Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: patel on May 12, 2017, 05:18:38 AM
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This things happen by design. The military gets in Somalia they take over charcoal trade, outbound trade then they look for another commodities they can bring
in. Once they take over sugar trade they look for other commodities they can bring in with high profit margin like unga. In order to maximize Unga profits they work with those
in charge of strategic grains reserve to empty the stores. Uhuru knew about drought, he knew about maize shortage but to keep the rat line profitable he could not bring in maize through Mombasa
port. The main actor in this ratline is Duale, his father in law and senior military people
The Kenyan army is accused of running a sugar-smuggling racket with Somali terrorists
The army denies splitting the profits of a $400m smuggling industry with al-Qaeda's east African br
IN THE years that Kenyan soldiers have been in Somalia to fight al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s east African branch, terrorist attacks back home have escalated. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Kenya, where jihadists continue to pose a potent threat. Defeating insurgencies is no easy task for sophisticated military alliances such as NATO, let alone less well-resourced ones. Even so, Kenya’s army has made slow progress, not least in cutting off al-Shabab’s sources of funding. And one reason for this, says a new report, is that the Kenyan military has an economic interest in the same smuggling networks that also channel funding to al-Shabab.
Somalia has little going for it economically so its jihadists have turned to unlikely ways of raising cash. One is by taxing the production and export of charcoal to the Gulf, where it is used in shisha pipes. A less well-known source of revenue comes from a sugar-smuggling racket worth as much as $400 million a year.
Much of this two-way trade—charcoal going out and sugar coming in—takes place through Kismayo’s sickle-shaped harbour in southern Somalia. The port was captured from al-Shabab in 2012 by Kenyan troops operating under the African Union Mission in Somalia. Yet the peacekeepers’ control of the port has done little to stem the illicit flows. Several United Nations reports have alleged that charcoal exports through the port have been facilitated by Kenyan army. The Kenyan government has denied these claims.
Now a new report by a non-profit group, the Nairobi-based Journalists For Justice (JFJ), has alleged that the Kenyan army, al-Shabab and the southern Somali regional Jubaland administration share the spoils of sugar smuggling from Kismayo into Kenya. This allegation has been denied by the Kenyan government and army.
JFJ alleges that the Kenyan army levies taxes at Kismayo port, the Dhobley-Liboi border crossing and the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, a clearing house for smuggled goods. Ben Rawlence, the report’s author, reckons this adds up to about $30m a year in “taxes” on illicit shipments. Based on interviews with sugar traders, port workers, truck drivers, Kenyan military officers, foreign diplomats and intelligence officials he reckons that about 150,000 tonnes of illegal sugar enter Kenya every year. The regional authorities in Jubaland take a share, as does al-Shabab, which demands money from drivers to allow their trucks through the territory it controls.
The incentive for smuggling comes from a complicated system of tariffs and import controls that are intended to protect an uncompetitive local industry. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reckoned in a 2013 report that Kenya’s retail price for sugar would fall by about a quarter if the trade were to be liberalised.
Convoys loaded with illegal sugar rumble out of Kismayo at an impressive rate: around 230 trucks a week each carry 14 tonnes, the JFJ reckons. In October the UN released a report noting that Kenya’s tariffs on sugar imports encourage “a vibrant illicit trade in sugar and other basic foodstuffs imported duty-free through the port of Kismayo.” Investigators for the UN reckoned al-Shabab levied a “tax” of about $1,000 on each sugar truck going south.
The Kenyan army is already under fire for appearing to have lost interest in pursuing al-Shabab. During last year’s “Operation Eagle”—an African Union offensive to oust militants from towns south of the capital, Mogadishu—commanders of the Ugandan contingent grumbled at the Kenyans' unwillingness to pitch in, saying they preferred to stay in their garrisons and launch occasional air strikes rather than take the fight to al-Shabab. The latest allegations will do nothing to mute the critics.
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Uhuru was the main architect of the sugarline, to provide cover for this ratline he concocted some Uganda sugar nonsense when all along he knew the sugar was to come via somalia
'Massive war profiteering': Report alleges Kenya army colludes with Shabaab in sugar and charcoal smuggling ring
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IT’S an accusation that has been levelled on Kenya’s army many times, and that just refuses to go away.
A new report now puts some damning figures on it, alleging that the country’s army is involved in a sugar smuggling racket in Somalia is collectively worth $200 - 400 million, and that the army colluding with the very al-Shabaab terrorists it is supposed to be fighting.
Kenyan army spokesman, Colonel David Obonyo, denied the allegations, insisting Kenyan soldiers were fighting hard as part of the 22,000-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
According to the report, the Kenya army is collecting taxes from charcoal exports, in a trade that is worth $350 - 400 million.
The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) went into Somalia four years ago to fight the Shabaab – which were affiliated with al-Qaeda, but a faction of whom have also recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
But since then, it appears that the operation in Somalia has suffered extensive mission creep.
