Kenyan parliament approves police deployment to Haiti

GOOBJOOG NEWS | NAIROBI: Kenyan Parliamentarians Thursday voted in support of a request to deploy Kenyan Police officers to the UN approved mission in Haiti to assist the Caribbean country tackle gang violence.

This comes amidst a court order barring the deployment pending the outcome of a legal challenge to the plan.

Opposition parliamentarians also condemned the vote but the ruling party used its majority numbers to support the government’s plan.  

Haiti had appealed for international help to tackle growing lawlessness and in July, Kenya pledged to offer 1,000 police officers.

But in early October an opposition party went to court and got an order suspending the deployment.

It claimed the plan did not involve public participation and was also unconstitutional because only the military could be deployed outside the country.

However, the government’s side a vote and lawmakers approved the deployment, citing a report that said the deployment meets the constitutional requirement to take into account public views, which were collected between Nov. 2 and 9.

The United Nations estimates some 200,000 Haitians have been displaced during escalating violence, with armed gangs carrying out indiscriminate killings, kidnappings, gang rapes and torching people’s homes.