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Refugees set to be repatriated to Somalia

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By Marion Kanari

Over five hundred thousand Somali refugees will be repatriated back into the their country after the United Nation High commission for refugees and the Kenyan and Somali governments signed a tripartite agreement for a voluntary repatriation and reintegration exercise.

Deputy President Willam Ruto who presided over the signing of the agreement called on the Somalia government to expedite the reintegration exercise as a way of rebuilding the horn of Africa nation.

The international community and both Kenya and Somalia have pledged their support for the action plan.

A tripartite commission will also be set up to expedite the reintegration process and find lasting solutions to the refugee problem.

Deputy President William Ruto while pledging the country’s support for a voluntary repatriation exercise called on the refugees to use skills and capital gained to contribute in rebuilding their nation.

The country has been a major host of mainly Somalia refugees in the horn of Africa a situation that has led to a humanitarian crisis and challenges of terrorism, banditry and organized crime.

Kakuma and Daadab refugee camps presently host over a million documented and undocumented refugees half of whom are Somalia refugees.

In the wake of the Westgate terrorist attack, members of parliament increased calls for the closure of the refugee camps as terrorists were said to be using the camps as training grounds.

UNHCR representative to Kenya  Rauof Mazou and Somalia foreign affairs minister Yusuf Adam have also pledged their support for the  repatriation roadmap.

Source : KBC

Suspected Car Bomb Kills 6 in Somalia

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Police in Somalia say a suspected car bomb has exploded outside a hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least six people.

Witnesses say a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives Friday to the gate of the hotel, which is popular with Somali officials, in central Mogadishu.

A government spokesman told VOA’s Somali service that at least 15 people were wounded, including a member of the Somali parliament Soyan Abdi Warsame.

Reports say another explosion was heard in the same area shortly before the hotel attack.

Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon condemned the violence and said it will not derail the progress toward peace in Somalia.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but al-Shabab militants periodically carry out bomb attacks in Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab once controlled most of the Somali capital, but the group was driven out of Mogadishu and other major Somali cities by an African Union-led peacekeeping force.

The al-Qaida-linked group is still considered a threat. In September, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an assault on a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that killed more than 60 people.

Source: VOA

Somalia: The World’s Most Dangerous Place? – Good Book, Bad Title

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By Magnus Taylor, 8 November 2013

Book Review

 James Ferguson’s ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Place: inside the outlaw state of Somalia’ is a good book with a bad title – lending itself too much to the kind of one dimensional Dantean portrayal of the country which the author has most definitely not produced.

However, I can forgive the publisher for this attempt to reach a wider audience than the usual band of analysts, aid workers and academics who hoover-up Somali-focused fare.

This is also easily the most enjoyable non-fiction book on Somalia I have come across. In fact, it may be the only read-it-for-pleasure book on Somalia I know of.

The country is, afterall, a place that generally spawns academic tomes which attempt to explain the complexity of state collapse eg Stig Hansen’s ‘Al Shabaab in Somalia‘ or revisionist histories which pointedly try to ‘problematise’ headline views of the country showing it as nothing more than a haven for warlords, pirates and Al Qaeda eg Mary Harper’s ‘Getting Somalia Wrong‘.

Ferguson, through exhaustive research and a flair for a certain sharp-eyed journalistic reportage, demonstrates that whilst warlords, pirates and terrorists all inhabit the country, they are part of a much bigger (and more creative) economy of warfare that has developed over the last 20 years.

The book starts in Mogadishu with the Ugandan and Burundian soldiers of AMISOM, fighting what Ferguson terms “a forgotten campaign in the Global War on Terror” against Al Shabaab (now pushed out of the city).

Back in 2011, however, AMISOM was engaging in “a giant game of whack-a-mole” against the insurgents. Mogadishu had become, in Ferguson’s words, “an African Stalingrad”, with house-to-house fighting and a sophisticated network of supply trenches criss-crossing the city.

Ferguson also does well to include some description of the weird collection of western ‘security consultants’ and soldiers of fortune who collect in a place like this, following the action and the money. He reports that amongst them are 4 US military advisors to the then Transitional Federal Government (TFG) – the US “publicly distancing itself from the conflict whilst keeping a hand in the game.”

And whilst many others may not be directly employed by the US, their cheques are certainly being signed by an international coalition of donors, making the dividing line between military assistance and proxy war vanishingly small.

 In Mogadishu, Ferguson comments on the difficulty of actually finding Somalis to talk to for his research.

