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Kenya

Hundreds Of Kenyan Police Arrive In Port-Au-Prince

400 Kenyan police officers arrived on June 25 in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The deployment of 600 more is expected to follow in the coming days and weeks. The arrival of the Kenyan police force was authorized by the United Nations Security Council, which last year approved the dispatch of foreign law enforcement forces to the Caribbean country. The dispatch occurred the same day that Kenyan police killed eight protesters in Kenya who were protesting the unpopular neoliberal Finance Bill 2024. The armed mission in Haiti supposedly to stop the advance of gangs, which in recent months have controlled, according to some estimates, up to 80% of the territory of the capital and many other surrounding areas. Foreign police agents will be allowed to detain Haitian citizens with the local police.

IMF-Driven Policies Spark Deadly Protests In Kenya

At least 23 Kenyan protesters were killed on Tuesday after hundreds stormed the nation’s parliament in response to a proposed tax-hike bill, which threatens to deepen the country’s cost of living crisis. The IMF’s pressure on Nairobi to balance its budget is central to the issue. Videos of bodies strewn across the concrete and protesters storming the parliament went viral on social media. This follows protests the previous week that brought the nation to a standstill. President William Ruto, elected to address the cost of living crisis, is now seen attempting to combat dissent with force, having failed to improve conditions.

Kenya Protests: Gen Z Shows The Power Of Digital Activism

This is a powerful moment for digital activism. The protests have seen significant participation from young Kenyans who are using digital media to organise and voice their opposition. A great number of those driving the protests are Generation Z (often referred to as Gen Z) – individuals born roughly between the late 1990s and early 2010s and characterised by digital prowess and social consciousness. They have created this organic, grassroots movement which has used platforms, like social media, to mobilise and coordinate efforts quickly. Through my work I’ve documented how essential digital media has been in political participation in Kenya in the past decade.

Kenya’s President Defies His Country’s Constitution And Court To Invade Haiti

Mwai Kibaki became president from 2002 to 2013, then Uhuru Kenyatta from 2013 to 2022. When Ruto was elected nothing much changed. Corruption remained endemic, and I think this explains a lot, though you don’t see it highlighted in Western media, because Kenya is a Western ally. Same thing with Ukraine. I think this corruption creates a pressure point for Western nations. Our leaders store their ill-gotten wealth in the West, in property, tax havens, and so forth, and it could all be sanctioned and seized if they didn’t do what the West wants. The same is true of a lot of African leaders. Also, our president now, William Ruto, is one of six guys who were sent to stand trial at the ICC.

Kenya Halts Police Deployment To Haiti After Resignation Of Ariel Henry

Kenya has suspended a police deployment to Haiti to be part of a US- and UN-backed mission, shortly after the de facto prime minister and president of the Caribbean country, Ariel Henry, announced his decision to resign on March 11. Abraham Korir Sing’Oei, the principal secretary of Kenya’s foreign ministry, stated on March 12 that the deployment would be “contingent on the ground situation, and the critical ground situation is that there has to be an authority that can be the basis for a police deployment, that enjoys constitutional authority in Haiti”.

Flouting High Court, Haitian Outrage, US Storms Forward With Intervention

Just as it is opposing and trampling the International Court of Justice’s ruling against Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, Washington is running roughshod over the Kenyan High Court’s Janurary 26 ruling that the East African nation’s police force cannot be deployed to Haiti under Kenya’s Constitution. The Court explained that, to be legal, Haiti would have to request a “bilateral” arrangement for deployment with Kenya, an apparent loophole that Washington and Kenya’s President William Ruto leapt for. At an Italy-Africa summit in Rome on January 30, Ruto declared that the mission would go ahead as soon as “all the paperwork is done between Kenya and Haiti on the bilateral route that has been suggested by the court.”

‘Commitment Pooling’ To Build Economic Commons

Sixteen years ago, when he moved to Kenya, development economist Will Ruddick realized that many poorer communities are not as helpless as they might think. They may not have as much money to meet their needs, but they do have goods and services to offer each other -- cooking, tutoring, bike repair, taxi rides, and so forth. The real problem is the scarcity of a currency to enable exchange; the national currency, the Kenyan shilling, is not so plentiful in many neighborhoods. So, working with small businesses and households, Ruddick and members of the group he founded, Grassroots Economics, set out to create what he calls "community inclusion currencies."

