assistance Mission (MSS) is transformed into a UN peacekeeping mission, as President Ruto has suggested.

The last two questions were about a potential UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti and the potential for gangs to cripple that mission. How long will Kenyan peacekeepers stay in Haiti? Furthermore, how will President Ruto define success for the Kenya Police who will be part of the UN peacekeeping mission?

The recent gang coalition between Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier and G-Pep’s Gabriel Jean-Pierre is not making it any easier for Kenyans policing this troubled island.

Professor Monda teaches political science, international relations and foreign policy at the City University of New York.