But those he does pin down, and not just the interviews with the country’s political elite, demonstrate the human cost of a society where “at the level of the street, normality had been replaced by a kind of mad children’s crusade where chaos and sadism ruled. It was like Lord of the flies with automatic weapons.”

The author’s focus on youth, particularly that of Shabaab recruits, is particularly illuminating. He visits a group of young Al-Shabaab deserters now cared for by the government, and finds them “spirited, unruly and for the most part instantly likeable.”

He raises the idea (from research by a French criminologist, Daniel LaDouceur) that Al Shabaab is “a super gang” and that current attempts to control violence through clan elders are ineffective because the elders “have lost control of their young men”.

Ferguson makes much play of the general incompetence and self-destructive disregard for the Somali population exhibited by Al-Shabaab. This is most clear in its attitude towards the 2011 famine – a product of both war and drought – which it refused to accept existed. This was, besides being profoundly immoral, a tactical error of judgment from its leaders who, in the face of this human disaster, were “faceless [and] pathetic.”

One of the limiting factors in Ferguson’s book is the difficulty of getting a truly national perspective on Somalia. For example, he was unable to travel south to Kismayo due to continuing insecurity in the country’s most important southern city, recently under occupation by Kenyan troops.

However, this means he does spend an extended period in “the court of King Farole” in Puntland – a more stable federal state squeezed between the self-declared independent Somaliland and the more volatile southern rump of the Somali Republic.

Puntland may be a relative success story, but Fergusons still views it as something of a ‘Darodistan’ – “a mono-clan police state where bad things would, and sometimes did happen to people, with the wrong tribal affiliation.”

Puntland is better known in the wider world as the place where the pirates comes from. And Ferguson covers this topic in detail, even meeting a crew of recently released Burmese hostages, the leader of whom later stated that “we were so lucky to be Burmese from a shit poor country like our Burma” – the pirates realising that there was no real prospect of anyone paying a ransom for them.

In this regard, Ferguson argues that the insurance industry, in readily paying out in hijack situations, “effectively colluded with the pirates’ mission of self-enrichment.”

In Puntland, the author interviews a Somali government spy (Guled) who had been tasked with infiltrating the pirate gangs.

Whilst Ferguson is unafraid to display his distaste for Guled – “an ugly, feral, dangerous man” – he does provide him with the potential scoop (assuming it’s true) that Al Shabaab gets a $200,000 – $300,000 cut from each ship captured and kept at the port of Harardheere (purely a business relationship and not one of shared ideology).

As with his statements about Guled, Ferguson is not afraid to criticise Somali society, despite being an outsider. For example, the “continuing reluctance to raise women above the status of a chattel.”

This is revealed in darkly humorous detail with a visit to the practice of Somali-Italian returnee Dr Giama, who shows Ferguson a slideshow of the medical consequences of a collapsed health system, including “a calcified ectopic pregnancy, a creature from the scariest science-fiction film” and a series of images the result of continuing ‘cultural adherence’ to the practice of Female Genital Mutilation. “It is remarkable what you can find under an abaya,” says the Doctor.

Logically, given the vast numbers of Somalis who have left the country in the last 20 years, Ferguson spends a decent section of the book considering the diaspora.

For this he goes to both the US, where Minneapolis is, perhaps surprisingly, at the centre of the Somali community, and London.

In Minneapolis he investigates the phenomenon of young Somali men and women being recruited to the movement back ‘home’, concluding that it’s a very “peer to peer process” probably with no real mastermind.

In London, the focus is more on how ordinary Somalis have integrated into British society and some of the challenges a generally poor and often traumatised population present to the mantra of British ‘multiculturalism’.

The capacity of Somali gangs, through startling violence, to chase competing groups off their turf is commented on by a Special Branch officer, and a South London teacher says that in her school “the behaviour of some of the Somalis is so impossible that the system just can’t hope … I’d have fewer of them in my school if I had a chance” – a disquieting, but credible, statement from one so close to the action.

Ferguson is entirely unsentimental about his extended experience in the international Somali milieu. He doesn’t falsely represent the positives in a country and society where clearly something has gone badly wrong.

As for being ‘The Most Dangerous Place on Earth’, this really depends in which part of it you are standing – thinking of Somalia as much more than the cartographic expression of the failed post-colonial state is clearly something of a pointless exercise and we need to address each part of it on its own terms.

Magnus Taylor is Editor of African Arguments.

 

 

Somalia’s Watergate Scandal: President’s Chief of Staff outmaneuvered in his bid to steal over 100 million dollar

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Somalia has been hit by a scandal similar to the US  Watergate Scandal. The Financial Times, a respected international business  journal has reported that Yusur Abraar, Governor of the Somalia Central  Bank has resigned her position. Governor Abraar was appointed as a governor  just two months ago.

The story, which was originally broken by Awdal press,  reports that Governor Abraar resigned because she did not want to be  involved in the looting of Somali assets and funds by a group of people  led by the president’s own chief of staff, Mr. Kamal Dahir Gutaale.

The President’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Kamal Dahir  Guutaale, tried to force the newly appointed Governor of the Central  Bank, Ms. Yusur Abraar, to transfer over 100 million dollars to his  cohorts;

Ganjab Investments http://www.ganjab.com/bus/?page_id=156 , The American law firm of Shulman Rogers http://www.shulmanrogers.com/attorneys.html , http://www.linkedin.com/title/partner/at-shulman-rogers,  while the president of Somalia was out of the town on a visit to Kismayo,  backfired on a colossal scale. Now everyone involved is running for  the dark corners.

This bold and money grab would have succeeded if not  for Ms. Yussur Abrar’s strong ethics, moral fortitude.  Ms. Yusur  Abraar was appointed to be the Governor of the Central Bank seven weeks  ago because of her in depth knowledge and understanding of global finance,  her intelligence, and her convictions.

Ms. Yusur Abrar is a world renowned financial expert  who is, like her predecessor Dr. Abdisalam Omer from the Awdal State  .  Ms. Abraar, upon accepting her appointment, began creating a banking  structure that would prevent government funds from being looted.   Her plan was not to allow any of the over 100 million dollars to be  deposited into the central bank until a reliable banking structure was  in place that would prevent the stealing of Somalia’s money by anyone  in a position of power.  The UN has reported that over 20 million  dollars had been stolen last year from the Central Bank.

Unbeknown to Ms. Yusur Abraar, the President’s own  Chief of Staff had a plan in the works to steal over 100 million dollars  in Somali money from overseas that had been frozen.  The plan was  for all this money to be transferred directly to the law firm of Shulman  Rogers and not into the central bank of Somalia.  The only problem  was that Ms. Yusur Abraar needed to be on board with this deal.

The Chief of Staff did not see Ms. Yusur Abraar’s  moral objections as a big deal.  She was a woman, only in office  for seven weeks, and was now in Mogadishu. History and his life experience  told him that ambitious Somali politicians always cooperate.  He planned  on meeting her at the Jazira hotel and once there “persuade” her  to “do the right thing”.   There was no reason to suspect  that the plan would not work.  The Chief of Staff saw Mogadishu  as his town, his gunmen where there and at his beck and call.   And, after all, Ms. Yusur Abraar could do all the bank reforming she  would like in the future, but he wanted his cut of Somalia’s gold  now.  What choice did she have?

What Mr. Kamal Dahir Guutaale did not know was that  Ms. Yusur Abraar had uncovered his plans, knew that lawyers from Shulman  Rogers where in town and on the day that Mr. Kamal Dahhir Guutaale had  carefully choreographed as the day where Ms. Yusur Abraar was to “sign  on the dotted line”, she was already out of the country and tendering  her resignation.

Ms. Yusur Abraar snuck out of Mogadishu  quietly without the Chief of Staff ever knowing and while in Dubai,  resigned and exposed the Chief of Staff for the thief that he was.   Ms. Kamal Dahir Guutaale and his lawyers from Shulman Rogers where left  holding the bag.

Now comes the fall out.  The President is coming  back to town.  The question is did Mr. Kamal Dahir Guutaale plan  this thievery to occur when the President was away so he could get away  with it?  Or did he plan this thievery when the President was away  so that the President could say he didn’t know?  Basically was  Mr. Kamal Dahir Guutaale acting as the President’s agent, and on the  President’s behalf, or did he try to steal over 100 million dollars  for himself? Who knew what, and when did they know it?

We will know soon enough.  The President will  either fire Mr. Kamal Dahir Guutaale and replace him with a reputable  Chief of Staff or he will keep him on to do his dirty deeds in the future.   Soon we will know the truth.  What else is missing and stolen?

Not too long ago some of the Somali websites and the  East Africa Energy Forum reported that a Mr. Haider and his group were  shopping Somali gas and oil concession with the assistance of another  foreign law firm, Jay Park, and using a company registered in an offshore  country. Whether the president or the prime minister is behind this  scandal as well will also come out soon enough.

Having crooked men in positions of power is not new  to Somalia.  We know that Mr. Kamal Dahir Guutalle is running a  criminal gang, the only question is; was the President behind this?   The truth cannot stay hidden forever.

