Another Goofy Gaffe by Jubilee

[Onyango Oloo]

Commentary by Onyango Oloo


First of all, as an appetizer to what is about to follow, please browse the following:

THE chairman of a powerful parliamentary committee has accused the Executive of lack of strategies in dealing with terror attacks.

National Assembly Administration and National Security Committee chairman Asman Kamama singled out Interior Secretary Joseph Nkaissery and Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett.He said they should have done better in dealing with the recent Garissa University attack.

"The country’s security team failed in their duty even after getting timely and actionable Intelligence, they were not able to post enough security personnel to deal with the possibility of a terror attack,” Kamama said yesterday.

He also accused the Executive of failing to learn a lesson from a myriad past terror attacks.

"The President must take action on those who slept on the job, losing 147 lives with over 70 injured is a monumental loss to the nation. Had the IG sent the elite Recce Squad of the GSU by 8am, many lives would have been saved,” Kamama said.

Kamama disclosed that his committee will summon Nkaissery and Boinett for an update on the security strategies and policies being employed by the government to avert future attacks.

“Even after going through all this, the government has no solid approach. How many attacks must occur, how many people must be killed, before the government responds? This is inexcusable! The President must deal with this laxity," Kamama said.

SOURCE:

www.the-star.co.ke/news/nkaissery-and-boinett-failed-says-kamama

The dynamic UhuRuto duo which has led the Jubilee regime fitfully since 2013, keep stumbling from one mistake to the next blunder. Even when you imagine they have finally scrambled to their error prone feet, Jubilee, on their roller blades to middle income nation status, still skid and slip on the next banana peel that has somehow slipped under their own wobbly feet.

The current pratfall, the latest howler du jour, the breaking news faux pas has been unleashed:

Kenya shuts down Somali remittance firms, freezes accounts
Wed Apr 8, 2015 8:34am GMT

By Drazen Jorgic

lade


NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya has suspended the licences of 13 Somali remittance firms following the massacre at a Kenyan university last week, Somalia's central bank governor said on Wednesday, and Kenyan media reported that dozens of bank accounts had been frozen.

The killing of 148 students by Somalia's al Shabaab at Garissa, some 200 km (120 miles) from the border, has piled pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta to deal with the Islamists who have killed more than 400 people in Kenya in the last two years.

Kenya's biggest selling Daily Nation newspaper said on Wednesday that the government has "frozen the accounts of 86 individuals and entities suspected to be financing terrorism in the country", including Somali remittance firms.

Somalia's central bank governor Bashir Issa Ali told Reuters that 13 Somali money transfer firms have been officially notified by Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) about the closure of accounts. He said the move would have a devastating impact Kenya's Somali community, numbering just over one million people.

"It’s going to hurt Somalis in Kenya more than Somalis in Somalia. The amount of money sent from abroad to Kenya is huge," Ali said, pointing out that many Somalis in Kenya rely on relatives abroad for basics including school fees.

SOURCE:
af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0MZ0NE20150408

SEE ALSO:

mg.co.za/article/2015-04-08-kenya-shuts-down-somali-finance-companies-freezes-bank-accounts

afkinsider.com/93623/garissa-attack-kenya-shuts-down-somalias-remittance-systems/

It is not just ordinary Somalis cited in the Reuters report above.

Kenya is host to tens of thousands of South Sudanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Congolese, Sudanese and other nationals and refugees from neighbouring states who rely on Dahabshiil, Amal and other money transfer agencies to receive remittances from Australia, Canada, the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, the Gulf States and elsewhere.

Did the Kenya government have the courtesy of contacting the Government of South Sudan and indeed these other neighbours to consult them about their impulsive and myopic decision to abruptly shut down these firms?

Talking of financing al-Shabaaab, take a look at the following:

Al Shabaab moves funds through the standard system of banks and couriers, but also through the traditional Muslim system of hawala, an informal means of transferring value and remittances through networks of brokers.36 Hawala, common throughout Somalia, is based on trust and honor, and can be effective, reliable, and efficient; the fact that few, if any, records are kept, is an added bonus for groups like al Shabaab.37 It is possible to organize transfers through secret senders and receivers who do not record and will not disclose details of the transactions. On the negative side, hawala typically involves a great deal of communication by phone, e-mail, and fax, so once a broker comes under suspicion for working with terrorists, his or her transactions may be traceable. In Somalia, hawala is the most common way of transferring money, and is regularly used by ordinary Somalis, but authorities believe it is also used by many al Shabaab sympathizers to support the group's objectives.

Somalis in the diaspora also use wire services such as Western Union and MoneyGram to send money to their relatives in Somalia. These services are well-established in neighboring Kenya, where al Shabaab has a strong presence. Analysts assume that some portion of the money transferred by Somalis through regular wire and bank services is diverted to al Shabaab, although no figures are available.

Al Shabaab spends most of its money on four things: providing social services to its members (including paying salaries to foreign fighters); fighting to overthrow Somalia's Transitional Government and to expel Ethiopian troops from Somali territory; waging a violent campaign against nonbelievers (jihad), which includes recruiting and training fighters and buying weapons and equipment; and preaching extremism. Al Shabaab operatives often carry cash on their missions.

Excerpted from Financing al Shabaab: The Vital Port of Kismayo by: LTC Geoffrey Kambere, deputy chief of the Integrated Human Resource Management Information System, Ugandan People's Defence Forces.

The document is available at this link.

By the way the last time I checked Western Union and Moneygram cited above were still doing brisk business all over Kenya with the assumption that at least a portion of their business will somehow find its way into Al Shabaab's blood stained coffers.

We know that our mighty KDF boys apparently kicked Al Shabaab out of large parts of southern Somalia, including the port city of Kismayo. Who took over the lucrative illicit charcoal trade in the aftermath of this apparently "glorious" victory?

Read on:

According to the recent UNEP/Interpol report, the Somali charcoal export trade has not in the meantime diminished. Al-Shabaab earns somewhere between $38 million and $56 million annually from charcoal exports from Kismayo and Barawe. In addition, the group collects “taxes” from charcoal traders at roadblocks and checkpoints. At one roadblock alone, al-Shabaab is reported to have collected $8–$18 million annually. The Ras Kamboni militia, which is currently allied with the KDF, was formerly associated with al-Shabaab. Like al-Shabaab, the Ras Kamboni militia shares in the income from charcoal exports and collects -“taxes” at checkpoints and roadblocks. In Kismayo, the “Juba Business Committee” is dominated by Ras Kamboni. The members of the committee traded charcoal when al-Shabaab controlled the city and have continued since the KDF took over.

The consequence of these connections is a seamless network for the production and export of charcoal. The UN Monitoring Group noted the lack of any significant security incidents along routes on which checkpoints were variously controlled by al-Shabaab, Ras Kamboni, the Somali National Army, and the KDF. In human terms, the charcoal market is dominated by a small number of professional traders, around 70 in number, who are based in Kismayo, the Kenyan border town of Garissa, and Nairobi. These individuals act as brokers for larger traders based mainly in the United Arab Emirates. All the Somalia-Kenya based traders deal with al-Shabaab in one way or another, and some are representatives of that organization. Some of the principals in the charcoal trade in the UAE are also directly linked with al-Shabaab.

SOURCE:

www.ida.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Publications/AfricaWatch/africawatch-july-10-2014-vol5.ashx

To go latin on my readers, Cui Bono?

In other words WHO stands to GAIN from shutting down Dahabshiil, Amal and the other money transfer agencies in Kenya?

At the top of the list obviously Western Union and Moneygram.

Who ELSE does money transfers in Kenya?

Well, there is right there at the top, Safaricom's M-PESA service.

A component of M-PESA dubbed M-SHWARI is handled by the Commercial Bank of Africa.

Who owns CBA?

Well, the same family that President Uhuru Kenyatta belongs to.

To go Latin for a second time:

Q.E.D. or in other words, Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Huh?

What?

According to Wikipedia:

Q.E.D. is an initialism of the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, originating from the Ancient Greek analogous hóper édei deîxai (ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι), meaning "which had to be proven". The phrase is traditionally placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument when what was specified in the enunciation—and in the setting-out—has been exactly restated as the conclusion of the demonstration. The abbreviation thus signals the completion of the proof.

By the way, if we want to talk about the big boys who are serious about money laundering, please skip over small omena like



Dahabshiil and stare at the big sharks like



HSBC which was forced to pay a $1.9 billion settlement for its role in drug-money laundering during the global financial crisis

Big banks, money-laundering, and drug capital
posted by Seshata on July 16th 2013

Recently, the global banking conglomerate HSBC was struck with a $1.9billion (£1.2 billion) fine for its role in a vast international money-laundering scheme, which washed hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars in illegal transactions, with Mexican and Colombian cartels among the direct beneficiaries.

Liquid drug money propped up global banking system in 2008

There have been various suggestions since the financial crisis of 2008 that one of the main crutches propping up the international economy during the worst of the fiscal upheaval was black-market drug capital, which amounts to as much as 3.6% of annual global trade and (by virtue of its illegality) is among the most liquid.

Now, questions are being raised regarding the wider role played by the banking system and the governments of various countries in the global network of illegal drug capital. HSBC may have been the public scapegoat, but other banks (such as Wachovia, which has now collapsed) have been implicated in the scandal, and there are signs of deeper corruption pervading the entire system that has yet to be exposed.
Importance of drug capital in the global economy

The level of significance attached to this 3.6% of global trade, which in 2009 amounted to approximately $2.1 trillion, indicates the true importance of keeping the trade illegal. “Black” or illegal money can be far more liquid than “white” as it does not come under the same level of scrutiny, is not subject to taxes and flows around the world very quickly due to the rapid, unregulated nature of most illegal transactions.

In times of economic depression, drug money can represent a significant source of investment capital, particularly if the lending market is experiencing difficulties. In a fractional reserve system, lending usually creates capital for the banks as they can multiply the money supply (essentially, print more currency) on the basis of customer deposits. Repayment of loans issued using this increased supply of money provide liquid capital, and the basis for allowing new loans.

After the housing bubble of the mid-2000s collapsed, many banks sought alternative ways to mitigate the huge losses they faced and inflate their balance sheets to appear healthier on paper. HSBC themselves posted projected first-quarter 2008 losses of $17.2 billion after housing-market losses dramatically reduced the value of their existing loans. Stepping up money-laundering services for cartel clients therefore provided an easy solution to the problem of how to make the HSBC balance sheet appear healthy.

SOURCE:

sensiseeds.com/en/blog/big-banks-money-laundering-and-drug-capital/





Onyango Oloo
Nairobi
Wednesday, April 8, 2015

[jakaswanga]

FOOTNOTE:

There is a story told in modern Somali commercial history. They say, were it not for the concerted effort of the United States financial establishment, the leading commercial bank in Africa, if not the third world, would now be a Somali bank. Al-Barakat. The incipient Bank branched into Telecoms/mobile technology very early, and was negotiating with Gulf Capital to venture into communications and the real money market in Africa.

Safaricom against BaraTel in Kenya would be the battle around our airwaves. And if you check the figures of Somali (diaspora) remittance to Kenya, Al-Barakat fronting a Mpesa competitor, would jut be edging Safaricom in turn-over, and edging out Ouru's banks instead of the other way round!

So I believe the Somali researcher in London who wrote -when the Americans and British outlawed El-Barakat. ''Everybody knows this Somali Bank is going places. Just like it developed from the simple and primitive Hawallah, so will a mega Somali multinational mammoth concern develop from its simplicity and primitivity. This is the threat thy are nipping in the bud under the pretext of terrorist-funder! –-we Somalis recognise the game!''

Al-Barakat. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Al-Barakat

Type: Private. Industry: Banking[1], Construction, Money transfer, Telecommunication[1][2]
Founded: 1986. Founder: Ahmed Nur Ali Jumale. Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Key people: Liban Hussein, Muhammad Hussein

Al-Barakat, or Al-Barakaat (Arabic:), which means "Blessings" in Arabic, is a group of companies established in 1986 in Somalia. The firm is involved in the modern form of hawala, an informal value transfer system and remittance method. By 2001, Al-Barakat had outlets in 40 countries, and was the country's largest private employer. It handled about $140 million USD a year from the Somali diaspora, and also offered phone and Internet services.[3]
After the 9/11 attacks in United States, the US government listed Al-Barakat as a terrorist entity, seized its assets, and detained several people associated with the company. The firm's shut down placed an enormous strain on Somalia's economy, as a majority of residents were dependent on remittances sent by relatives based abroad.[4][5] In 2012, the US and UN officially removed Al-Barakat from their blacklists, finding that there was no evidence of the company's involvement in funding of any terrorist activities.[3] In 2014, a ceremony was held to mark the relaunching of the firm.

Has Obama released, with interest, the confiscated Al-Barakat assets!?
NB: Critics insist ''seizing'' weaker nations assets/bullion has become a USA method of dealing with its deficit crisis, a way of postponing a looming sovereign default.
1. The confiscation ''forever'' of the Iraqi reserves when Saddam invaded Q8.
2. The confiscation ''forever'' of Gaddafi's Libya reserves.
3. The inability to show in physical tonnage, Germany's haulage of gold kept at the FED since world war II ended. (is it sold? –-Merkel ever pretends not to hear this question.)
4. Where is Ukraine's hoard of gold!? –-(secretly transferred to … FED for safe keeping .. Kiev is too near Ivan the Bear?)
5. American attempts to have the Euro-Europeans freeze Russian bullion in the wake of the Ukrainian/Crimea crisis, bounced. Putin did not mince words: ''Russia is not a small boy you can slap and take his purse –-like Libya, we have the capacity to deal on equal footing with anybody and country!'' –-so measured sanctions it became.

