• He faults the government for giving "conflicting signals in which communication is jumbled up and at cross-purposes".
• Irungu Haiti's solution is political in nature and Kenya is the wrong country to lead in finding it.
Image: SCREENGRAB
The government should halt the plan to send police officers to gang-controlled Haiti, Amnesty International executive director Houghton Irungu has said.
He told the Star in an exclusive interview that Haiti's solution is political in nature and Kenya is the wrong country to lead in finding it.
The government has been pushing for Kenya to lead the mission to restore order in the Caribbean nation, but numerous hurdles have stood in the way of the initiative.
Irungu said besides the collapse of law and order in Haiti, the situation dramatically shifted in the last few weeks since the now-resigned Prime minister Ariel Henry sealed a deal with Nairobi.
He faults the government for giving "conflicting signals in which communication is jumbled up and at cross-purposes".
"While the Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei acknowledges that the public order system in Haiti is untenable for our security services to be infused into it, President William Ruto continues to promise that the officers will be in that country shortly," Irungu said.
The executive director said even if no hurdles were standing in the way of the mission, the UN's funding for it is not yet guaranteed.
"Less that 0.5 per cent of the budget for this mission has been deposited with the UN mission as required. Also, there has been news that the US Congress has put consideration of funding the mission on ice," he said.
Irungu said his lobby believes the Kenyan police is not well-equipped for the Haiti mission and the unclear means of monitoring and evaluation of the mission makes it untenable.
"We believe that it is not appropriate to have our men and women officers dabble into this Haiti situation because of wanting mission readiness, broken down law and order in Haiti, lack of guarantee of funding and there is no clear mechanism for monitoring and evaluation, a way of oversight to hold those officers who may act in a manner that abuse human rights to account," he said.
Asked whether the President has a point that in the spirit of racial solidarity and locking hands with African diaspora, Kenya has a moral case to lead this mission, Irungu does not agree with him.
The agitators involved in Haiti are targeting and attacking their civic leaders first, he said.
Irungu said, "This means resolving the Haiti situation requires a political solution that starts with putting in place a constitutional order that ensures the political infrastructure, including its leaders, are restored."
The second step would be to empanel an accountability and reconciliation commission to dig deep objectively into underlying issues in Haiti, including some that are historical in nature.
Irungu said the commission must also put in a place accountability mechanisms so that actors that have abused human rights, weaponised sexual and gender-based violence and institutionalised crippling constitutional order are held to account. The commission should also foster a roadmap to inter-communal reconciliation.