NAIROBI: The State Department on Wednesday offered a reward of up to $27 million for information that leads to locating six leaders of a Somalia-based militant group.
According to JFJ, loaders, traders and intelligence officials said an estimated 150,000 tonnes of illicit sugar is transported to Kenya via Kismayu each year, which translates to around 3000 tonnes a week.
“We are not leaving the Boni forest anytime soon until we ascertain that every terror element in the forest has been cleared”, Serian said, adding the operation could take more than the three months originally planned.
According to the report by Journalist for Justice (JFT) rights group released yesterday, the racket allegedly funds the very Al Shabaab militants that KDF is expected to be fighting. A Kenyan government spokesman dismissed the report as “absolute garbage” while a Kenyan army spokesman denied involvement in either the sugar or charcoal business.
Although charcoal exports have dipped, the export volumes were around 1 million bags a month, equaling tax revenue of $24 million a year. According to Thursday’s report, the KDF has settled into “garrison mode”, with its soldiers “sitting in bases while senior commanders are engaged in corrupt business practices with the Jubaland administration and al-Shabaab”.
But the export trade itself is worth at least $350 million. Journalists for Justice suggested that Western partners would not make public their complaints to the Kenyan government on the issue for fear of compromising crucial cooperation over counter-terrorism operations in the region.
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. Also, there is $5 million for information on Mahad Karate, who allegedly planned the attack on Kenya’s Garrissa University College that killed 148 people.
In what the report describes as KDF “eating with the enemy”, Makhoha said the illegal trade has been ongoing despite United Nations banning charcoal exports from Somalia in 2012.
Sugar is also imported through Kismayu and smuggled across the border into Kenya, where it is sold without paying the high tariffs that Kenya imposes to protect its sugar industry. “There’s a certain willingness to allow more malpractice on the part of our allies if they are willing to take the fight to al-Shabab, which is seen as the bigger threat”, he said.
