The upsurge in violence in the face of an international armed force in Haiti has raised questions about the effectiveness of the Kenya-led mission, as well as whether the deployment of a formal United Nations peacekeeping operation would make a difference.

Haiti’s interim prime minister was ousted last week by the Transitional Council—the government “oversight mechanism” that the US, Canada and various factions of the country’s bourgeois elite put together earlier this year to provide a fig leaf of “popular” legitimacy for the latest imperialist-sponsored military intervention in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

When Kenyan police arrived in Haiti as part of a U.N.-backed mission earlier this year to quell gang violence, hopes were high.

Diplomats at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday voiced broad support for converting a security mission helping Haitian police fight escalating gang warfare into a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission,