[PEN-L:30392] US Drops Accusation That Somalis Supported Al Qaeda

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

US drops accusation that Somalis supported Al Qaeda

By David Rowan
20 September 2002

At the end of August the United States Treasury Department removed
three Somali individuals and three money transfer companies from a
list of alleged supporters of terrorism and dropped all charges
against them.

The individuals together with the companies that they owned were
placed on the list-compiled in November 2001-and had their assets
frozen, after being accused by the Bush administration of financially
supporting Osama bin Laden and of channelling funds to Al Qaeda via
the Somali financial organisation Al Barakaat.

The delisting by the US government has come in response to growing
criticisms that there is insufficient evidence to support claims of
links between Osama bin Laden and Al Barakaat.

The Canadian government refused to extradite a Somali-born Canadian
citizen to the US, stating that the evidence produced linking him to
the financing of terrorism was inadequate. Luxembourg also went ahead
and unfroze the assets of an organisation that the US government said
was connected to Al Barakaat.

One of those removed from the list was a Somali businessman living in
the US, Hassan Hussein, who owns a money transfer company, Barakaat
Enterprise Inc., in Columbus, Ohio. Hussein's lawyer, Kevin O'Brien,
told reporters that there was no evidence to show that any money sent
by Somalis back home to their families in Africa through the
financial transfer system had been funnelled into the Al Qaeda
network. He told reporters, "I wish the government would just come
out and say 'we screwed up' and apologise. For 10 months we asked
them to produce proof, and not once did they produce even a shred of
information."

Despite no evidence being produced by the Bush administration to
substantiate its claim of direct financial support from the Somali
company to Al Qaeda and the dropping of charges against a number of
individuals that it accused of financing terrorism, the US Treasury
Department has not shifted its position on Al Barakaat.

US Treasury spokesman Rob Nicols stated that the individuals involved
had been removed from the list because they had taken "remedial
action to disassociate themselves from the terrorist Al Barakaat
networks" and went on to say that they had been "unwitting
participants" in the financing of Al Qaeda.

The stance taken by the Treasury Department was contradicted by a
statement issued by the Transitional National Government (TNG) of
Somalia that stated: "After a thorough investigation of Al Barakaat
and its related sub organisations by ourselves in collaboration with
the United States we declare that there has been nothing wrong found
against Al Barakaat which could have been suspected or could result
from any sort of crime."

Ted Dagne from the Congressional Research Service in Washington, who
is an expert on Somalia, called the US government's decision to close
down Al Barakaat "a major blunder" based on "junk intelligence".
Dagne stated that "last year's media depiction's of Somalia as a
hotbed of international terrorism had been shown to be widely
exaggerated."

In November 2001, the Bush administration claimed it had proof that
the Al Barakaat company was providing as much as $25 million a year
in financial aid to Osama bin Laden. In press reports at the time,
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil stated that millions of dollars had
passed through the company's US office on its way to the Al Qaeda
network and that the organisation had been exposed as a "pariah in
the civilised world."

Other US government statements described Al Barakaat as "the
quartermaster of terror", but almost one year on, no proof of these
allegations has been put forward.

Before its closure by the US government Al Barakaat had been the
major money transfer organisation in Somalia and was also the
country's largest private sector company, employing at least 3,000
people. Al Barakaat was also financially involved with the
telecommunications, construction and transport industries in Somalia.

The company grew substantially after 1991 due to the intensification
of civil war within Somalia after the ousting of dictator Said Barre.
For many in Somalia-one of the world's poorest countries where the
economy has virtually collapsed and the country is wracked by
infighting between rival factions-the money transfer company had
become essential for the delivery of remittances sent from family
members living abroad.

A statement issued last April by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) said that the "humanitarian impact" on the
population of Somalia through the closure of Al Barakaat had "been
great." The closure also had a destablising effect on the economy of
Somalia-crippling telecommunications, transport and construction.
Freezing the company's assets had led to people who were used to
receiving $30 or $50 from their relatives in other countries suddenly
receiving nothing. The statement explained, "remittances provided 10
times what the aid agencies were able to provide for Somalia last
year."

A BBC report pointed out that up to 60 percent of the population in
Somalia relied on the services of Al Barakaat....

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/soma-s20.shtml>
--
Yoshie

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