Desperate times require desperate measures. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31159900

US bank to axe Somalia transfers over al-Shabab fears
6 February 2015
From the section US & Canada

The Merchants Bank of California handled requests for the US-based Somali community
A bank which handles money transfers between US-based Somalis and their families in east Africa is to close its service over concerns the funds are being channelled to militants.
Merchants Bank of California handles up to 80% of such transfers from the US, worth about $200m annually.
But it says it will no longer be able to continue due to new money-laundering regulations.
One US congressman described the decision as "catastrophic".
Keith Ellison who represents Minneapolis, which has the largest concentration of Somalis in the US, said the closing of such services would be devastating.
"There is no doubt that a decline in remittances will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and erode the gains Somalia has made in recent years," he said in a statement released by Oxfam.
Regulators are concerned that some of the money transfers may be finding their way into the hands of Islamists tied to the al-Shabab militia.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a federal regulator, told the US bank last year that it found its anti-money laundering procedures inadequate.
In the US, bank directors are responsible for ensuring all the funds they handle are used for legitimate purposes.
The OCC ordered the Merchants Bank to determine more exactly the destination of the funds it was wiring.

Confused reaction

But in a letter to its clients last month, officials from the bank said they could not meet the regulators' requirements and would have to close their money wiring service, US media reported.
Regulators are worried money could end up with Islamist militants in Somalia
Abdullahi Ismail, a Somali-born US citizen who lives in California, told the BBC that the local Somali community was baffled by the decision.
"Nobody knows what to do at this point but everybody's just shocked by that news," he said.
"I really don't know if anybody sends money to the terrorists or launders money. Most Somalis send the remittances to their families, who are not doing anything wrong in Somalia."

Analysis: Mary Harper, Africa editor, BBC World Service

Somali remittances are a lifeline. The United Nations estimates Somalis in the diaspora send home $1.6bn annually, significantly more than foreign aid.

According to a UN study, more than 40% of Somalis receive remittances, the bulk of which are used for basic needs, including food, clothes, medicine and education.

As stability returns to some parts of the country, remittances are increasingly used for investment. They are an essential part of rebuilding Somalia.

There is no functioning banking system in Somalia, so remittances are the only way people outside the country can support those at home. They play a crucial role during the frequent droughts as international aid agencies use them in cash for food programmes.
While it is understandable that banks fear potential fines by regulators, closing the accounts of Somali remittance companies risks driving underground the flow of cash to Somalia, exacerbating the problems of violent Islamism, piracy and the trafficking of arms, drugs and people.

In a similar move in 2013, UK banking giant Barclays also sought to cut ties with Somalia by closing the account of leading Somali money-transfer operator Dahabshiil.
Barclays, which said it was part of a crackdown on money laundering, eventually agreed to keep the account open so that Dahabshiil could find a replacement bank.
Somalia does not have a proper banking system and has been in turmoil since the fall of Siad Barre's government in 1991.

The parasitic, predatory elite in Kenya, not to be left behind, joins in the cannibalisation of Somalis. Which commercial lawyer or accountant in Nairobi never handled Pirate cash? Pirates were never Al-shabaab. And it was a very tough way to earn a living or make a fortune. –-So when smart alec parasites in Nairobi just turn around and ''annex'' such hard-won fortunes by simply declaring them TERRORIST FUNDINGS, out there in the real tough world there must be a reckoning.
Also remember Siad Barre arrived in Nairobi with the whole foreign currency reserves of Somalia. –--Anybody interested will know which estates were bought by this bullion. So beware deporting Somali refugees. They have a ''historic claim'' to Nairobi's booming stock market.
Al-Shabaab? If all these businesses and forex bureaus and financial empires were at their beck and call, and 70% of Kenyans join for cash, ie mercenaries, then the Kenyan factor in Al-Shabaab, me reckons, would be bigger than the Kenyan army personnel registry! A Hundred thousand at least!

So lots aint adding up.

[Onyango Oloo]

Speaking of al Barakaat, Jakaswanga, almost 12 years ago, I posted a story when I was still a moderator at Mashada, the then very popular Kenyan discussion forum.

I went ferreting for that story but found instead a "404" message indicating a broken dead link:

www.mashada.com/forums/politics/3235-al-barakaat-untold-saga.html

But since I usually archive all the digital essays that I have written, here is the piece, revived again:

Onyango Oloo
Thu Jul-17-03 03:33 PM
Charter member
1346 posts


#23402, "al-Barakaat, The Untold Saga"
Thu Jul-17-03 04:38 PM by Onyango Oloo



al-Barakaat, The Untold Saga

An Investigative Piece by

Onyango Oloo in Montreal, July 17, 2003

Cab drivers can be mobile encyclopedias and most of the ones I have encountered are very mentally agile. This last Sunday I found out more about an African business empire while ensconced in the back seat of a taxi moving between the Runnymede/Bloor and the Queensway/Windmere in Toronto’s west end.

The driver was a young Somali looking man. I say Somali looking because I have learned to my cost, never to jump to conclusions about where people were from based on how they looked. I almost got thrown out of a taxi several years ago when I gleefully fingered my hired chauffeur as an Ethiopian. I only found that I was talking to an irate, thoroughly insulted Eritrean when the vehicle screeched to a halt as the offended driver demanded, “What did you call me?!”

So this time around, I decided to play it safe. After the greetings and the normal pleasantries, I offered that I was from Kenya and when he could not speak a word of Kiswahili, I ventured tentatively whether he was a Somali.

He answered in the affirmative; he was from Mogadishu; left his place of birth in 1988 and had spent the intervening years in the UK and other parts of Europe before relocating to Ontario.

Soon we were in animated chitchat.

Somehow we started talking about al-Barakat. I may have asked something about what happened to one of the Ottawa based directors of this operation who at point was being tagged as one of the Al Qaeda money bags in Canada.

The taxi driver- let’s call him Abdi told me a story that never made it on CNN or CBC.

He informed me that he made about $500 every week ( yes, that is in our Canadian pesos, you puffed up American dwellers with your mighty Yankee dollars) doing his driving gig. For the last six years he told me, he had been putting all his money in an al-Barakaat account where he had transferred all his money after transferring all his funds from the mainstream banking institutions like the Royal, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal and CIBC. At its peak, he had about $50,000 locked away in al-Barakaat. This money helped support his family and was the reservoir he hoped to draw upon later on in life.

Abdi informed me that he was not the only one. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds had all followed suit and taken their money out of Western financial institutions into al-Barakaat. He told me of dozens of Somali tycoons investing upwards of millions of dollars in the operation.

Then one day, just like that, all those savings and funds were gone just like that.

Abdi says he lost $50,000. He says he knows of people who lost $100 million. I can not vouch for the accuracy of these figures except to underscore that the financial loss was devastating.

As he dropped me off at my destination, Abdi hinted darkly that even though he was a member of the same clan as American marine turned Mogadishu war lord Hussein Aideed, he would personally volunteer to shoot the war lord dead for the kind of devastation he had caused to countless Somali families around the world.

