President William Ruto shakes hands with Kenyan police officers when he arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
An old Haitian proverb says, “With patience, you will find the ant’s intestines.” For Kenya, finding the intestines of this proverbial Haitian ant has been harder.
Here is how it started. Sometime in 2023, Kenya offered to lead the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), months after Haitian transitional authorities sent an SOS to the UN Security Council.
A year into the mission, Kenya’s hard lessons have also been a bitter pill, even forcing President William Ruto into an emotional rant. Kenya has faced numerous logistical, force multiplier, coordination and mission funding challenges.
President Ruto makes impromptu visit to Haiti to address National Police officers on a UN mission in the country.
On Tuesday, Mexico became only the third nation in the Western Hemisphere to fund the Kenyan led MSS mission. While noble, Mexico only offered $100,000 (Sh12.9 million) to the kitty - a pittance compared to the financial burdens of the MSS.
In addition to this, none of the 15 members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), have offered any funding to support the mission.
In fact, only three of the CARICOM members (Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica) have offered troops to support the Kenyan led mission. If courtesy begins at home, CARICOM is showing a bad example.
President Ruto highlighted this at the United Nations this week with his statement during the high level side event on the MSS mission in Haiti at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) 80th plenary meeting in New York City.
“Haiti reflects the height of human courage and the depths of adversity. The people of Haiti have repeatedly called on the international community to stand in solidarity with them to help overcome challenges.”
“For many years, the people of Haiti have repeatedly called on the International community to stand in solidarity with them and to help overcome their challenges. Too often, their appeals have been met with indifference or with support that was hesitant and inadequate,” Ruto said. His seemingly bold words, have not appealed to the world though, as few are listening.
US President Donald Trump looks on as he walks to board Air Force One, after attending the 80th United Nations General Assembly, at John F. Kennedy International Airport, in New York, US, September 23, 2025.
President Donald Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday epitomised the US’s benign neglect of Haiti.
Despite Haiti being in the US sphere of influence in the Caribbean, and the Caribbean nation being a major concern for humanitarian refugee boat people fleeing to Florida to escape the gang war, and the burden of historical memory the US owes Haiti for colonial conquest and repression; there was no tangible offer.
Trump rambled off script on the “apocalyptic dangers of illegal immigration”, of the burdens of the “climate change hoax” and the ineffectiveness of the United Nations in dealing with global challenges.
Somehow, Trump clearly showed Kenya that it had burnt its fingers in Haiti. And now it seems Kenya didn’t study hard its interests in Haiti before launching.
Haiti had initially asked the African Union for help. Now, as we all know, the AU neither has its forces nor capability to deploy any. With US looking around for someone, Ruto stepped up, seeing opportunity to strengthen US ties while also getting credit were gangs to be eliminated. Neither strategies have materialised because a new man was elected in the US, replacing Joe Biden. And the police troops in Haiti have not been of much success.
President William Ruto when he arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on September 21, 2024.
To be fair, Ruto listed some successes; including securing an airport, reopening some schools, pushing back gangs out of main areas of the capital Porto-Au-Prince and seeing some hospitals reopen. But he also admitted the troops have operated in risky environment.
Yet the lingering question has been, why Kenyan police officers are fighting gangs 12,000 Kilometers from Kenya in Haiti, when gangs and goons terrorise Kenyans in Kenya, routinely. Al-Shabaab remains a clear and present danger in Somalia, while an under-armed and undermanned Kenyan police force is hunkered down in Haiti.
From his address to the UN, Trump showed Haiti will not be a US priority. America First means hostility towards multilateralism, skepticism of global institutions like the United Nations, neo-isolation and non-intervention.
It also reframes legitimacy and leadership on traditional alliances like NATO (of which Kenya is a major NON-NATO ally) for short-term transactional deals with nations on a bilateral basis. Kenya has to adjust to this new reality in its relations with the US. Donald Trump is not Joe Biden.
President Trump was not a fan of Joe Biden, his climate change policy and his enthusiastic support for President Ruto’s leadership on the MSS in Haiti. Trump’s antipathy to Biden transfers directly to his neglect for Haiti. He lampooned the UN, for sitting on its hands.
“Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it is actually creating new problems for us to solve,” Trump said. “The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.”
Then he shifted to his pet subject: controlling illegal migrants.
“What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique — but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders.
“When your prisons are filled with so-called ‘asylum seekers’ who repaid kindness with crime, it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders.”
President Ruto and Haiti PM Ariel Henry witnessed the signing ceremony in State House Nairobi.
Kenya will have to figure out how to work with a Trump foreign policy that is erratic, contradictory and changes by the day. For instance, how the MSS will align its goals with those of the yet-to-be formed or funded Gang Suppression Force (GSF).
Whether the Kenyan police - who have significant lived experience in Haiti - will continue to lead the transition into the GSF. Who will fund the GSF given the disinterest from members of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the hostility towards funding foreign military adventures from Republicans in the US Congress?
The Ruto Administration will need to demand for more nations to share the burden of stabilizing Haiti. At present, a disproportionately large share of the burden of securing Haiti falls on the 735 Kenyan personnel there. CARICOM members Jamaica and Bahamas - who should have the most to lose from an implosion in Haiti - only provide a combined troop presence of 26 compared to Kenya’s 735.
Neither country has provided financial support to the MSS mission kitty. Regional giants Brazil and the USA are absent from Haiti and Canada has provided at present only one body on the ground. This desperately needs to change.
As a Major Non-NATO ally, Kenya also needs to develop an endgame strategy in partnership with the US on what a stable and secure Haiti will look like. At present, Haiti seems like Mission Impossible even though Ruto disagreed on Monday.
An island of perpetual and unending trauma and violence to which the global community has developed compassion fatigue.
President William Ruto when he flagged off of the the first 400 police officers for the United Nations-led peace mission in Haiti.
In his statement, Ruto mentioned that, “I believe the international community must do right by Haiti. The women and children must do better. What is going on that we cannot marshal support to drive out gangs is unacceptable, indefensible and simply wrong.”
“If we are sending a security team, the mandate must be clear. We must also have a predictable resource package, not what Kenya has gone through—a game of guesswork, I do not understand why we cannot be serious.”
But before the government commits more Kenyan blood and treasure in Haiti for years into the future, a few simple questions will need to be answered. What is Kenya’s national interest in Haiti? Why should Kenya put out fires in the Caribbean when Haiti’s neighbours don’t care?
How will the MSS transition to the GSF without clear financial, logistical and force multiplier support?
And, with the US looking more and more inward and abandoning regional issues to individual nations concerned, shouldn't Kenya also get its house in order, before engaging in a messianic global intervention on a troubled island 12,000 kilometers away? Truly, the Haitian ant’s intestine may never be found.