Far from fighting the Shabaab, the KDF are, “in garrison mode, sitting in bases while senior commanders are engaged in corrupt business practices,” said the investigation by the Nairobi-based Journalists for Justice rights group.
KDF is stationed in the state of Jubaland in southern Somalia, a semi-autonomous region bordering Kenya.
The region is formally governed by the Jubaland administration – the bulk of whom were former militants of the Ras Kamboni militia. The group is led by Ahmed Madobe, who defected from his role as al Shabaab commander several years ago and, with the support of Kenyan forces, took control of the area and declared himself “president” of the state. The Jubaland administration is an ally of the KDF, who are seen to prop them up to provide a buffer against al-Shabaab and Kenya.
Cold, hard cash
But such elaborate alliances fall apart in the face of cold, hard cash, it seems.
Levying taxes on sugar imports allegedly earns KDF and Jubaland officials about $250,000 a week, or $13 million a year. As sugar-laden trucks leave the port of Kismayo, Shabaab then levies road taxes of their own, earning the group $230,000 a week, or $12.2 million a year.
Al-Shabaab’s overall role in and revenue from the charcoal trade has reduced since its loss of all export sites, the UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia says in its latest report. Although charcoal exports have dipped, the export volumes were around 1 million bags a month, equaling tax revenue of $24 million a year.
Loaders and journalists in Kismayo told JFJ that the port tax on exported charcoal is around $3 a bag, split three ways between Jubaland, KDF and al-Shabaab.
But the export trade itself is worth at least $350 million. The report describes it as a “massive trade on an industrial scale…southern Somalia’s biggest export by far.”
As such, the charcoal trade is not some kind of illicit hobby for KDF officers stationed in Kismayo to earn some pocket money. Together with the import of sugar, it is in fact, “the main reason they are there,” the report claims.
Residents of Kismayo told JFJ that the KDF, “they do minimal patrols, they just stay in their base, they are concerned only with the operations at the port.”
The illicit conflict economy is benefitting both al-Shabaab and those ostensibly opposing them.
The report also accused Kenyan troops of “widespread” human rights abuses—including rape, torture and abduction—and conducting air strikes targeting sleepy villages and livestock, rather than the militant training camps it claims to bomb.
READ: Uncomfortable reading: Burundi, Uganda AU peacekeepers ‘sexually exploit & rape vulnerable Somali women’
Terror blowback
Kenyan army spokesman, Colonel Obonyo, said, “We are not involved in sugar or charcoal business.
“How can you sit down with Shabaab one minute, and the next you are killing each other?”, which suggests that the profiteering could be a rogue operation, rather than institutional.
Shabaab attacks in Kenya have grown in number and scale since its military operations began in 2011—including the killing of at least 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013 and the massacre of 148 people at a university in Garissa in April—with the militants saying the attacks are retaliation for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia and “war crimes” committed by Kenyan troops.
Persistent allegations of Kenyan military involvement in illegal business dealings in Somalia first emerged soon after the army occupied the southern port town of Kismayo in 2012, where it took control of a stockpile of millions of sacks of charcoal.
Successive reports by the UN Monitoring Group—which investigates terrorist financing and infringements of an arms embargo—have detailed the joint role of KDF, the Shabaab and the local Jubaland administration in the illegal export of charcoal.
The group accuses an unnamed “high ranking military official” of running a sugar smuggling network that enjoys “the protection and tacit cooperation” or Kenya’s political leaders.
It is also, diplomats told JFJ, “very frustrating” for Kenya’s allies in the US, United Kingdom, European Union and UN who are assisting the country and Somalia in the fight against al-Shabaab.
But, they said, there is little the UN, the Somali Federal Government or the international community can do, apart from “work around the problem”.
Witholding intelligence
This has meant instead sponsoring Somali government efforts to interdict smugglers, withholding intelligence from KDF and pursuing al-Shabaab targets on their own or with Somali Special Forces.
Western diplomats have made private representations to the Kenyan government on the matter but they cannot force the issue, they said, because US and European forces need KDF’s cooperation for access to bases in Kismayo and the use of Kenyan facilities for other military training.
But other AMISOM contributing countries do not appear to be concerned about the enormous breaching of AMISOM’s own mandate by Kenya.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an analyst expert in illicit networks within the Horn of Africa and more globally, at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC, said, “The Ugandans and Burundians are very weak [in southern Somalia], they have no interest in what is happening in the Kenyan sector… and Kenya and Ethiopia have a kind of understanding and each allows the other freedom of movement in their sector.”
The Ugandan army is stationed in the capital Mogadishu, and occupies Sector One that covers the Presidential Palace, Parliament, Ministry headquarters, international airport and seaport.
It’s an entrenched war economy now. Felbab-Brown, writing in June in Foreign Affairs, argues the incentive to get out of Somalia- or fully defeat al-Shabaab - dims with every passing day.
Even away from the smuggling racket, the international funding that participating armies receive for their effort makes for good living for their soldiers and a substantial financial boost for their military institutions.
-Additional reporting by AFP