President Biden explains why US is only supporting Haiti mission led by Kenya
National
By
Winfrey Owino
| May 23, 2024
President of the United States of America Joe Biden has explained why his country will not be actively taking part in the Haiti mission but will play a supportive role.
He made the explanation at the White House in Washington DC on Thursday, during a joint press conference with his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto. Ruto is on a state visit to the US.
Biden was responding to a journalist who questioned why the US was ending most of its historical wars including Afghanistan but was pushing for Kenya to send troops to Haiti.
In his response, POTUS says the decision to keep off active involvement in the Haiti mission is to avoid what he termed as 'misrepresentation' by non-allies.
Therefore, he opted to offer support in terms of intelligence, weapons and other resources needed for the success of the mission.
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"For the United States to deploy forces, it will raise questions that can be misrepresented on what we are trying to do by people who are considered our enemies. We set out to find partners to lead the exercise as we offer support services," Biden says.
"There will be no US forces on the ground but we are going to supply Kenya with logistics, equipment and intelligence support,".
Biden says the US Congress will give 360 million USD for equipment, adding that the first phase had already been dispatched.
On the other hand, President William Ruto was asked why he opted to send troops to Haiti, when the banditry situation in the North Rift region had not been resolved.
In his response, Ruto reiterated that his commitment is to ensure security and stability, referring to Somalia and DRC missions.
"I committed to sort out insecurity in North Rift. Right now, there are 3,000 military officers and 2,000 police officers in North Rift. We have renovated and reopened 20 schools and the exercise is still ongoing. We have made tremendous progress in making sure we have security at home," Ruto responded.
"We deployed 1,000 troops to DRC (a few years ago), we have 5,000 troops in Somalia and we have maintained the fight against banditry. So Haiti will not be an exception,"
President Ruto went to the US earlier this week, starting from Atlanta, Georgia before meeting President Biden in Washington.