Al-Shabaab militants train at a camp in Somalia's lower Shabelle region
on October 20, 2009. Kenya is urging the UN to list Al-Shabaab under the
same sanctions as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, but foreign donors
say the move could leave millions in drought-stricken Somalia without
aid. PHOTO | ABDIRASHID ABDULLE ABIKAR | AFP
Nairobi,
Kenya
is urging the UN to list Al-Shabaab under the same sanctions as
Al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State, but foreign donors say the move could
leave millions in drought-stricken Somalia without aid.
The
proposed listing -- which could take effect as soon as Thursday --
comes at a critical time in Somalia, where 2.2 million people, or nearly
18 percent of the population, face the risk of severe hunger.
Al-Shabaab
is already targeted under broader sanctions imposed by the United
Nations on Somalia, which is heavily aid-dependent after three decades
of conflict and economic ruin.
AID
Right
now, UN agencies and humanitarian organisations are exempt from these
sanctions, which enables them to deliver urgent aid without prosecution
when they venture into territory controlled by Al-Shabaab.
But Kenya wants to tighten the screws on the
jihadist group after several deadly attacks on its soil, and the
sanctions regime it proposes would remove that safeguard.
"A
measure like this will have the effect of criminalising humanitarian
aid," Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, told AFP.
"Any measure that would impact the current provision of aid would have extremely serious and substantial implications."
If
no member state objects before August 29 the Al-Shabaab listing under
Security Council resolution 1267 will take immediate effect.
Hundreds of millions of aid dollars for Somalia will then be thrown into doubt.
In
some cases, foreign donors said they may need to freeze payments for up
to a year as they consider how to comply with the new sanctions, said
an aid source in New York liaising with the UN on the issue.
"We
would be operating in a huge grey area. As humanitarian actors, we
would have this huge dilemma of carrying on providing aid, or we stop
altogether," the official working for a large global charity told AFP on
condition of anonymity.
Another
concern is that banks, fearing repercussions, could limit financial
services to humanitarian agencies working in Somalia -- a process known
as "de-risking" that makes it difficult to transfer money and fund
programmes.
The looming deadline has sparked a flurry of lobbying at Security Council headquarters in New York.
Earlier
this month, 20 former ambassadors, national security and humanitarian
officials wrote to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin and USAID administrator Mark Green urging them to reject
the Kenyan proposal.
Their decision
"could either help sustain critical and life-saving relief to Somalia,
or exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation and puts hundreds of
thousands if not millions of people at grave risk", the August 7 letter
warned.
"They (humanitarian groups)
have worked carefully to develop systems to reach people while limiting
aid diversion" to Al-Shabaab, it added.
Exemptions from sanctions are extremely rare, the International Peace Institute pointed out in a June paper.
Kenya sees Al-Shabaab as no different to extremist groups elsewhere and believes sanctions are a way to blunt their violence.
On
July 13, after 26 people were killed in Somalia's south, Kenyan Foreign
Minister Monica Juma said "this attack was another reminder to the
international community of the imperative" to list Al-Shabaab under
resolution 1267.
The foreign ministry did not reply to queries from AFP before publication.
Al-Shabaab
violence has surged in 2019 with atrocities in Somalia and Kenya,
including an attack in Nairobi in January that left 21 people dead.
Kenya
has applied considerable diplomatic leverage on its allies, notably
lobbying the EU in May to list the Al-Shabaab as a "terrorism
organisation".
CRISIS
The timing could not be worse for Somalia, which is facing another hunger crisis after the rainy season failed this year.
Nearly 18 percent of the population faces severe hunger, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.
The
country is prone to devastating, frequent droughts. A famine between
October 2010 and April 2013 killed almost 258,000 people, more than half
of them children under five.
Somalia
has accused its larger neighbour of meddling that could worsen its
domestic problems and have repercussions for regional stability.
Somalia's
envoy to the UN, Abukar Dahir Osman, told the Security Council on
August 21 that impeding aid efforts "will play into the Shabaab's
narrative and self-image as a de-facto government in areas where state
reach is limited".
He reiterated the government's "condemnation of any interference in the internal affairs of Somalia."
Kenya's
campaign on Al-Shabaab comes as it spars with Somalia on several
diplomatic fronts including a battle over its marine borders, said Matt
Bryden, director of Nairobi-based think tank Sahan.
"There's
a range of thorny issues between the two governments that have strained
their relations to the breaking point, and I think Kenya's move must be
understood in that wider context," he told AFP.
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