Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 16/01) - Kareem Yalahow's greatest fear is that his mother might starve to death.

For 10 years Yalahow sent money to his mother in Somalia, a country in a state of despair and terror since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in the early 1990s.

Each month Madina Sheikh collects the money from an al-Barakaat office in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. She and 14 other relatives depend on it.

"For basics. For food," explains the Yellowknife taxi driver.

All that changed when the US government called al-Barakaat "specially designated global terrorists."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said last week that Barakaat used the profits from remitting "hundreds of millions of dollars" to fund al-Quaeda and Osama bin Laden, and described the unofficial bank as the "quartermaster of terror."

Yalahow explains that he sends money through hawala, a system of companies that transfers money around the world without leaving a paper trail. There are no official banks in Somalia. Al-Barakaat International, based in Mogadishu, runs the network.

Chain of trust

"It's a chain of trust," says Yalahow, who worked for a project under the United Nations Development Program before leaving Somalia.

"It's someone you know, and someone who knows someone. That's how it's done. My mother always receives the money."

From a bank in Yellowknife, Yalahow wires money to someone in Toronto or Vancouver. From a Barakaat office there, the money passes through Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and on to Mogadishu. Two or three days later, Madina Sheikh picks up the money, minus a five per cent service fee.

Never a problem before

For as long as Yalahow has lived in Canada, he has remitted money in this fashion, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Somalis worldwide used the unofficial system to transfer money to Somalia. The Financial Times reported last week that an estimated $500 million a year finds its way into Somalia, "dwarfing foreign aid flows," to the ravaged country.

Though Barakaat has denied the U.S. allegations, their Dubai and Mogadishu offices are closed, severing the chain. Offices in Canada remain open, though an Ottawa man, Liban Hussein of Barakaat North America Inc., surrendered to Canadian authorities earlier this week following the issuance of an apprehension order.

"The Barakaat was listed by the U.S. government as suspected of having affiliations with terrorist financing, which is why they've ordered a freeze on Barakaat operations, and Canada has as well, based on ongoing investigations into terrorist financing in Canada," says Jean-Michel Catta, departmental spokesperson for the federal Department of Finance.

Catta adds that the quarrel is not against people of any race or religion.

"It's basically against those who would use violence or unlawful activity against civilians. Unfortunately, in this case, people who have been using hawala to fund terrorist activity have, in a sense, penalized all of the people who have been using them for perfectly legitimate activities."

Living with fear

Fear is an emotion that Kareem Yalahow is learning to live with all over again.

Avoiding "a dark confrontation" is his goal. Back home, after the fall of the Siad Barre regime, people could be detained, arrested, killed for no reason, but for the whim of those in power.

Yalahow, like many, fled Somalia. He has called the North home for eight years, but world events have placed him centre stage in yet another drama he'd rather not live. Far from world politics, he worries that his family may be facing starvation.

The Somali community in Yellowknife is small, numbering about 20.

Terror is something this small community understands only too well.

"There's fear, of course," he says. "There's worry. You wonder."

Yalahow and his fellow Somalis are concerned with the survival of their relatives.

From the government's point of view, what is at issue is whether someone is knowingly financing terrorism.

Our government recognizes that Somalia has no banking system.

They recognize that hawala fulfilled a necessary service under those circumstances.

The only suggestion they can advance to Yalahow is: find another hawala. Another chain of trust. Unfortunately, with the climate of mistrust, all hawala are suspicious.

As for Yalahow, he wonders how he can live under the scepter of his mother's possible death.

"What happens when they call and say, 'Your mother has died of starvation.' or 'Your son has died of starvation.'

"You can't eat. Food is like poison."