Surprised, I inquired what Aideed Jr. had to do with this. Abdi told me that it was Hussein who suggested to the Americans that al- Barakat may have been linked to the feared terror network as a conduit for transferring Al Qaeda funds around the world. It was a bit bizarre to hear that the son of the man credited for handing the Americans one of their most humiliating defeats could be an accomplice in a paralyzing action against so many of his compatriots. But the taxi driver insisted that the former Marine blathered on to the Yankees about how his father used to hang out with a certain Saudi born millionaire contractor turned ascetic cave-dweller.

Over the next five or six hours, as I traveled back to Quebec, my head swam with a zillion notions about al-Barakat, Al Qaeda and the disengagement of Third World people from the global financial system.

Initially my own knowledge about al-Barakat was quite vague, limited to the gleanings from the newspaper headlines and sound bites from prime time news to the snatches of conversations from Somali friends and associates in and around Toronto.

At first, I thought that al-Barakat was just a large hawala clearing house. For those not in the know, hawala is a system that many of you may have used without even realizing.

I remember back in the early nineties many Kenyan immigrants, especially from Mombasa had a sure fire way of getting money from Canada to their folks back home. You would go to the house of this thirtysomething Swahili woman and tell her that you wanted to send say 150 dollars to your father in Kibokoni or Port Reitz, but that you wanted them to receive it in Kenyan shillings. You would give her the money over here in Canada and she would tell you to phone your people to go and pick up the chapaa from Mzee so and so. Since I personally never used the system, I am not sure if you paid a little fee or if the money you gave her was simply deposited in a Canadian bank account to be used by that home based mfanyibiashara whenever he happened to be in North America.

The hawala system was based on trust and a network of people who knew each other. Most of the people I knew who were involved with hawala were Waswahili, Wasomali or Wahindi, but of course the practice was quite widespread in the Middle East, the wider Muslim world, and the South Asian communities given the Indian origins (where it is called hundi), of the phenomenon.

Of course after 9/11 hawala has been increasingly criminalized. (See the following links:

www.interpol.int/Public/FinancialCrime/MoneyLaundering/hawala/default.asp

freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/hawala.htm

www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=16102001-025648-5774r

www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,178227,00.html


So I thought that al-Barakaat had been shut down because it was seen as a sinister hawala operation. But the facts turned out to be much more complex than that.

As is my wont before I write any digital essay, I do extensive research.

And I found out a few things about al-Barakat.

I found out that the key figure in al-Barakat was Sheikh Ahmed Ali Jima’ale who lived in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. A Somali national, Sheikh Jima’ale oversaw a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that operated in 40 countries. The al- Barakat empire included banks, telecommunications companies, internet service providers, travel agencies and construction businesses.

Al Barakat was Somalia’s largest employer and in a country pulverized by civil war, its only financial and communications lifeline. Every year, al-Barakat channeled at least $500 million into Somalia- remittances from the hundreds of thousands of Somalis living in the Gulf, Europe, North America and all over Africa. Abdi the taxi driver explained to me that al-Barakat had ensured that even the most humble camel herds boy had a cell-phone through which he could get confirmation of a money transfer from a relative abroad.

The Somali Diaspora, a fiercely patriotic lot, despite the clan driven carnage of the long civil war spontaneously decided to support al-Barakat which they saw as one of their own. Perhaps, people like Abdi and others took very extreme measures by withdrawing totally from the mainstream Western financial system but there is no doubt that they were driven by more than a bit of economic nationalism in supporting a Somali and Muslim run financial operation that was deemed to be less exploitative and alienated from its clients.

The Americans alleged that al -Barakat was a” quartermaster of terror” and a “pariah in the civilized world”. They accused Sheikh Ahmed Ali Jima’ale of being close to Osama bin Laden and that he was a member of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, dubbed a terrorist outfit by the United States. A former member of al-Itihaad, Hussein Ali Elmi came forward with claims that he and Sheikh Jima’ale had been members of that organization in the 1980s.

Sheikh Jima’ale denied all these accusations stating that he had never met Osama bin Laden and citing his solid business contacts in Europe that led for instance, to his close collaboration with the Irish telecommunications firm, Microcellular Systems whose parent InterWave is listed on the Nasdaq in rolling out al-Barakat’s GSM mobile network in Somalia at low cost and getting interWave to assume all risks for the venture- something of a feat in one of the places considered among the most lawless on the entire planet.

There was a time when the United Nations used to pay its Somali staff through al-Barakat and even used it to transfer money into Somalia- hardly the sort of thing you would expect the world’s largest multilateral network to do with a presumably shady terrorist linked hawala outfit.

Nevertheless, on November 7, 2001, the Washington based Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism included the following enterprises as falling under President Bush’s Executive Order 13224 blocking the assets of organizations and individuals with links to terrorism:

al-Barakaat
al-Barakaat Bank
al-Barakat Bank of Somalia
al-Barakat Finance Group
al-Barakat Global Telecommunications
al-Barakat Group of Companies Somalia Limited
al-Barakat International(aka Baraco Co.)
al-Barakat Investments
al-Barakat Wiring Service
Barakaat Boston
Barakaat Construction Company
Barakaat Enterprise
Barakaat Group of Companies
Barakaat International
Barakaat International Foundation
Barakaat North America , Inc.
Barakaat Red Sea Telecommunications
Barakat Bank and Remittances
Barakat Computer Consulting Group(BCG)
Barakat Global Telephone Company
Barakat International Companies(BICO)
Barakat Post Express(BPE)
Barakat Refreshment Company
Barakat Wire Transfer Company
Barakat Telecommunications Company Limited(BTELCO)
Red Sea Barakat Company Limited
Somali Internet Company
Somali Network AB

In addition, several Somali figures, including Sheikh Ahmed Nur Ali Jima’ale had their personal assets seized and frozen.
On Sunday, November 13th, Arabic News.Com quoted Somali President Abdul Qasem Salad Hassan as stating that al-Barakaat was innocent of accusations linking it to al-Qaida. He further denied rumours of al-Qaida's training camps in Somalia.

Apart from the direct and heavy hits the investors of these al-Barakaat ventures took, the impact was far greater among ordinary Somalis. I have already cited the testimony of “Abdi” the Toronto taxi driver who lost the $50,000 he had toiled for six years in saving.

On the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the London based Guardian newspaper published an account from Adam Hassan, a Somali refugee worker in London who fled the civil war in the east African country. Here is an excerpt from his piece:

“ As a Muslim and a human being, I cannot condone what happened in America. There is no doubt that it was a horrific attack. There is no doubt also that the implications from that attack have had long lasting ramifications for people everywhere. It affected my Somali community because some Somalis have been associated with the attack. There was a bank used by Somalis to send remittances to their relatives and loved ones, mainly for maintenance of people who have nothing. That bank was closed down because of accusations it was involved with transferring money for al-Qaida. I was among many Somalis- hundreds of thousands of Somalis in the Diaspora-who used the bank to transfer money. For the first couple of months, the closure created confusion as money people sent through al-Barakat didn’t go there, and I know people whose relatives are still waiting for that money. People have lost their savings because the money was frozen- it is still sitting somewhere. Imagine, a lot of people depended on that maintenance for their schooling, health, education, medication, their food, their rent- there are people who have been kicked out of rented houses, there are people who are bankrupt. For an already disrupted and dislocated people like the Somalis, on the breadline, the impact has to be enormous.. As far as I’m concerned, they had no evidence linking al-Barakat to al-Qaida. But there is no one in Somalia who can say: ‘Show us the evidence or leave the bank alone.’ So it gets frozen. Bush doesn’t care about Somalia, or whether tons of thousands of Somalis who worked for the bank lose their jobs or others die. All he cares about is him, and that is what is causing a lot resentment.”

