In UN
Sanctions
Follies,
Jim'ale
Shifted to
Somalia List,
Eritrea
Report Down,
Bryden Spins
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Partial
exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, July
24, updated
-- The UN's
Somalia and
Eritrea
sanctions are
a
circus. A
report on
Eritrea was
put online,
then taken
down after
an
Ethiopian UN
official Taye
Brook-Zerihoun
spoke with
some but not
all
Security
Council
members.
Meanwhile
the
coordinator of
the Monitoring
Group on
Somalia and
Eritrea, the
Canadian Matt
Bryden, openly
leaked his
Group's report
and was quoted
about it by
name, before
it was given
to Eritrea.
Somalia
too
has criticized
Bryden, as
supporting the
full or formal
breakaway
of Somaliland.
Tuesday
in
front of the
Security
Council
members from
three
countries gave
Inner City
Press
exclusive and
negative
reviews of
Bryden's
performance.
"He's
leaving," one
of them said.
There is
snarky
speculation
Bryden
may have been
angling for a
book deal, or
a post with a
group like
HRW.
Update:
a
Permanent
Representative
came out and
told Inner
City Press the
problem with
Bryden is
speaking on
his own for a
"collective
product."
Others point
at the report
and wonder if
it's really in
the SEMG's
mandate to
analyze the
Eritrean Air
Force, down to
the last spark
plug, see report
at Page 16.
One wag asked,
"A no fly zone
via
sanctions?"
In
a lower
profile but
more telling
untold tale,
an individual
initially put
on the
Al Qaeda
sanctions list
was moved from
that list
earlier this
year to
the "list of
individuals
and entities
subject to the
travel ban,
assets freeze
and targeted
arms embargo
imposed by
paragraphs 1,
3
and 7 of
resolution
1844 (2008)."
He
is Djibouti
national
named Ali
Ahmed Nur
Jim'ale,
described as
the largest
shareholder in
the
telecommunications
firm Hormuud.
Click
here for
Inner City
Press coverage
of Hormuud.
The UN darkly
notes
that "Hormuud
is operated by
several former
large
shareholders
of Al-Barakaat
with
Jim’ale being
the largest
shareholder."
Barakaat
was
a firm that
got all of its
money, and the
small
remittances of
expatriate
Somalis in
cities like Minneapolis,
frozen
(stolen, some
say) after a
terrorism
charge.
The
irony is that
now the TFG's
Somali Mission
to the UN, or
at least one
vocal member
of it, tells
Inner City
Press that
Hormuud and by
implication
Jim'ale did
nothing wrong.
A
well placed
source
exclusively
told Inner
City Press
that the fact
that Jim'ale
was taken off
the 1267 Al
Qaeda
sanctions
list, but
simply moved
to
another
sanctions list
with a lower
threshold and
no
ombudsperson
like Kim
Prost, is a
"travesty."
But isn't Matt
Bryden, and
the take-down
of the Eritrea
report? So
it goes at the
UN.
Defenders
of
the Jim'ale
process, or of
the UN
Security
Council, told
Inner
City Press
that Jim'ale
was taken off
the Al Qaeda
list and put
on
the Somalia
list "without
any linkage
other than a
member state
who managed
the
transition."
Another,
going
bigger
picture, said
it should be
admitted that
the UN
sanctions is
purely
political and
not legal,
adding his
view that
Jim'ale should
have been kept
on the 1267
sanctions list
too -- on a
political
basis. Even
more so, this
is how it goes
at the UN.
, 
