Haiti/Kenya: President Ruto’s wife communicated by videoconference with the leader of the terrorist gang “Barbecue” in the company of a group of pastors
According to Kenyan Magazine, @CTmagazinethe first lady of Kenya Madame Rachel Euro spoke, at the beginning of this month, with the leader of the criminal gangs who are bloodying life in Haiti and who has just ordered men to set fire to all the houses of the Delmas area.
A group of Kenyan pastors and the first lady’s staff reportedly traveled to the United States to meet with church and business leaders, American and Haitian officials, as well as law enforcement and government officials. ‘army. They also reportedly participated in a Zoom meeting with gang coalition leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Chérizier, according to delegation member Serge Musasilwa.
In this same article dated April 19, the Online Magazine specifies:
“Musasilwa, national director of a ministry in central Kenya called Segera Mission, said the group wanted to hear from people from all sectors of Haitian society, to better understand the challenges Kenyan police would face. President Ruto tasked the team to provide context to inform law enforcement and increase the chances of success of the security mission, he said. Pastors wanted to know what the problems were according to civil society groups and churches; they asked for solutions; they asked how well trained the gangs were and what motivated them.
The group is expected to present its findings to the president this month, ahead of a presidential trip to the United States in May that will include the first state visit by an African president to the White House in 16 years. Ruto, who says his country has a moral obligation to help Haiti, insisted that the security mission is moving forward – despite delays in funding, the Biden administration has pledged to guarantee it (40 million dollars are currently blocked by the Republicans in the US Congress). “
We are publishing this entire text under the title “Kenyan Pastors Are Praying for Haiti. They’re Also Shaping the Police Mission to Save It. “ Kenya’s leaders are saying little publicly about the security forces they plan to send to gang-ravaged Haiti. But they talk a lot with God.
Last month, as armed groups intensified their insurgency in Port-au-Prince and plunged Haiti deeper into a historic humanitarian crisis, pastors advising the Kenyan government gathered for three days at a Nairobi hotel to pray.
In a sky-blue conference room at the Weston Hotel, three Kenyan pastors joined Haitian and American ministry leaders and Kenya’s first lady, Rachel Ruto, to plead for divine assistance for the Caribbean country besieged. They prayed for the 2,500-strong multinational police force that Kenya volunteered to lead to help Haitian law enforcement. At one point, meeting attendees told CT, group members cried.
After two days of prayer, the first lady went to an album release party in another part of Weston, owned by President William Ruto, and announced that her office had formed a prayer committee for Haiti. “We cannot allow our police officers to go to Haiti without praying,” Rachel Ruto told fans of Kenyan gospel group 1005 Songs & More.
Kenya agreed last October to lead a U.N.-authorized international security mission to Haiti, but the deployment has faced various delays, including legal challenges and questions over funding.
The prayer marathon was part of a broader effort by the Ruto administration to strategize “a spiritual solution for our police and the Haitian people,” according to the first lady. The initiative, coordinated by the administration’s office of “religious diplomacy,” has so far included a national prayer rally, a 40-day prayer guide for Haiti and an official fact-finding trip to the United States .
For a government that has remained largely quiet about the police mission, the Church’s outreach programs represent one of the most visible ways the administration has engaged the public in the plan. The Rutos, who are outspoken about their evangelical faith, took office in 2022 thanks to what many Christians in the country see as divine protection during a disputed election.
“Let us thank the Lord who has given our president such a burden to think about Haiti,” Julius Suubi, pastor and spiritual advisor to the Rutos, told a crowd of about 1,000 pastors during an April 15 prayer service. in downtown Nairobi. “Which president in Africa ever thinks of a country outside Africa?
Earlier this month, the same group of pastors and the first lady’s staff traveled to the United States to meet with church and business leaders, U.S. and Haitian officials, and representatives of the forces order and the army. They also participated in a Zoom meeting with gang coalition leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Chérizier, according to delegation member Serge Musasilwa.
Musasilwa, national director of a ministry in central Kenya called Segera Mission, said the group wanted to hear from people from all sectors of Haitian society, to better understand the challenges Kenyan police would face. President Ruto tasked the team to provide context to inform law enforcement and increase the chances of success of the security mission, he said. Pastors wanted to know what the problems were according to civil society groups and churches; they asked for solutions; they asked how well trained the gangs were and what motivated them.
The group is expected to present its findings to the president this month, ahead of a presidential trip to the United States in May that will include the first state visit by an African president to the White House in 16 years. Ruto, who says his country has a moral obligation to help Haiti, insisted that the security mission is moving forward – despite delays in funding, the Biden administration has pledged to guarantee it (40 million dollars are currently blocked by the Republicans in the US Congress). .