Many people have echoed the sentiments expressed by Adam Hassan, especially the questions about the lack of evidence linking al-Barakat to al-Qaida. Was it just because the two organization’s names are preceded with the al- prefix?

A Somali born, Ottawa based Canadian citizen, Leiban Hussein was briefly incarcerated on suspicion of Al-Qaida ties based on his status as the Chairman of the now defunct al-Barakat North America Foundation. The charges against him were later dropped and he was cleared.

To my mind, there is an element of terrorist links with the al-Barakat story, but not from a source you would think of straight away. To my mind, there has been a clear case of terrorist activity involved in the al-Barakat case. But this is terrorism AGAINST al-Barakat, against Somalis, against Africans and against Muslims.

This terrorism is not coming from an obscure cave in Afghanistan.

Rather it emanates from one of the shadowy federal buildings of the United States government.

I charge the United States government with conducting state terrorism against legitimate African and Muslim owned businesses and their peaceful and law abiding owners.

When some of us talk of imperialism, we are not just using tired stock phrases from yesteryear. Imperialism has a very specific meaning in political and economic terms.

It means the unfettered rule of international finance capital. In our era, this has to be qualified to emphasize that it is dominated by American corporate interests trying to elbow everyone out of the way to claim global supremacy.

Apart from the obvious and overt racist and vengeful act of shutting down the largest Somali owned company in the world as payback for the 1993 debacle in Mogadishu(which inspired the revisionist Black Hawk Down horror/action flick) one must see the move against al-Barakat in its very naked economic and financial manifestations. Surely, some corporate competitor would have loved to get their hands in that lucrative pie in supposedly devastated Somalia.

On the 30th of April 2002, the BBC announced on its website that “ a new Somali telecoms company has bought out al-Barakat... The new company, Hormud Telecom Somalia, has spent $ 2 million buying the equipment and premises of al-Barakat Telecommunications, said shareholder Abdikarim Ali Mohammed...The company said it had no links with al-Barakat, which had more than 40,000 subscribers...”

Who owns Hormud? I am still trying to find out.

What is even more galling than witnessing the United States move its massive might to crush a flourishing African business on the basis of racist innuendo and unproven hearsay is the blatant double standards.

ENRON, by now a by word for corporate sleaze bilked billions from its clients and the American taxpayers. Yet most of its key figures like Ken Lay are walking around scot free, thanks to their election campaign contributions and personal and business ties with George Bush and company. For more on ENRON check out:

multinationalmonitor.org/enron/enronindex.html

www.ratical.org/corporations/mm10worst01.html

www.corpwatch.org/issues/PII.jsp?topicid=145

www.thedailyenron.com/

www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1998430

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/business/specials/energy/enron/

The al-Barakaat saga tells us several things.

It underscores the reality of global capital and what it will do to stifle any burgeoning national bourgeoisie in the Third World seen to be inimical to pose a long term regional threat, no matter how minor.

It illustrates the continuing demonization of all things Muslim by tarring it with terrorist links.

It exposes the hypocrisy of the United States which sheds crocodile tears while decrying African poverty when it does not bat an eyelid to crush one of Africa’s biggest employers and success stories.

It is also a foretaste at the coming imperialist incursion in East Africa and the Horn of Africa region as the United States and her allies move in to safeguard their security, economic, ideological and geo-political strategic interests.

As Kenyans we must stand in solidarity with our neighbours the Somalis who have such close cultural and historical ties with the Kenyan people- an entire region of our country is home to Kenyans from various Somali ethnic groups and clans.

As Kenyans we must call on our government to bring forth the question of al-Barakaat at the continental African Union meetings, and the international UN and Non-Aligned Movement gatherings.

The key demand is to unfreeze the assets of the al-Barakaat conglomerate and to share the results of any investigations linking al-Barakaat to al-Qaida, as well as supporting any legal actions taken by al-Barakaat and its supporters seeking judicial redress because the gross injustices they have suffered since the fall of 2001.

And we should not rush to cheer the next time our government bans flights to Somalia.

Onyango Oloo
Montreal
Thursday, July 17, 2003




Alert | IP
Printer-friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

[Onyango Oloo]

Some Kenyan journalists-both print and electronic-are just plain IGNORANT!

They keep referring to the forex bureaus illegally shut down as "hawalas".

Even with Google and other search robots at their finger tips, they deliberately conflate and mix up HAWALAS which by DEFINITION are INFORMAL UNREGISTERED PERSONAL NETWORKS with the LEGAL, HIGHLY REGULATED FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS WHICH OPERATE OPENLY, IN OFFICES, ISSUE RECEIPTS AND CAN BE CONTACTED AROUND THE CLOCK VIA PHONE, SMS, TWITTER ETC.

Thinking darkly, I highly suspect that, to use a Kenyanism, "Pesa imemwagwa".

In other words, these poor excuses for trained journalists are consciously following a script downloaded from the STATE.

Onyango Oloo

[Onyango Oloo]

Talking of ignoramuses embedded in the Fourth Estate, in case any of them are lurking here, heads cast downward in utter, abject shame, Onyango Oloo would like to offer a free community service, in the form of recycling a Wikipedia article on HAWALA:

Hawala


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hawala or Hewala (Arabic: حِوالة‎, meaning transfer), also known as hundi, is an informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money brokers, primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, operating outside of, or parallel to, traditional banking, financial channels, and remittance systems.


Origins

Hawala itself influenced the development of the agency in common law and in civil laws, such as the aval in French law and the avallo in Italian law. The words aval and avallo were themselves derived from hawala. The transfer of debt, which was "not permissible under Roman law but became widely practiced in medieval Europe, especially in commercial transactions", was due to the large extent of the "trade conducted by the Italian cities with the Muslim world in the Middle Ages". The agency was also "an institution unknown to Roman law" as no "individual could conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent". In Roman law, the "contractor himself was considered the party to the contract and it took a second contract between the person who acted on behalf of a principal and the latter in order to transfer the rights and the obligations deriving from the contract to him". On the other hand, Islamic law and the later common law "had no difficulty in accepting agency as one of its institutions in the field of contracts and of obligations in general".