Kenya Ignores Court Order To Join Occupation Of Haiti

The New England Human Rights Organization (NEHRO) reaffirms its commitment to promoting human rights wherever violations might occur. Therefore, the organization adopts a holistic approach to human rights, encompassing the right to life and liberty; freedom from slavery and torture; freedom of opinion and expression; as well as the right to work and education, to name a few. According to the United Nations, « everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination. » On January 26, 2024, Kenya’s High Court Judge Enock Chacha Mwita ruled that « any decision by any state organ or state officer to deploy police officers to Haiti… contravenes the constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal, and invalid. ».

CPK Applauds Court Ruling Against Kenyan Police Deployment In Haiti

The International Department of the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya issued this statement in staunch solidarity with the January 26th, 2024 High Court ruling in Nairobi, declaring the deployment of National Police Services (NPS) officers to Haiti unconstitutional. Judge Chacha Mwita's articulate decision represents a crucial victory for constitutional principles and sovereignty. The acknowledgment that the National Security Council and NPS lack authority to deploy police beyond Kenya underscores the imperative of upholding the constitutional framework governing our government's actions.

The Year US Empire Faced Great Difficulties In Organizing Another Foreign Intervention

It took the U.S. government one year to push through the United Nations Security Council its project for a fourth foreign military invasion of Haiti, but even now it is not a sure thing. Although, on Oct. 2, the UN body blessed the “Multinational Security Support” mission (MSS) which 1,000 Kenyan police will supposedly lead, the Kenyan Supreme Court has given itself until Jan. 26, 2024 to decide on whether the Kenyan police can constitutionally be deployed abroad. Many Kenyan lawyers and opposition leaders say they cannot. Whatever the court decides, it is uncertain that Kenyan President William Ruto will respect it.

Kenya At 60: Field Notes From The Neocolony

Just four years after independence, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga published Not Yet Uhuru, a seminal political treatise of the new country. 60 years after independence, and 56 years after its publication, one might argue that nothing much has changed. As a nation, we find ourselves still grappling with the question of how Kenya became free with the greater portion of the arable land controlled by a handful of owners even as millions are squatters on their ancestral land.

Kenya Government Illegally Evicts Ogiek From Their Ancestral Forests

In the midst of King Charles’s state visit to Kenya, local authorities have begun brutal evictions of the Ogiek people from their homes in the Mau Forest. Rangers from the Kenyan Forestry Service and Kenyan Wildlife Service in collaboration with the Kenyan police are illegally evicting up to 700 Ogiek people from their homes in the name of conservation. Footage and images show Ogiek homes destroyed, some even burned to the ground. It has been reported that rangers are forcing some Ogiek people to tear down their homes themselves, in an attempt to claim that the communities are leaving voluntarily.

UN-Blessed MSS: A First Step Toward A Long Military Occupation Of Haiti

On Monday, October 2, 2023, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2699 authorizing a non-UN Multinational Security Support (MSS) force for Haiti. The resolution, adopted under UN Charter’s Chapter VII, was drafted by the United States and Ecuador. This Resolution represents the successful implementation of phase one Washington’s “10-Year Strategy for Haiti.” An U.S.-led invasion and 10 year occupation of Haiti is now imminent. Phase two of the “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” was implemented in the summer of 2023. Phase two seeks to build a network of at least 250 U.S.-funded “civil society” organizations to influence public policy and decision-making as Washington oversees the reconstruction of Haiti’s state institutions and government.

The ‘Multilateral’ Invasion Of Haiti Is A Smokescreen For US Imperialism

On Oct. 2, the UN Security Council voted to approve a “multinational security support mission” in Haiti—ostensibly for the purposes of stopping gang violence and restoring law and order. Led by Kenya, this multinational force will be comprised of security forces from mostly Caribbean and Latin American countries. Despite receiving the blessing of the Security Council, this “security support mission” is not an official UN mission. Rather than being funded by the UN, the mission will be primarily funded by the US, which has already committed $200 million. This latest military intervention, should it materialize, will be the fourth foreign occupation of Haiti in 30 years.

The United Nations Pushes Haiti Under The Bus

Once again Haiti is the victim of imperialist intrigues, with no other nation willing or able to act on its behalf. The United Nations vote to authorize an occupation of Haiti, the tenth such occurrence in the last 30 years, was given tacit approval by Russia and China, who chose to abstain rather than use their Security Council veto power to stop this latest aggression. Thirteen other Security Council members voted to approve what is called a security mission that will quell gang violence. The mission is paid for by the U.S. Department of Defense, while Kenya is taking the lead by providing a force on the ground.
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