 

 

For more information in this conspiracy click on the  following links:

Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5bf9ac6c-4319-11e3-8350-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jW3XKUYz

AwdalPress

http://www.awdalpress.com/index/archives/25270

The Podesta Group

http://somalianewsroom.com/2013/09/25/somalia-government-hires-lobbying-firm-podesta-group-details/

Soma Oil

http://somalianewsroom.com/2013/08/08/a-preliminary-look-at-soma-oil-and-gas-in-somalia/

Documents:

1. Contract between Podesta Group, Shulman Rogers and  Central Bank of Somalia

2. Contract between Podesta Group, Shulman Rogers and  Central Bank of Somalia -2

3. Exhibit B Shulman Rogers and Federal Republic of Somalia

4.Lobbiest Group hired by Shulman Rogers (Podesta Group)

5.Money (Fee) Paid to Shulman Rogers

6.Exhibit A Shulman Rogers and Kamal Dahir Hassan Gutela

Somalia central bank governor resigns after seven weeks

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By Katrina Manson in Nairobi

The central bank governor of Somalia has unexpectedly resigned after seven weeks in the job, citing corruption concerns, in a blow to donors who have promised to pour billions of dollars of aid into the failed state.

Yussur Abrar, who was one of the world’s few female central bank governors, was unavailable for comment on Friday.

 

Donors who support her were frantically trying to reach her on Thursday night. They believe that she sent her resignation letter, dated October 30, from Dubai, before travelling to an unknown destination.

One donor official said Ms Yussur was “scared for her life and so unlikely to return to Somalia”.

In her letter to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s president, she said: “From the moment I was appointed, I have continuously been asked to sanction deals and violate my fiduciary responsibility to the Somali people as head of the nation’s monetary authority.”

In the strongly worded letter, seen by the Financial Times, Ms Yussur – a former banker at Citigroup who had not lived in Somalia for several decades – said she believed that these deals “put . . . frozen assets at risk and open the door to corruption”.

Somalia is recovering from decades of civil war and also faces an Islamist insurgency from al-Qaeda-linked jihadis who mount regular attacks on the capital and claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on a Nairobi shopping mall last month.

Donors have pledged billions of dollars to help secure and rebuild Somalia at recent conferences in the hope that it can make good on recent military gains against the militants.

But they fear that the new government – elected last year and seen by analysts as the most representative and promising for years – might repeat the gross corruption seen by its donor-backed predecessors.

A report from a UN investigative panel this year gave warning that the central bank doubled as a corrupt slush fund and said that it failed to account for transfers worth $12m. Ms Yussur said in her letter: “Unfortunately, the central bank has not been allowed to function free of interference, and as such cannot operate as a credible institution.”

A government spokesman insisted on Friday that President Hassan remained committed to reforming institutions in his country. “All he wants is to ensure [that] public finance is managed properly and that there’s no corruption,” he said, adding that Ms Yussur was selected for her “impressive CV on finance”, but had visited Mogadishu for “only a couple of days”.

“For her leaving so early [it] is very sad. She was given the empowerment to reform the central bank and how the system works – most of the systems are manual,” he added.

In her letter, Ms Yussur also said she “vehemently refused to sanction the contract” with Shulman Rogers, a US law firm contracted to recover overseas assets frozen since before the civil war started in 1991. The same company was also hired to discredit the UN allegations of financial mismanagement ahead of a Brussels aid conference at which donors ultimately pledged $2.4bn, in what UN experts said was a conflict of interest. The law firm has previously denied any conflict of interest and said the UN experts made unfounded allegations.

Source:Financial Times

 

Security Council urged to support ‘temporary boost’ to African forces in Somalia

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Without adequate security, the efforts of the Somali Government and people, and those of their partners, could be in vain, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations said today, calling on the Security Council to support a temporary boost to national and international forces aiming to maintain basic security in the Horn of Africa nation.

“Without a sufficient level of security, what we have worked so hard for could be sacrificed,” Jan Eliasson, who just returned from a visit to the capital city of Mogadishu, said in a briefing to the Council.

He said the attack in June on the UN in Mogadishu and the terror attack on a mall in Nairobi in September underline the intent of the Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab to force an international retreat from Somalia and to inflict suffering on Somalis in order to erode their confidence in the peace process.

“This is why we must support AMISOM and at the same time invest in Somali national forces as well as in protecting our staff,” Mr. Eliasson stated, referring to the African Union Mission in Somalia by its acronym.