Hawala is believed to have arisen in the financing of long-distance trade around the emerging capital trade centers in the early medieval period. In South Asia, it appears to have developed into a fully-fledged money market instrument, which was only gradually replaced by the instruments of the formal banking system in the first half of the 20th century. Today, hawala is probably used mostly for migrant workers' remittances to their countries of origin.

How hawala works

In the most basic variant of the hawala system, money is transferred via a network of hawala brokers, or hawaladars. It is the transfer of money without actually moving it. In fact, a successful definition of the hawala system that is used is "money transfer without money movement".

Hawala example transaction:

The figure shows how Hawala works: (1) a customer (A, left-hand side) approaches a hawala broker (X) in one city and gives a sum of money (red arrow) that is to be transferred to a recipient (B, right-hand side) in another, usually foreign, city. Along with the money, he usually specifies something like a password that will lead to the money being paid out (blue arrows). (2b) The hawala broker X calls another hawala broker M in the recipient's city, and informs M about the agreed password, or gives other disposition instructions of the funds. Then, the intended recipient (B), who also has been informed by A about the password (2a), now approaches M and tells him the agreed password (3a). If the password is correct, then M releases the transferred sum to B (3b), usually minus a small commission. X now basically owes M the money that M had paid out to B; thus M has to trust X '​s promise to settle the debt at a later date.

The unique feature of the system is that no promissory instruments are exchanged between the hawala brokers; the transaction takes place entirely on the honour system. As the system does not depend on the legal enforceability of claims, it can operate even in the absence of a legal and juridical environment. Trust and extensive use of connections, such as family relations and regional affiliations, are the components that distinguish it from other remittance systems.

Informal records are produced of individual transactions, and a running tally of the amount owed by one broker to another is kept. Settlements of debts between hawala brokers can take a variety of forms (such as goods, services, properties, transfers of employees, etc.), and need not take the form of direct cash transactions.

In addition to commissions, hawala brokers often earn their profits through bypassing official exchange rates. Generally, the funds enter the system in the source country's currency and leave the system in the recipient country's currency. As settlements often take place without any foreign exchange transactions, they can be made at other than official exchange rates.

Hawala is attractive to customers because it provides a fast and convenient transfer of funds, usually with a far lower commission than that charged by banks. Its advantages are most pronounced when the receiving country applies unprofitable exchange rate regulations (as has been the case for many typical receiving countries such as Egypt) or when the banking system in the receiving country is less complex (e.g., due to differences in legal environment in places such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia). Moreover, in some parts of the world it is the only option for legitimate fund transfers, and has even been used by aid organizations in areas where it is the best-functioning institution.

Regional variants

South Asia

Hundis


The hundi is a financial instrument that developed on the Indian sub-continent for use in trade and credit transactions. Hundis are used as a form of remittance instrument to transfer money from place to place, as a form of credit instrument or IOU to borrow money and as a bill of exchange in trade transactions. The Reserve Bank of India describes the Hundi as "an unconditional order in writing made by a person directing another to pay a certain sum of money to a person named in the order."

Angadia

The word angadia means courier in Hindi, but also designates those who act as hawaladars within India. These people mostly act as a parallel banking system for businessmen. They charge a commission of around 0.2–0.5% per transaction from transferring money from one city to another.

Horn of Africa

According to the CIA, with the dissolution of Somalia's formal banking system, many informal money transfer operators have arisen to fill the void. It estimates that such hawaladars are now responsible for the transfer of up to $1.6 billion per year in remittances to the country, most coming from working Somalis outside Somalia. Such funds have in turn had a stimulating effect on local business activity.

West Africa

The 2012 Tuareg rebellion has left Northern Mali without official money transfer service for months. The coping mechanisms that appeared are patterned on the Hawala system.

Post-9/11 money laundering crackdowns

Some government officials assert that hawala can be used to facilitate money laundering, avoid taxation, and move wealth anonymously. As a result, it is illegal in some U.S. states, India, Pakistan, and some other countries.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the American government suspected that some hawala brokers may have helped terrorist organizations to transfer money to fund their activities, but the 9/11 Commission Report since showed that that the bulk of the funds were instead sent by an official inter-bank wire transfer. As a result of intense pressure from the U.S. authorities to introduce systematic anti-money laundering initiatives on a global scale, a number of hawala networks have been closed down and a number of hawaladars have been successfully prosecuted for money laundering. However, there is little evidence that these actions have brought the authorities any closer to identifying and arresting a significant number of terrorists or drug smugglers. Experts emphasize that the overwhelming majority of those who use these informal networks are doing so for legitimate purposes, and simply choose to use a transaction medium other than state-supported banking systems. Today, the hawala system in Afghanistan is instrumental in providing financial services for the delivery of emergency relief and humanitarian and developmental aid for the majority of international and domestic NGOs, donor organizations, and development aid agencies.

In November 2001, the Bush administration froze the assets of Al-Barakat, a Somali remittance hawala company used primarily by a large number of Somalian immigrants. Many of its agents in several countries were initially arrested, though later freed after no concrete evidence against them was found. In August 2006 the last Al-Barakat representatives were taken off the U.S. terror list, though some assets remain frozen. The mass media has speculated that pirates from Somalia use the hawala system to move funds internationally, for example into neighboring Kenya, where these transactions are neither taxed nor recorded.

In January 2010, the Kabul office of New Ansari Exchange, Afghanistan's largest hawala money transfer business, was shuttered following a raid by the Sensitive Investigative Unit, the country's national anti-political corruption unit, allegedly because this company was involved in laundering profits from the illicit opium trade and the moving of cash earned by government allied warlords through extortion and drug trafficking. Thousands of records were seized, from which links were found between money transfers by this company and political and business figures and NGOs in the country, including relatives of President Hamid Karzai. In August 2010, Karzai took control of the task force that staged the raid, and the US-advised anti-corruption group, the Major Crimes Task Force. He ordered a commission to review scores of past and current anti-corruption inquests.

[Onyango Oloo]

JUST TO MAKE SURE, I DID NOT WAIT FOR THE KENYAN MEDIA TO COME TO JUKWAA AND READ THIS ARTICLE.

I TWEETED THE WHOLE LOT OF THEM THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS DIGITAL ESSAY!

As they say:

Fanya wema kisha nenda zako.

[kamalet]

Oloo

I think what you should be looking at is the possibility that the so-called Hawalas or even Money Transfer bureaux could be handling terrorist money. If this was the case and in light of the suffering Kenyans have undergone, would it be right to close them down?

Too much water has passed under the bridge on the Piracy money that has financed very many Somali enterprises in Kenya and I highly doubt if we re-started the audit called for by Kimemia 4 years ago we can trace anything! Today we are dealing with a present danger on Kenya and that danger is being financed somehow through improper record keeping by the money handlers as well as surveillance by the authorities!

Western Union and MoneyGram have a clear policy on record keeping and in Kenya their agents are all registered entities by the CBK. The amounts of money you can move through these agencies is limited.

As for Safaricom and its MPESA, I could not help notice your attempt at sniping the president's family interest in CBA. You surely know that the CBA link is on MSHWARI which is essentially a savings and loans arrangement for Safaricom's MPESA subscribers and transactions are within one's own MPESA account!

