13 April 2006
United States, Australia Seek U.N. Sanctions Against Terrorists
Governments name four people associated with attacks in Bali, Jakarta
Washington – The United States and Australia have asked the United Nations to designate four individuals as terrorists linked to al-Qaida. The designation would oblige member states of the United Nations to freeze the men’s assets and ban their travel.
The individuals – Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan, Taufik Rifki and Abdullah Anshori – have operated in Southeast Asia as leaders of the organization that calls itself Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), according to the U.S. Treasury Department. In an April 13 press release, Treasury says that JI is linked to al-Qaida and that each of the men has had roles funding terrorism, training terrorists or planning attacks.
The United States and Australia say JI was responsible for or involved in bombings in Bali and Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed 246 people from 2002 to 2005 -- including the October 2002 bombings in a popular Bali tourist district that killed 202 (almost half of whom were Australian).
A spokeswoman for Treasury said that three to five other countries would join in seeking the terrorist designation from the United Nations, but she declined to identify those nations.
A U.N. Security Council committee will consider the request for five days. If during that time none of the committee’s 15 members objects, the men will be designated as terrorists, and then all 191 member states of the United Nations will be obliged to place travel bans against them, freeze any bank accounts they hold, bar them from opening new bank accounts and ban them from buying or selling weapons.
Since September 11, 2001, the Security Council has so designated 430 people or entities that it believes to be associated with al-Qaida, the Taliban or Osama bin Laden.
The United States continues to “urge countries to do more to insure they have sanctions and to keep money out of terrorists’ hands,” a Treasury spokeswoman said. (See related article.)
Each of the men named in the April 13 submission to the United Nations has used many aliases, which are listed in Treasury’s press release. Because it is likely they will continue to change their names -- