From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Dec 13 2009 - 05:16:57 EST
U.N. Experts Get Threats in Inquiry Into Somalia
By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/jeffrey_gettle
man/index.html?inline=nyt-per> JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: December 13, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya -
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_
nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org> United Nations experts investigating
whether Somali businessmen are funneling aid money to terrorist groups have
recently received death threats warning them to stop their work, according
to United Nations officials.
A
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/securit
y_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org> United Nations Security Council
committee issued a <http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/sc9813.doc.htm>
statement on Friday in response to the threats, saying that it "deplores
such acts of intimidation and interference."
Millions of dollars are at stake, and many analysts say they believe that
the Somali businessmen are desperate to derail the United Nations
investigation because they fear they could lose lucrative contracts to
transport food in
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/so
malia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> Somalia, a war-ravaged country where
foreign aid is one of the biggest businesses, along with
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/africa/09pirate.html?> piracy.
According to officials close to the investigation, several Somali
businessmen, who have been working for years with the United Nations
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/world_f
ood_program/index.html?inline=nyt-org> World Food Program to deliver
emergency rations, may be diverting money to terrorist groups that are
trying to bring down Somalia's
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/world/africa/17somalia.html?> weak
transitional government and possibly wage attacks on Western targets in
Kenya. Concerns about these same Somali businessmen recently led the
American government to
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/world/africa/07somalia.html?> delay food
shipments to Somalia at a time when millions of Somalis are a few meals away
from starvation.
A team of five experts hired by the United Nations Security Council has been
intensely scrutinizing the businessmen over the past several months as part
of a process to monitor the arms embargo against Somalia, in place since
1992, and issues connected to Somalia's security and the delivery of aid.
Preliminary results from the investigations, provided to The New York Times,
indicate that several of the Somali contractors working for the World Food
Program could face economic sanctions, including asset freezes, travel bans
and the cancellation of multimillion-dollar contracts.
A week ago, one of the experts who lives in Nairobi received a strange text
message on his cellphone, written in broken English, that said: "Pliz friend
of me come jacaranda hotel 9 oclok. nice imformationz of Somalia. good
rafiki."
(Rafiki is a Kiswahili word, commonly used in Kenya, that means friend.)
Twenty-six minutes later, the expert, who said he could not be identified
because of the death threats, got a second text message, written in
similarly bad English, saying: "Me i am nice friend to you. pliz do not go
there to jacaranda hotel at 7 oclok. My friends to shoot you."
The message identifies the expert's car and where he lives. It ends: "kenya
robber was give $3000 for shoots. look for corola white car."
The two messages were sent from different phone numbers but the expert
believes they were sent by the same person because of similarities like the
spelling of "pliz" to mean please. The expert called them "quite a creative
way to deliver a death threat."
On Saturday, Matt Bryden, the coordinator of the five-member monitoring
group, said, "We have received a variety of threats and pressures to
influence our investigation, some of which have been very detailed and
specific."
Several members of the group are now protected around the clock and drive to
work with Kenyan police officers.
Somali businessmen have been operating in a lawless, chaotic, anything-goes
environment for the past 18 years, since Somalia's central government
collapsed. It is all too common for business feuds to turn into gun battles
and for extortion and the mysterious, sudden death of business rivals to go
unpunished.
But many analysts were surprised by the possibility that Somali businessmen
would be bold enough to explicitly threaten a United Nations team in
neighboring Kenya.
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