Quoting your earlier edict on fact checking......do you want to correct this?

[ebarasi]

Apr 9, 2015 18:28:31 GMT 3 kamalet said:

Oloo

I think what you should be looking at is the possibility that the so-called Hawalas or even Money Transfer bureaux could be handling terrorist money. If this was the case and in light of the suffering Kenyans have undergone, would it be right to close them down?

Kamale,

The intelligent thing to do would have been to infiltrate these remittance firms and follow the money. This would have placed the government in the unenviable position of driving an Intelligence driven anti-terror campaign. As things stand, "the terrorist" trail has run cold. If indeed terrorists were using these firms, let's see some above board prosecutions and convictions based on the evidence used to close these firms. These are funds from traceable remitters in the diaspora and run through registered institutions in Kenya. Otherwise this is another one of those missed opportunities where short term gain overrode long term gain and interest. Who really then benefits?

[OtishOtish]

Sigh. Not again. Let's quickly go back to Dec last year:

---(Reuters) - Kenya has shut down more than 500 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including 15 groups it said had links to financing terrorism, though critics said the government was silencing critics under the guise of security.

www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/16/us-kenya-security-ngos-idUSKBN0JU21J20141216

---Kenya Shuts Down 15 Islamic Charities and NGOs for Supporting Terrorism

www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2014/12/31/kenya-shuts-down-15-islamic-charities-and-ngos-for-supporting-terrorism/

---Fifteen NGOs, based mainly in northern Kenya and the Coast, were accused of funding terrorism and banned.

mobile.nation.co.ke/news/500-charities-shut-and-accounts-frozen/-/1950946/2559302/-/format/xhtml/-/jwwddx/-/index.html

---About 10 non-governmental organisations are under investigation for probable links with Al-Shabaab, the Sunday Nation can reveal. According to police sources, the NGOs are suspected of soliciting funds in the name of delivering aid but turn around and finance terrorism in the country and the East African region.

www.nation.co.ke/news/NGOs-under-probe-for-funding-Al-Shabaab/-/1056/2555452/-/14ttqlvz/-/index.html

And so on, and so forth. All over the place

And here we are today.

What exactly did GoK do about those organizations (and their leaders) that were "supporting terrorism" last year? I don't recall a court case or anything to suggest that these "supporters of terrorism" were being dealt with.

[jakaswanga]

Apr 8, 2015 23:14:50 GMT 3 Onyango Oloo said:

Speaking of al Barakaat, Jakaswanga, almost 12 years ago, I posted a story when I was still a moderator at Mashada, the then very popular Kenyan discussion forum.

I went ferreting for that story but found instead a "404" message indicating a broken dead link:

www.mashada.com/forums/politics/3235-al-barakaat-untold-saga.html

But since I usually archive all the digital essays that I have written, here is the piece, revived again:

OF TOP PREDATORS AND SCAVENGERS

Apr 8, 2015 23:14:50 GMT 3 Onyango Oloo said:

For the last six years he told me, he had been putting all his money in an al-Barakaat account where he had transferred all his money after transferring all his funds from the mainstream banking institutions like the Royal, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal and CIBC. At its peak, he had about $50,000 locked away in al-Barakaat. This money helped support his family and was the reservoir he hoped to draw upon later on in life.

Abdi informed me that he was not the only one. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds had all followed suit and taken their money out of Western financial institutions into al-Barakaat. He told me of dozens of Somali tycoons investing upwards of millions of dollars in the operation.

Then one day, just like that, all those savings and funds were gone just like that.

Abdi says he lost $50,000. He says he knows of people who lost $100 million. I can not vouch for the accuracy of these figures except to underscore that the financial loss was devastating.

Those savings were gone, just like that! It is a quite a statement –-given it is true, and thousands of thriving diasporra Somali businessess were ruined. Talk about the sanctity of private property under free enterprise!

This Londoner tells it with clarity

Apr 8, 2015 23:14:50 GMT 3 Onyango Oloo said:

''People have lost their savings because the money was frozen- it is still sitting somewhere. Imagine, a lot of people depended on that maintenance for their schooling, health, education, medication, their food, their rent- there are people who have been kicked out of rented houses, there are people who are bankrupt. For an already disrupted and dislocated people like the Somalis, on the breadline, the impact has to be enormous.. As far as I’m concerned, they had no evidence linking al-Barakat to al-Qaida. But there is no one in Somalia who can say: ‘Show us the evidence or leave the bank alone.’ So it gets frozen. Bush doesn't’t care about Somalia, or whether tons of thousands of Somalis who worked for the bank lose their jobs or others die. All he cares about is him, and that is what is causing a lot resentment.

HASSAN: ''But there is no one in Somalia who can say: ‘Show us the evidence or leave the bank alone.’ So it gets frozen. Bush doesn't’t care about Somalia, or whether tons of thousands of Somalis who worked for the bank lose their jobs or others die. All he cares about is him, and that is what is causing a lot resentment.''

That is also a definition of IMPUNITY.

Apr 8, 2015 23:14:50 GMT 3 Onyango Oloo said:

''What is even more galling than witnessing the United States move its massive might to crush a flourishing African business on the basis of racist innuendo and unproven hearsay is the blatant double standards.''

Now, none other than Barrack Hussein Obama is coming to Kenya. may be to rehash some old trash like the parnership for development Thabo Mbeki was once annointed to fron! --was it NEPAD? But before that, let us listen to his distant Jaluo brother, Onyango Oloo (take your pick)

Oloo: ''It exposes the hypocrisy of the United States which sheds crocodile tears while decrying African poverty when it does not bat an eyelid to crush one of Africa’s biggest employers and success stories.

It is also a foretaste at the coming imperialist incursion in East Africa and the Horn of Africa region as the United States and her allies move in to safeguard their security, economic, ideological and geo-political strategic interests.

As Kenyans we must stand in solidarity with our neighbours the Somalis who have such close cultural and historical ties with the Kenyan people- an entire region of our country is home to Kenyans from various Somali ethnic groups and clans.

As Kenyans we must call on our government to bring forth the question of al-Barakaat at the continental African Union meetings, and the international UN and Non-Aligned Movement gatherings.''
Read more: jukwaa.proboards.com/posts/recent#ixzz3WprwEXRh

As far as that solidarity thing is concerned, we Kenyans are doing it, but the side we are on couldn't be further from Onyango Oloo's thinking!

Yesterday, a group of companies including several FOREX buros whose accounts were [surprise surprise] frozen by the Kenyan treasury, protested their innocence through group organisations.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 8 – A gazette notice that listed 85 companies with suspected links to terrorism caused a stir with some of those mentioned denying any involvement in terror related activities.
Kenya Forex Remittance Association Chief Executive Officer Anthony Wachira told a press conference in Nairobi that 13 of the money transfer companies listed in the Kenya gazette were duly licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the association.
“If you look at that list, it is sad that licensed entities are put together with suspected terrorists,” he complained.