Somalia has been torn asunder by factional fighting since 1991 but has recently made progress towards stability. In 2011, Al-Shabaab insurgents retreated from Mogadishu and last year, new Government institutions emerged, as the country ended a transitional phase toward setting up a permanent, democratically-elected Government.

The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), set up in June, is working to support the Government and the people of the country in their quest for security and prosperity, while AMISOM, created in 2007, conducts peace support operations to stabilize the situation and to create conditions for the conduct of humanitarian activities.

Mr. Eliasson said that while he came away from his visit heartened by the commitment of the country’s Government and people to peace, development and human rights, “the moment of hope in Somalia is fragile.”

A security mission carried out by the AU and the UN found that, after 18 months of successful operations that uprooted Al-Shabaab from major cities, the campaign by AMISOM and Somali forces has in recent months “ground to a halt.”

The Deputy Secretary-General was informed by the AMISOM Force Commander that neither AMISOM nor the Somali army has the capacity to push beyond areas already recovered. “Their hold of the existing territory would be tenuous if the current status-quo continues,” he said.

“While these forces remain largely static, Al-Shabaab is mobile and is training and recruiting substantial numbers of frustrated, unemployed young men. There has been a surge in deadly attacks,” he noted. “Although weakened, the insurgency is still able to conduct terror operations – not only in its areas of control, but in Mogadishu and Kismayo, and elsewhere – as we saw in last month’s horrific attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.”

Therefore, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the AU have jointly recommended that AMISOM and Somali forces need a “significant temporary boost” to maintain the basic security required for peacebuilding, as well as to respond to the evolving threat from Al-Shabaab.

“The recommended enhancements for AMISOM, including helicopters and other enablers, will allow the force to regain the initiative against the insurgency and to recover strategic locations that are exploited by Al-Shabaab to generate revenue, and to recruit and train combatants,” said Mr. Eliasson.

“The recommendations for non-lethal and logistic support to the Somali National Forces – medical support, transport, tents, food and fuel – are equally critical,” he added. “This would enable the Somalis to operate effectively alongside AMISOM, improving their capacity to hold cleared areas until the Somali National Police can take over, with AMISOM police support.”

Mr. Eliasson urged the Security Council to find ways to adequately provide for this support, pointing out that this would also substantially facilitate the crucially important recovery and development efforts of the UN and other actors on the ground.

“It is hard to ask for additional resources in our present difficult financial environment. But it is my duty to advise this Council that, without increased support, our present – and indeed past – investment in peace, and that of millions of Somalis, may be lost.”

In a related development, the Secretary-General today announced the appointment of Fatiha Serour of Algeria as his Deputy Special Representative for Somalia. Ms. Serour replaces Peter De Clercq of the Netherlands, who served as Deputy Special Representative since the establishment of UNSOM and was recently appointed Deputy Special Representative for the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

UN News Center

Kenyan warplanes bomb al Shabaab strongholds in Somalia

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The Kenyan military said its warplanes bombed targets held by al Qaeda-linked Islamists in Somalia on Thursday, in retaliation for an attack on a Nairobi mall that killed at least 67 people.

The Kenya Defence Forces said they destroyed a training camp used by the members of the al Shabaab Islamist group who attacked the Westgate Mall on September 21. A Kenyan drone strike killed two leading members of al Shabaab on Monday.

“This was part of a broader mission by the AMISOM (the U.N.-backed African peacekeeping mission in Somalia), targeting where the Shabaab were training. Those attackers at the Westgate did their training there,” Colonel Cyrus Oguna, a spokesman for the Kenyan military, told Reuters.

“We have been monitoring this particular area over a period of time, and we moved in when we got the green light.”

The camp had over 300 fighters, many of whom are believed to have been killed or injured, the KDF said in a statement. Oguna said raids on the Islamists’ strongholds would be sustained.

Al Shabaab denied there had been any attack.

“No military camp of ours in Somalia was air struck or attacked,” Shabaab’s senior media officer told Reuters, adding that its fighters had attacked Badhaadhe town in the south.

Kenya’s military said the “major aerial offensive” in the Dinsoor region completely destroyed the training camp at Hurguun and at least 4 “technicals” – improvised fighting vehicles – and a weapons store.

Source: Reuters

Keeping remittances to Somalia flowing

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LONDON, 30 October 2013 (IRIN) – Never has the UK’s Somali community taken so much interest in a court case. Dahabshiil Holdings Ltd, by far the biggest company remitting money from the UK to Somalia, has taken Barclays to court to try to prevent the bank closing down its account, without which the company says it cannot legally continue to operate. Other remittance companies have already had their accounts closed, because of what banks say are security concerns about money laundering and terrorism.

