The US wants Kenya to lead a force in Haiti with 1,000 police. Watchdogs say they'll export abuse

autotldr Bot , 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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It’s a challenging turn for a police force long accused by rights watchdogs of killings and torture, including gunning down civilians during Kenya’s COVID-19 curfew.

One local group confirmed that officers fatally shot more than 30 people in July, all of them in Kenya’s poorest neighborhoods, during opposition-called protests over the rising cost of living.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday praised Kenya for simply considering to serve, a sign of the difficulty in mustering international forces for Haiti, where deadly gang violence has exploded since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Kenya’s security forces have a yearslong presence in neighboring Somalia to counter Islamic extremists — a deadly threat that some Kenyans say should keep police at home — and troops have been in restive eastern Congo since last year.

“I have no knowledge of any complaints raised by the U.N. during those deployments, hence no concern on my end,” the executive director of the watchdog Independent Medico-Legal Unit, Peter Kiama, told the AP.

Ruto, elected president a year ago, at first praised police for their conduct during the protests, but later warned officers against extrajudicial killings as a public outcry grew.

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