The participants of Somali peace talks in the Kenyan town of Eldoret have signed a statement, urging the United States and the international community to lift the freeze on the assets of the Al-Barakaat Bank.

The Al-Barakaat group was one of the organizations the US authorities accused of having links with terrorism following last year’s Sept. 11 attacks. On Nov. 7, 2001, Al-Barakaaat’s assets were seized and frozen worldwide on charges of acting as a conduit for the transfer of funds to terrorists.

Al-Barakaat’s managers, however, have strongly denied the charges, saying that their records were open to inspection, and asserting that any investigation would exonerate them. The group was the biggest employer in Somalia before it was closed down last year.

Most warlords and representatives from Transitional National Government (TNG) signed the statement. "We are appealing particularly to the UAE government to do the same as 90 percent of Barakaat’s assets are there," said the statement, issued jointly by the (TNG) and main warlords in Eldoret. They said the termination of Al-Barakaat’s activities had resulted in economic hardship for thousands of small depositors and had made more Somalis jobless. Since the collapse of the banking system in 1991, Somalis have relied on the country’s eight remittance banks to receive money from relatives living abroad. The UN estimates Somali remittances total between $200 million and $500 million annually. In contrast, emergency international aid to Somalia in 2000 amounted to between $50 million and $60 million.

At the same time, the participants have also signed a commitment with a humanitarian organization to ban land mines in the areas they control. The organization’s president called the agreement a step forward in the peace process. The Geneva-based group, which says some 400 Somalis have been killed or maimed by mines since 1995, was set up in March 2000 by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to get armed groups outside government control to ban the weapons whose main victims are civilians.

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On Monday, a Mogadishu-based warlord Muhammad Qanyare Afrah, who is currently attending the Somali talks, told UN media that eight warlords had been threatened with arrest if they tried to leave Eldoret. The warlords sent a protest letter to the organizers of the ongoing peace talks, saying that they had been warned not to leave the venue. "We are here to attend a peace conference, and if we don’t agree with the way it’s being conducted we will leave," Qanyare said. "We are not prisoners."

Some sources close to the talks confirmed the arrest threat, adding that it is a completely inappropriate way of dealing with the situation. Kenya’s special envoy to Somalia, Elijah Mwangale, who is chairing the talks, declined to comment when contacted by the UN media.

Qanyare said the group was protesting against the virtual veto power over the talks given to the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a group of southern warlords. He said his group was awaiting a response to two of its demands. He said they wanted the same number of delegates as the SRRC’s, and that during the power-sharing phase of the talks, clan balance should be strictly observed and adhered to. "If these two issues are not adequately addressed, we will leave," he warned. Qanyare added that for the peace talks to succeed, Somalis must be given the opportunity to talk among themselves without foreigners breathing down their necks. "We don’t have the freedom to talk and interact with each other without the presence of the technical committee of the East African body of Intergovernmental Authority on Development," he said.

— 14 November 2002