Kenya police deployment to Haiti: What’s next?:
A reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti to send police from the East African nation to the violence-wracked country has raised hopes the Nairobi-led, United Nations-backed multinational peace mission could deploy soon.
But the Kenyan government still faces legal hurdles in soldiering on with the plan after a court decision put the brakes on the deployment to the gang-ravaged Caribbean country.
Key questions arise about what lies next.
How soon can the deployment begin?
The plan has faced legal challenges at every turn since it was announced last year and was declared “illegal” by a Kenyan high court in January this year.
Judge Enock Chacha Mwita ruled that Kenya’s National Security Council — which authorised the mission — only has the authority to send the military abroad and not police officers.
But, the judge said, Kenya’s president could deploy police officers to a country if a reciprocal agreement exists.
The agreement was signed a week ago in the presence of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Kenyan President William Ruto, who declared, “We are ready for this deployment.”
Ekuru Aukot, the opposition politician who filed a petition last year at the Nairobi high court, vowed a fresh legal challenge.
“The whole arrangement is hush-hush and is not in compliance with the judgment,” he said.
“Kenya needs to gazette this reciprocity agreement and that also means article 10 of the Constitution will kick in on public participation,” said Aukot, a lawyer who helped draft Kenya’s 2010 Constitution.
Does the deal have public support?
Kenyans have questioned the wisdom of sending police officers to fight heavily armed gangsters when the country faces security problems of its own.
And that’s before you consider the language and cultural barriers.
“We are struggling to contain cattle rustlers and bandits in northern Kenya with weak firing power. How are we going to deal with gangs with machine guns?” barber Patrick Achuya asked.
Businessman and opposition politician Jimi Wanjigi has called on Ruto to visit Haiti before sending ill-equipped Kenyan police officers to a “war zone”.
Ruto does not “care about risking the lives of our sons and daughters of the police force who are not trained for such a war-zone mission,” Wanjigi said on social media.
Rights watchdogs have also pointed out that Kenyan police have a history of using sometimes lethal force against civilians, and that they pose an unacceptable risk in Haiti where foreign troops have committed abuses in past interventions.
Kenya’s police chief, Japhet Koome, has defended his squad as being mission-ready, telling a government meeting last year “we have never failed”.
What is the situation in Haiti?
Haiti’s marauding gangs, which control swaths of the country, announced a coordinated effort to oust Henry last week, launching attacks against the capital Port-au-Prince’s airport, prisons, police stations and other strategic targets.
Powerful gang leader Jimmy Cherizier warned on Tuesday that the current chaos would lead to civil war and “genocide” unless the prime minister steps down.
In power since the 2021 assassination of then president Jovenel Moïse, Henry had been due to step down last month. But that has not happened.
At least 15??000 people have already fled the worst-hit parts of Port-au-Prince, the United Nations has said, although UN teams on the ground have been unable to report any death tolls.
Haiti, the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation, has been in turmoil for years, and Moïse’s assassination plunged the country further into chaos.
No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant. — AFP
Jacob Zuma heads MK party list:
Former President Jacob Zuma is candidate number one on the breakaway Umkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) list for the National Assembly in the 29 May national and provincial elections.
Zuma announced that he was backing the new party last December, and while he has not left the ANC – or been expelled – he has now emerged as the face of its campaign for the coming poll.
The MKP national list is made up of both long-term Zuma associates and a number of political newcomers, as well as the leaders of a number of small parties, church or other groups who had backed the former president.
Jabulani Khumalo, who registered the party, is number two on the MK list submitted to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on Friday, followed by All African Alliance Movement (AAAM) president Sophonia Tsekedi, whose church-based party declared Zuma as its preferred presidential candidate in January.
The list – leaked to the media early on Saturday – also contains the names of a number of long term Zuma associates, including tenderpreneur Roy Moodley and Des Van Rooyen, South Africa’s shortest serving finance minister.
Both Van Rooyen and Moodley featured prominently at the Zondo Commission into state capture, at which Zuma walked out rather than face cross examination, eventually leading to him being jailed for 15 months for contempt.
Zuma’s daughter Duduzile comes in at number 18 on the MKP national list, while African Democratic Change (Adec) eThekwini councillor Visvin Reddy – until recently an ally of the ANC – is placed at number nine on the MKP list.
Reddy is a former ANC, Democratic Alliance and Minority Front councillor who last week threatened that a violent uprising would take place if the MKP was not allowed to register by the IEC.
However Reddy later apologised and claimed he was being taken out of context after president Cyril Ramaphosa threatened to have him and others making similar statements arrested.
David Skosana, husband of former Public Protector and now Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Busisiwe Mkhwebane, is number 15 on the MKP list, one below former EFF MP Sipho Mbatha.
Khoi San activist Glen Taaibosch is number 41 on the MKP list, followed by former African Christian Democratic Party (MP) and Western Cape preacher, Wesley Douglas.
My seven minutes 28 seconds with Malik Yoba:
It is a muggy Wednesday afternoon in Johannesburg, almost lunchtime, and I am about to meet American actor Malik Yoba.
The last time I saw him was on screen as Janet Jackson’s husband in Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?. Granted, not Oscar material, but then he is also known for the popular movie Cool Runnings and acclaimed for his role as detective JC?Williams in the TV series New York Undercover.
But this time I’m seeing him in person for an interview. He is here for the Johannesburg Film Festival, his third visit to South Africa.
