The case of the failed ban on Somali charcoal outlined in the report highlights the difficulty of cutting off al Shabaab militants’ funding and ensuring compliance with U.N. sanctions when there is little appetite for enforcing them on the ground.
The Kenyan military denied the allegations in the U.N. Monitoring Group’s latest annual report to the Security Council’s sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea.
The report was completed before recent clashes in Kismayu.
In that fighting, rival militias battled for control of the strategic port city after Ahmed Madobe, leader of the Ras Kamboni militia and a former Islamist warlord, became leader of the Jubaland region, which includes Kismayu, in May.
The situation remains tense though the Mogadishu government, which initially opposed Madobe, is letting him stay on as interim leader.
Kismayu is a lucrative prize for clan leaders, bringing with it generous revenues from charcoal exports, port taxes and levies on arms and other illegal imports.
The Security Council banned the export of charcoal from Somalia in February 2012 to cut off one of the main sources of income for al Shabaab, which has been fighting for control of Somalia for years and enforces a strict version of sharia law in the areas it occupies.
Kenyan forces in the African Union’s AMISOM peacekeeping mission, which has a U.N. Security Council mandate and receives funding from the European Union and United States, helped the Somali government retake control of Kismayu when the al Qaeda-aligned militants fled in September 2012.
Afterwards, the AU almost immediately urged the Security Council to lift the charcoal export ban, at least temporarily.
Kenya supported the idea, arguing that Kismayu’s angry charcoal traders could undermine the security of its troops. The Monitoring Group, which reports on compliance with the Somalia/Eritrea sanctions regime, disputed Nairobi’s analysis.
reuters
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