Musasilwa is optimistic. “This is going to be a new beginning for the country,” he told CT. But he says the president wants to avoid the mistakes that affected previous interventions in Haiti. “If you let yourself be guided solely by emotion, or by despair, there is a very high risk that you will find yourself on the list of those who have failed. »
Part of the fact-finding trip was simply to identify who is operating within the Haitian government. Haiti does not have a single elected official currently in office; the country has appointed a transitional council supposed to appoint a prime minister and prepare for possible elections, but this council has not yet been sworn in.
For example, Musasilwa said, he met for six hours with Haiti’s ambassador to Qatar, François Guillaume, to try to understand Haiti’s government structure.
“Suppose our forces are in Port-au-Prince today and they arrest one of the gangs,” Musasilwa said. “Where would they take him?” There is no justice system. »
The multinational security mission, which many observers hoped would be deployed months ago, has been delayed in part by uncertainty over Ken’s exact identity.
who I would work with. Haiti’s outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry signed partnership agreements with Kenya on March 1, shortly before gang attacks closed Haiti’s main international airport and blocked it from leaving the country. .
“As much as we wish our troops would arrive tomorrow, first of all, there is no government in Haiti, so no order,” said Davis Kisotu, pastor of an independent Pentecostal church close to the Rutos.
Kisotu, like other Kenyan ministerial leaders who were part of the delegation, is part of the National Prayer Altar, a team from the first lady’s office that oversees religious services at the presidential residence and works with pastors from across Kenya to pray for the government. While they wait for bureaucrats in New York and Washington to sort out the operational details of the police mission, one of their team’s tasks is to “mobilize prayer and men of God – the Haitian pastors, the pastors Americans, Kenyan pastors and prayer warriors around the world. nations. »
To this end, pastors from across the country gathered on Monday at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, a facility nestled next to Parliament and the Supreme Court of Kenya in the heart of Nairobi. The first lady spoke to an energetic and supportive crowd as she waved flags and prayed for Kenya, for Israel and for Haiti.
Other speakers, sometimes striking a tone befitting a campaign rally, prayed for peace in Haiti and praised President Ruto for his commitment to using Kenyan power as a force for international peace. Asunta Juma, host of Tracing the Mantles, a popular evangelical talk show, said Ruto has found favor with many world leaders because God’s favor is upon him. “We have elected a leader who will provide leadership to the nations of the world,” she declared.
The national gathering took place at a time when other international religious groups are pushing for concerted prayer for Haiti. Across the United States, mission groups regularly send emails and text messages to their followers with regular prayer requests. Baptist Haiti Mission, whose leaders have consulted with the Ruto administration, wants to attract one million prayer partners in its prayer campaign, which includes weekly live broadcasts.
In Kenya, the first lady’s office of religious diplomacy has so far recruited at least 200 pastors to lead their churches in 40 days of prayer for Haiti, using a prayer guide produced by the National Altar. A copy of the 132-page guide, provided to CT, includes extensive prayers for healing from the trauma of slavery, for deliverance from “generational slavery and the powers” of witchcraft, for healing of deforested lands and so that God “drives the gangs and insurgents out of their hiding places and puts them into the hands of the police.
“There is something about Haiti that has captivated the men and women of God in Kenya,” said Suubi, the national altar member who also leads the Highway of Holiness Ministries, at CT.
Not all Christian leaders are lovers.
Many Kenyans, including the vast majority Christians and some evangelicals, oppose their country’s involvement in Haiti. Lawmakers sued to stop it, leading to an injunction from the pl us high court of Kenya, which the administration tried to circumvent.
While Kenya’s last two presidents were Catholic, Ruto rose to power with significant help from the country’s charismatic and Pentecostal church communities, many of whom view any criticism of Ruto as a spiritual attack.
Sammy Wainaina, former provost of All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi and one of Kenya’s most prominent Anglicans, says the Kenyan police are not equipped to deal with the political situation in Haiti.
“Kenya is currently facing a serious shortage of police forces,” Wainaina said. “Countries like the United States should address the problems they created in Haiti. »
Enoch Opuka, a lecturer in development studies at Africa International University who also taught Ruto in high school, believes Haiti’s crushing poverty must be addressed before any other solution can work. Deploy massive amounts of aid, cancel all of Haiti’s debts and facilitate dialogue between armed groups and the government, he said; do not deploy police.
“You don’t end hunger by sending soldiers,” Opuka said.
Musasilwa is aware of the criticism, which is why he says the investigative team focused on listening to people in Haitian society and studying the failures of previous interventions in Haiti.
Among the recommendations in his report, for example, will be that Kenya help Haiti facilitate a peace and reconciliation conference to bring as many Haitians as possible into conversations about its future, including gangs.
“We are not here to solve their problems,” Musasilwa said. “We are here to support them in the solutions that suit them. »
He said he learned something certain during his many conversations and research about what went wrong in Haiti