Faced with this threat to the system by which they support their families back home, the community has mobilized on an impressive scale. And they have got the government involved. Rushanara Ali, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in east London, who has many Somali constituents, had been one of those leading the campaign. She told a recent public meeting on the issue: “Everyone understands that banks are under pressure from US regulators, but what we are asking is not unreasonable – simply that there should be a proper, safe way of getting money to loved ones around the world… But let me tell you, the UK government would not have taken an interest in this issue if you hadn’t exercised your political muscle.”

The protesters have lobbied Barclays Bank on a fleet of bicycles, handed a petition with more than 100,000 signatures to the prime minister’s office, and persuaded one of Britain’s best known sportsman to be the face of their campaign. Double Olympic gold medal winner Mo Farah comes from a Somali family, and says he too uses the money transfer services to help support his relatives. “Of course he does,” campaigner Sulekha Hassan told IRIN. “Any Somali who says they don’t use these services is lying.”

Barrage of indignation

The barrage of indignation, not just from the Somali community, but also aid agencies like Oxfam who use money transfer operations to fund their activities in Somalia, may have startled the government into paying attention, but Barclays, which was the last major British bank still willing to hold accounts for the money transfer services, has stuck by its decision.

Tom Keatinge, a former banker who worked on a government study of the issue, says it all goes back to the attack on the World Trade Centre.

“The amount of compliance work we had to do went through the roof. I counted up the number of terrorism finance and money laundering trainings I had to do over my last 18 months, and it was 15. We were told all the time, ‘Avoid any business that involves cash transfers. Avoid any business that involves third party involvement – in this case money going via Dubai to somewhere else.’… What’s happening now is collateral damage from a regulatory environment which has gone way out of control since 9/11.”

Keatinge told IRIN that banks like Barclays are not so worried about falling foul of British regulation; this is all about the United States. “I think if you look at the dominant pressure that global banks feel, that pressure is from the US. And access to the US market, the dollar market, is the lifeblood of many banks. So from that you can deduce that while the UK regulator is important, the existential regulator is the US.”

The irony – not lost on the government – is that the demise of large, visible, regulated companies like Dahabshiil will only result in money going through less visible channels.

Oxfam’s Ed Pomfret says it does not make sense to say you want more control and transparency, while closing down the only regulated channel. “The only result will be more money moving in suitcases.”

Procedures being tightened

The response from the industry and the British government has been to try to tighten procedures to allay the banks’ fears. The money transfer companies in the UK already go beyond legal requirements and demand proof of identity from everyone sending money, even small sums. They say they will do whatever is necessary to comply.

Meanwhile, the government has set up an action group involving all concerned government departments. These have been given a work plan which will include the Treasury increasing its supervision of the companies and working with them on training and improving their skills. The National Crime Agency will share threat assessments with banks entering the money transfer market and provide them with alerts on risks within the sector. And the Department for International Development, DFID, is to work on setting up a “safe corridor” pilot for Somalia, along the lines of a system already working for Pakistan, which will track payments right through, from sending, through clearing to eventually receiving the money.

But to get this in place is going to take around a year. How will people be able to send money meantime? Well, having their own bank account is only a legal requirement for the larger money transfer companies, those handling more than three million euros a month (just over US$4 million) – which between Britain and Somalia at the moment is only Dahabshiil. Smaller companies are allowed to process their transfers through a “wholesale” Money Service Business – as long as these MSBs remain willing to work with them. But the Somali Money Services Association, SOMSA, warns that these cash processing companies are also starting to come under pressure from their own banks to stop handling transfers to Somalia.

Aid agency payments – OK

NGOs should be all right, because Dahabshiil says it has found a small UK bank willing to handle aid agency and corporate payments. And one company will be able to continue operating because it does not deal with cash or rely on banks, but instead sends money to mobile phones, using the international telecoms infrastructure. But this at the moment is only practical in Somaliland, where mobile cash transfers are already commonplace.

The bigger unresolved question is whether, even when a safe corridor has been built and all the new safeguards are in place, the banks will be willing to get back into what is, after all, only a modestly profitable business. What if they still refuse to reopen the accounts? “They could still do that,” the chairman of SOMSA, Abdi Abdullahi, told IRIN. “And it’s very likely. We’ve been asking then what we should do. We are ready to do anything that is do-able, but they won’t give us any criteria.”

Barclays responds

Responding to a change.org petition, Barlcays said it “remains committed to responsibly supporting the remittance industry and we recognise the benefit that money transfer firms provide to local communities around the world. We are happy to continue to serve companies who, in our opinion, have sufficiently strong anti-financial crime controls and meet our eligibility criteria.”

