Link to Artical: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/3/why-kenya-volunteered-to-lead-un-mission-to-haiti
Summary: The country of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has recorded 3,000 homicides and more than 1,500 kidnappings for ransom. These homicides and kidnappings have displaced almost 200,000 people out of their homes, this has also forced tens of thousands of kids to not be able to attend school. Haiti has a very ill-equipped military for this, so Kenya has volunteered to send their troops to curb their escalating gang violence. On October 2nd, the United Nations Council approved this deployment of troops. Kenya has a history of sending troops into violent countries and has been quoted saying that they “want to be a part of rebuilding this country and its politics.
Analysis: the politics in Haiti have been run by unelected officials for years, Kyena taking the time and resources to swoop in and help Haiti is not only to help the citizens of this country but to also gain political capital. If Kenya goes forward with this mission and sends troops to Haiti, it will make Kenya seem like a reliable and resourceful country to international allies. America has already reached out in gratitude to Kenya for taking on this task and continues to pledge 200 million dollars to this cause. Alongside this, Kenya plans to be an active part of rebuilding Haiti’s government and politics. If this does happen it could lead to Kenya gaining political power in Haiti giving it more political persuasion. This could just be another power source for Kenya.
Connection to Class: In class we have talked a lot about how power shifts have occurred in growing countries when surrounding countries collapse or weaken, for example, the collapse of the USSR led to a lot of expansion in European countries. we could see an attempt to gain political power, by helping rebuild Haiti’s system, from Kenya being a plausible event to occur, this would be a major power shift for Kenya and allow for expansion and more political sway. Kenya wants to gain something from this intervention whether that is power or just to seem like a reliable source to outlying countries is still in question.