But cynics would say, of course, they all would deny it [collusion with terrorists) vehemently.
Meanwhile across, we are not making friends with the ordinary people affected.

MOGADISHU, Apr 10 – Residents of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Thursday condemned as “collective punishment” Kenya’s shutting down of money transfer services to the country over suspected links to the Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab.
Kenya on Wednesday froze key transfer companies vital for impoverished Somalia, as part of a crackdown on alleged Shabaab supporters following the university massacre of almost 150 people by the Islamists last week.
“It is a bad decision that collectively punishes the Somali people,” said Abdisalim Mohamed, a resident in Mogadishu.
“It is already affecting me directly, because I cannot get money and help from my daughter, who has a business in Kenya.”
With no formal banking system in the impoverished country, diaspora Somalis use money transfer services to send cash back home to support their families, sending some $1.3 billion (1.1 billion euros) each year, dwarfing foreign aid.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday warned Shabaab fighters his government would respond to the killing of 148 people at the university in Garissa in the “severest way” possible, with warplanes on Monday attacking Islamist bases in southern Somalia.

We trade Somali charcoal, somali prostitutes, somali real estate, extort somali pirate money and confiscate somali cash cows and diaspora remittances –-manna from heaven! we Kenyans are vultures scavenging that land. At best the hireling of top predators planning total expropriation of Somali gas reserves.

Linda nchi? The spirit of good neighbourliness would be a good start.

[podp]

Apr 10, 2015 4:29:51 GMT 3 OtishOtish said:

Sigh. Not again. Let's quickly go back to Dec last year:

-.....
And here we are today.

What exactly did GoK do about those organizations (and their leaders) that were "supporting terrorism" last year? I don't recall a court case or anything to suggest that these "supporters of terrorism" were being dealt with.

a dry thought is at the height of Mungiki menace we never saw the Kibaki administration close down banks owned by Gema community

[Onyango Oloo]

www.radiodalsan.com/2015/04/09/remittance-companies-in-kenya-react-to-government-move-to-suspend-licenses/

Kenya Forex Bureau association has faulted government move to issue a directive to close down and suspend their licenses for operation.

The association has also blamed the government for not giving chance to defend itself as it is legally approved and licensed by central bank of Kenya.

They said in a joint press conference that all 13 companies were registered including telecommunication giant Safaricom.

“We are greatly concerned that our legally operating members are classified with suspected terrorist,” read part of press statement.

“As association, we wish to inform the general public that we do not at any time support or encourage any of our members with terrorist or terror activities,” it added.

The association has urged also the government to punish through the law any member found in engaging in terror activities instead of collective punishment.

“We wish to clarify that if any member is found guilty of engaging in terror related activity then that member should face full force of the law individually,”

Meanwhile remittance company were close all over predominate Somali neighborhood of Eastleigh on Tuesday.

Notice of closure until further notice and confused customers were seen in front of the Halawa branches.

Kenya government has maintained that the move is aimed at security measure to curb increasing Al Shabaab attacks in the country.

[Onyango Oloo]

www.businessinsider.com/kenya-just-shut-down-somali-owned-money-transfer-companies-2015-4


Kenya is responding to the latest al-Shabaab attack in a way that could make the country's terror problem worse

By Armin Rosen

Apr. 8, 2015, 6:02 PM

In the wake of the massacre in Garissa, the Kenyan government has been harshly criticized by its citizens for missing the clues of an impending attack by the Somali Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabaab. Gunmen from the group killed 147 people at a university in the eastern Kenyan city of Garissa on April 2.

Now, it's clear that Nairobi's initial reaction to the attack is to go after the country's sizable Somali minority.

On April 4, the government published a list of "entities suspected to be associated with Al Shabaab", including 13 of the largest Somali-operated money transfer companies working in Kenya. On April 8, the government ordered those companies' activities to cease and froze all of their accounts.

A number of them have offices in the US, where they're subjected to some of the world's most comprehensive anti-terror financing regulations. The Kenyan list also included the Dubai-based Dahabshiil, which is Africa's largest money-transfer company. The closures hit prominent financial institutions that have been allowed to operate in far stricter legal environments than Kenya's.

Kenya has around 2.5 million citizens who are of Somali ethnicity, and hosts 464,000 Somali refugees. Dadaab, the largest refugee camp on earth, is home to around 335,000 Somalis who have fled the country's recent famine and armed conflict.

"This is a decision which significantly impacts on the entire Somali remittance industry," Adan Hasaan, a US-based compliance manager of the Kaah Express money transfer company, told Business Insider. Kaah is one of the services affected the closures, and Hasaan estimates that between 30% and 40% of the money his company handles is sent to Kenya. That means that remittance flows to Somalis from Kenya could actually be comparable with the $1.6 billion sent to Somalia from outside the country each year.

Hasaan says that the decision to shut down the transit companies was totally unexpected and was not preceded by any investigation that he knew of — it was "not a gradual decision," says Hasaan. The companies were publicly linked to a notorious terrorist group by the Kenyan government and then ordered to stop operating.

Hasaan doesn't have a timetable for restoring service to Kenya. But he's confident that the government's order couldn't survive legal scrutiny. "You can't just shut down an entire industry without evidence, without even credible suspicious," Hassan said. "It's just so ridiculous."

Kenya's decision to go after Somali money transfer companies immediately after the Garissa attack suggests that the government's immediate reaction to the atrocity isn't to reexamine its counterterror practices but to sate popular anger by pressuring its Somali population.

This is a potentially dangerous course. There is a notable contingent of Kenyan Somalis fighting with Al Shabaab and the group has used longstanding grievances over Somali political and social marginalization in Kenya to drive recruitment there.

And there's existing hostility toward Kenya's Somali population. There was an outbreak of anti-Somali rioting in 2012, and the government's actions in recent years, particularly after the 2013 Shabaab attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall, have only raised tensions.

As Rahma Dualeh, a senior consultant with the Nairobi-based think tank Sahan Research, told Business Insider, "People who are talking about economic and political inclusion are being labeled as terrorists," while the Kenyan government is trying "to make their narrative easier" by associating regional or ethnic autonomy movements in the country's northern and eastern regions with the Shabaab threat.

The decision to shut down the money transfer companies puts the Kenyan government on a course that will only deepen the ethnic and religious divisions that allow extremist groups to thrive, while also cutting millions of people off from their livelihood.

As Scott Paul, a senior humanitarian policy advisor at Oxfam America, explained to Business Insider, if it turns out the transfer companies really are a security threat, the Kenyan authorities should have to prove it first.

"While Kenya faces a genuine terror threat, its response must not undercut the legitimate flows of money that Somalis in Kenya and Somalia depend on to survive and develop communities," said Paul. "Instead of shutting down the whole remittance sector, Kenya should vet remittance companies on a case-by-case basis to ensure they’re preventing illicit transactions and complying with the law.”

[OtishOtish]

www.defenddefenders.org/2015/04/freezing-of-human-rights-groups-accounts-in-kenya/