In a separate public statement the bank said:

“In recent months we have had to take some difficult decisions around money transfer businesses. We understand and appreciate the important role these businesses play in helping people to transfer money around the world, in some cases to places where there is great need of financial support. However Barclays has an obligation to operate within the rules and regulations set by governments and regulators in the countries in which we do business. Failure to do so would result in Barclays being prosecuted by regulators around the world and potentially fined many hundreds or potentially billions of pounds.

“Money transfer businesses are a particular focus for regulators given the risk of them being used for money laundering or funding terrorism. We deeply regret that any client has to look for alternative banking arrangements, however Barclays’ stakeholders rightly expect us to do our best to uphold the law and the regulations.”

So what then? There is the interesting precedent of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company which uses animals for pharmaceutical testing. When, in 2001, it became “unbankable” because of pressure from animal rights campaigners, the Bank of England – which is not normally a retail bank – provided banking facilities to prevent it going out of business. Abdi Abdullahi says SOMSA has asked the government to facilitate the temporary provision of banking services, either with the Bank of England or with the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is currently 80 percent government owned. But so far, he says, the government has not responded.

Source: IRIN

Somalia: Somalis Have Met the Enemy and He is the Somalis Themselves

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There is a saying “We have met the enemy and He is us” and the same applies to Somalis as we are our own worst enemy. We acknowledge the need for unity and solidarity, but our actions and behaviors show otherwise. Disunity and miss-communication are the norms amongst our leaders and the syndrome of “Aan wax qalano, mindiyahana kala qarsanno” is wide spread. Our Somali intellectuals are defaming one another, searching the faults of one another and such war of words are emotionally detrimental to our young generation who are reading, seeing and listening. It is difficult to attain unity and brotherhood without eradicating these ills from our heart. These symptoms are even evident in many of our Islamic scholars. We see some of our scholars using the Quran and Hadith merely to score points and as ammunition to defeat one’s opponents. For the knowledge gained by our Somali religious scholars and intellectuals to bear fruit, they need to harmonise their head and heart, have constructive dialogue and use emotions intelligently.
Words used in a destructive manner are more lethal than any weapon as it leaves scars to the human soul. This is what made the cost of the Somali conflict unbearable in terms of the loss of human life, physical and emotional scars. The hostile relationship has got integrated into our society; history got written and passed down through families, painting one’s own side as virtuous and the other side as evil. These messages are heard over and over again from one’s parents, one’s teachers, one’s friends and it got very hard to question or oppose such beliefs. For example, youth within Al -Shabaab were the recipient generations that grew up in violence and bitterness and their leaders took advantage by channeling their anger and frustration destructively. High youth population is the greatest asset we have and failure to nurture and channel their energy constructively will result them to be our greatest liability.
The main problem we have today is that there are many young Somalis abroad and home who to a great extent changed their apparent way of life and calling for a change and establishment of religion. However, there are many, some amongst this category, who have only changed the external behaviour and yet they have failed to change internally. If the change was sincere, then we would not see symptoms of arrogance and impoliteness in them. The same arrogance that was in them before is the same arrogance here. The only difference is that arrogance is being channeled to different directions and displayed elsewhere. When our youth witness this in their behaviour, they should realise that although there is sincerity, there is misguidance and although there is true concern, they are channeling their faculties, strength and their abilities to the wrong direction. One of the first signs of true change and repentance is humbleness and humility. If arrogance still remains, then that is not a true change, because arrogance is classified as the mother of all diseases.
The Somali conflict today has reached a point where no one side is getting any closer to achieving its goals and no one is happy with the situation (It is un-winnable). Historically, our ancestors have experienced similar situation and left us a list of proverbs and poems to shed light on our current experience. But the problem is that we view our ancestors is as if they hold no importance for us and they lived in times so different from our own that they are incapable of shedding light on our experience. But history does matter. It has been said that “he who controls the past controls the future”. Even the doctor, to get accurate picture of one’s state of health asks for his/her medical history. One’s health is heavily influenced by the past (Your heredity, past behaviours, past experiences are all important determinants and clues to your present condition). Therefore, we need to look inwards for solutions, if we are to have any hope turning this prolonged conflict around. Let us offer few old Somali proverbs based on conflicts that can shed light on our current situation:
• Masaar geed ma goyso ee geed kalayse ku gooysaa (Gudiney ima aad gooyseene ee qayb iga mid ah baa kugu jirta).
• Rag waxaad walaal uga waydid waran ugama heshid.
• Ninkii habeenkii codkaaga yaqaano, maalintiina raadkaaga yaqaano lalama coloobo.
• Rag Waday oo waayay waxay walaalow ku dhaamaan.
• Rag I daa kugumo daayo ee aynu isdayno ayuu kugu daayaa.
No one can offer quick fix solution and overnight resolution to change our current situation. But we cannot let ourselves fall into complacency, must be willing to get our hands dirty, and take ownership of our current problem. Not addressing a problem head-on today creates bigger one tomorrow. Tomorrow’s problem may end up to be the results of today’s short sighted solution. In order change our current situation, firstly we need to reform our heart at individual level as Allah will not change our situation until individuals change and individuals will never change until the heart is reformed. It is the individuals who make up the Somali nation. With regards to achieving unity and brotherhood, the prophet in simple hadith prescribed the following actions:

“Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the others’ faults and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert (cut your relation with) one another, and do not hate one another; and O Allah’s worshipers! Be brothers (as Allah has ordered you)!”- Sahih Al Bukhari, Vol. 8 Number 90

These ills are all related to the heart and our biggest problem is that we all want the final thing (Unity, Solidarity and Brotherhood), but want to miss out on things the prophet SCW mentioned before unity and brotherhood. We many times draw our own wrong conclusion about a word somebody said or has written and it is becoming rare to see someone give his brother a benefit of the doubt. By doing this, we have failed on the first step of the prescriptions given above. We need to suppress our commanding soul inside us and eradicate the above mentioned ills from our heart. There is Rwandan proverb (who themselves experienced civil conflict) that says “You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you”.

Finally, with regards to the conflict between Alshabaab and the government, we all have tendency to support a zero-tolerance policies and evidence shows such policies costs a lots of money and results are questionable. Using force alone is like using Aspirin to cure a brain tumour, it may relieve the pain but not provide the cure to brain tumour. We really need long-term commitment to dialogue and reconciliation and re-frame the problem to open up a whole new set of solutions (Social reform). The main problem is that people underestimate the costs of continuing the conflict, and overestimate their chances of winning. Therefore the Government should not abandon its pursuit of peace via dialogue and reconciliation, it is never easy and often one step forward two steps back.

Also Al-Shabaab leaders must look at the difficult circumstances the Somalis are in due to this prolonged conflict and change their direction towards pursuing peace. It is important to note that Peace demands the most heroic labour and the most difficult sacrifice; it demands greater heroism than war. It is an opportune moment for us Somalis to make our resolution for the beginning of this new Islamic Hijriyah year, the year Somalia migrated from war and disunity to peace and togetherness.

By: Bazi Bussuri Sheikh
bazisomali@hotmail.co.uk

US drone strike in Somalia killed al-Shabaab ‘chief bomb-maker’

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Explosives expert behind “many deaths” among three men killed in missile attack on four-wheel-drive

 

A US drone strike in Somalia killed three senior al-Shabaab commanders including an explosives expert who had “a major role in the death of many innocent civilians”, officials said on Tuesday.

The missile attack targeted a Suzuki four-wheel-drive as it made its way along a road leading from a town wh ere US special forces mounted a failed night-time assault earlier this month.

Among those killed in Monday’s strike was Ibrahim Ali Abdi, the head of al-Shabaab’s bomb-making division, who planned the group’s suicide missions and directed the preparation of attackers’ vests, road-side explosives and car bombs.

He was among the most senior members of al-Shabaab, and was thought to be responsible for strikes inside Somalia against government officials and the African Union peacekeepers.

The fact that President Barack Obama authorised the mission to kill him signalled that Washington would now go after operatives even if they had not directly targeted American interests.

Abdikarin Hussein Guled, Somalia’s interior minister, said his intelligence services had been tracking Abdi, also known as Anta-Anta, for some time before the US drone mission took place.

“The operation in which this man has been killed was very important for the government,” Mr Guled said.

“This man had a major role in the death of many innocent civilians and his death will help in bringing back peace.”

The other two men in the four-wheel-drive were named as Abdikarim Kibi-Kibi and Warsame Baalle, deputy commanders of two al-Shabaab units controlling large areas of southern Somalia.

The drone strike came a little over a month after a suspected al-Shabaab cell killed 67 people during a four-day siege of the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya.

The three commanders were understood recently to have been in Barawe, a coastal town that is al-Shabaab’s new stronghold and which was the target of a US Navy Seals raid earlier in October.

The Seals were on a mission to arrest Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, also known as Ikrima, another senior al-Shabaab commander. Ikrima escaped.

Source: The Telegraph