Parked, I literally skip out of the Sandton basement — I have a weird fear of underground parking lots. It always feels as if something or someone, such as a baddie from a Yoba movie, will pop up out of nowhere. And I would have to ninja kick them — and cross the road while dodging the supercars roaring around Africa’s flashiest square mile.
I pause at the entrance to the Sandton Convention Centre. “This is the Joburg Film Festival, why is everyone in suits?” I wonder and double-check the invitation — perhaps I missed the part where they mention the dress code.
The muscular security guard, all bullet-proofed with a crackling walkie-talkie, saunters over and says, “Ma’am, you are blocking the entrance, please stand aside.”
“Is this where the Joburg Film Festival is held and why is everyone in suits?” I ask.
He laughs. “The festival is upstairs — these people are here for the Meetings Africa conference.”
I make my way through the suited men and women to a much lighter crowd — hacks and movie types.
I get my accreditation, sit at a corner and go through my questions. I then get in touch with Yoba’s PR to ask where I will be meeting them. I head there and find him in the middle of an interview.
I am told to wait outside.
The nerves kick in. He’s the American actor in the Tyler Perry movie, for goodness sakes! The door finally opens and there he is in a cream suit, a white round-necked shirt and brown dress shoes.
I sit down again because the other interview is still on. There is a camera crew shadowing him, recording his every move and word. The 56-year-old Yoba is in the middle of the room, hunched over a small, round white table with a bowl of dried mangos on it.
The other journo exchanges goodbyes with the famous man and I approach to do my interview.
My editor and I have this nice profile in mind because, according to the press release Yoba — they call him “Doctor” — is a bit of a polymath: “ACTOR, DIRECTOR, MUSICIAN, AUTHOR, ENTREPRENEUR, EDUCATOR, PHILANTHROPIST, SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR,” it says, in all caps.
As I walk towards him, he asks the PR person in that familiar deep purr, “Another one? Did you not say that one was the last one, so we can go have lunch?”
I pause and wait for the team to address his concerns. The man doesn’t look happy.
“She is the last one before we take a break,” they say, with their hands in prayer-like pose.
“You have eight minutes,” the PR lady says as she turns to me, tapping her watch to stress the point. “Great,” I reply, not convincing anyone.
I sit down opposite Yoba, notebook in one hand, cellphone in the other and my brain reverting to IsiZulu. It happens when I panic. Fortunately, my questions still come out of my mouth in English.
I ask him how he balances the entrepreneurship, the acting, the music — as well as planting seeds back into the community…
But before I can finish my question, he asks: “Did you go to school? High school? How many subjects did you have? You know, like, they had a schedule. And, like, one day you did maths, one day you did science. So, same thing.
“I think that when you are multi-hyphenated, you just have to schedule your time, so that you can do as much as you can, in those different areas that you work in.”
Perhaps not my strongest opener ever, especially for a hungry man with only dried mangos to nibble on and a nervous dreadlocked young woman between him and lunch.
I pose questions around the importance of black people telling stories through the medium of film and how we can continue to tell our stories uncensored and undiluted.
“We come from a tradition of storytellers. So, I think it’s just an extension that we need to see stuff to believe it. And I think everyone does.
“You’re a woman, right? If you see films with only men all the time, you’re gonna start feeling some kind of way. Right?
“It might motivate you to do some things the same way.
“We need to see ourselves … and we have to tell the stories, not be afraid to tell them,” he says.
I feel as if we are getting somewhere with this interview, even if Yoba has used those lines in hundreds of interviews in the “over three decades of commitment to the arts”, as the press release tells us.
But then a flustered fellow journalist walks in — and immediately gets ushered out, just like I was.
The PR lady taps her watch and tells me to start wrapping up. We have a minute left.
I lose my train of thought and jump straight to Yoba’s music. He mentioned somewhere that he feels music is his abandoned child, he does not do it as much as he would like to.
“Why is that?” I ask.
Dried mango in mouth, he sits back and says, “Because I am busy. I got too much shit going on.”
I feel I must have ticked him off with that question, so I comment, “And we just spoke about finishing things,” riffing on him telling me earlier that he makes sure he completes the things he does.
I use the line thinking I can get him to laugh and lighten up. I am wrong.
He sits up, stares at me, and says: “Well, I finished a lot. I have done a lot of music, so it is not like I have never done it.
“I’ve performed all over the world. So, it’s still part of what I do.”
The interview is over, I am told.
Popping a last, quick question, I ask him how he would like to be remembered.
“I will say that I’m glad that I have work that can be seen forever in the films or TV I’ve done.
“But, more than that, it’s just like he lived and he cared. I tell people I’m in a give-a-damn business.
“Like I actually care about improving, not just my life or my family’s, but the lives of other people, genuinely.”
I give Yoba a firm handshake, which I hope he appreciates, but I will never know.
The other journo is there. Ready for her eight minutes of fame.
I stumble out, find a quiet place and check the recording of my interview — actually it is just seven minutes 28 seconds.
A few minutes later, the colleague who did the interview after me emerges from the room.
“How did you find the interview? Mine was quite stale,” I say.
“Lesego, they are Hollywood and we are not,” she says.
“Perhaps we will get something at the masterclass he is having in a few minutes,” I counter.
“I just inquired from the PR, and I asked him [Yoba] as well, what the masterclass will be about and they all confirmed it will be about property,” she laughs.
I text my editor, asking if I should stay for this.
He immediately responds with loads of exclamation marks and language that could well get him into court with litigious Americans.
It is a “no”, then, and I make my way back to the spooky Sandton City basement parking.
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