http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/africa/02somalia.html

October 2, 2009

U.S. Delays Somalia Aid, Fearing It Is Feeding Terrorists

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

DOCOL, Somalia -- One in five Somali children is wasting away from malnutrition. Tens of thousands need urgent medical care to survive. The whole middle belt of the country is teetering on the brink of famine. United Nations officials say Somalia has not been in such perilous shape since the central government collapsed in 1991 and is in desperate need of help.

But right now that help is being delayed, they say, at least partly because the American government is worried that its aid is going to feed terrorists.

American officials are concerned that United Nations contractors may be funneling American donations to the Shabab, a Somali terrorist group with growing ties to Al Qaeda. United Nations officials say the American government has been withholding millions of dollars in aid shipments while a new set of rules is worked out to better police the distribution of aid.

Few aid officials believe that the American government will actually shut off the spigot of life-saving assistance to Somalia when a punishing drought is sweeping across the region. But at least $50 million in American aid has been delayed as talks continue, United Nations officials said. Meanwhile, there is only enough emergency food to last Somalia four more weeks, they said.

"The potential damage is huge," said Kiki Gbeho, the head coordinator of United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia, during a visit to a drought-stricken area on Thursday.

Overall aid funds were drastically down this year, even before the American government postponed its usually hefty contributions, Ms. Gbeho said. As a result, disease-prevention programs had to be cut, and "if you don't give funding to Al Shabab areas, that's 60 percent of the people," she added.

American officials defended their actions on Thursday. One State Department official said the amount of withheld aid was less than $50 million, though the official would not say exactly how much.

"We were compelled to hold up that amount once there were legitimate concerns that the aid might be being diverted," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he was not authorized to be named. "We have to follow the law."

The official emphasized that the delays had not caused any interruptions in food aid delivery, something United Nation officials confirmed, though they said the uninterrupted flow of emergency food into Somalia was possible only because of leftovers from last year's budget and agencies' borrowing from themselves until new money comes in. The State Department also says that it plans to resume full shipments and that the delayed aid will be distributed soon.

Elders here in Docol, in central Somalia, say they are running out of time and nearly finished with their emergency rations, which they often share with their animals because the drought has killed all the pasture land.

What will happen if the rations are delayed any longer?

"Simple," Sheik Ali Gab said. "We will all starve."

Docol is just one of the countless spots of concentrated misery across Somalia, where people come after they have lost everything -- their animals, their homes, sometimes even their children, in the hopes of getting a sack of donated grain, which often has a big "USA" stamped on it.

The American government is the largest donor to Somalia, providing about 40 percent of the $850 million annual aid budget, intended to feed more than three million people.

Recent correspondence among American agencies shows that the State Department was so concerned about the potential legal consequences of aid diversions that it sent a letter last month asking for a guarantee from the Treasury Department that American aid officials would not be prosecuted for any American aid that slipped into Shabab hands.

Last year, the American government listed the Shabab as a foreign terrorist organization, a designation that means that aiding or abetting the Shabab is a serious crime. The sanctions against black-listed groups are enforced by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC.

American aid programs "will be carried out in areas where the Specially Designated Global Terrorist group Al Shabab enjoys increasing control and influence," the State Department letter explained.

The State Department wanted "confirmation that OFAC will not seek enforcement action against United States government employees, grantees and contractors" if "accidental, unintentional or incidental benefits" flowed to the Shabab.

The Treasury Department office responded that any transactions with the Shabab were prohibited, but that it would not prosecute American aid officials if they acted in "good faith."

American officials are increasingly concerned that the Shabab and their allies are working with Al Qaeda to turn Somalia into a factory for global jihad.

Some Somali-Americans have already joined the Shabab as suicide bombers, raising the prospects that one day men like these could exploit their American citizenship and return to the United States to wreak havoc.

The Shabab have been waging a vicious guerrilla war against Somalia's transitional government, which has grass-roots support and foreign backing, but is hobbled by a weak and untrustworthy military.

While the transitional government struggles to establish itself, United Nations officials say they have no choice but to work with local Shabab commanders to distribute critically needed aid, like 110-pound bags of sorghum, tins of vegetable oil, plastic sheeting and medical supplies, in Shabab-controlled areas.

But are United Nations contractors actually helping the Shabab fight their war? Preliminary information from a continuing United Nations investigation indicates that some of the biggest Somali contractors hired by the United Nations World Food Program may be sharing their proceeds with the Shabab or their allies, or, at a minimum, turning a blind eye when militants steal sacks of American-donated grain and sell them on the open market to get money for guns.

"We know W.F.P. contractors have been diverting food to the Shabab," said one official close to the investigation, who was not allowed to speak publicly. "And we're talking about millions of dollars of food."

World Food Program officials have been tight-lipped about the allegations. Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the agency in Kenya, said the World Food Program was conducting its own separate investigation and "taking immediate actions to increase security at W.F.P. warehouses and other distribution points."

Because Somalia is so dangerous, especially for foreigners, it is extremely difficult for international aid agencies to closely monitor operations inside the country, especially since most of the agencies are based hundreds of miles away in Kenya.

Somali businessmen, with thin résumés and fat contracts, are given enormous leeway in how they carry out their multimillion-dollar aid duties. On top of that, there is no national banking system, so the United Nations is left with an informal money transfer network to move hundreds of millions of dollars of cash.

Some Somalis say the allegations against the United Nations contractors are simply barbs of envy originating from rival clans.

"Somalia offers perhaps the world's most complex operational environment for the U.N.," a recent United Nations assessment said, citing the "fluid, insecure and highly politicized conflict."