24 September 2001Text: Treasury's O'Neill on Order Freezing Terrorist Assets
(Foreign banks warned about financing bin-Laden group) (420) Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says an executive order signed by President Bush freezing U.S. assets of terrorists will identify those groups for donors and financial institutions. In a September 24 statement, O'Neill warned financial institutions around the world against continuing to finance in any way Osama bin-Laden's al-Queda terrorist organization. "Cooperate in this fight, or we will freeze your U.S. assets," O'Neill said. "We will punish you for providing the resources that make these evil acts possible." Following is the text of O'Neill's statement: (begin text) September 24, 2001 Statement of Secretary Paul O'Neill on Signing of Executive Order Authorizing the Treasury Department to Block Funds of Terrorists and their Associates This order provides the authority to block funds of terrorists and anyone associated with a terrorist or terrorism. The order names specific individuals and charitable organizations that are funding terrorist acts. Donors now will know to avoid these charities that front for terrorists. With the signing of this Executive Order, we have the President's explicit directive to block the U.S. assets of any domestic or foreign financial institution that refuses to cooperate with us in blocking assets of terrorist organizations. This order is a wake-up call to financial institutions around the world -- if you have any involvement in the financing of the al-Queda organization, you have two choices. Cooperate in this fight, or we will freeze your U.S. assets. We will punish you for providing the resources that make these evil acts possible. Many of our allies around the world have already stepped forward to cooperate in destroying terrorism's financial infrastructure. I will be in contact with my G7 colleagues again tomorrow to further coordinate our joint effort to shut down the financial underpinnings of terrorism. Today's executive order gives us a new weapon to deny terrorists access to funds. The Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center that we announced last week is up and running, coordinating information among government agencies with the express purpose of identifying and stamping out the financial network that funds terrorism. And we are working with the G7 nations and many others to attack all parts of the global infrastructure that finances these acts of evil. Together we will succeed in starving the terrorists of funding and shutting down the institutions that support or facilitate terrorism. (end text) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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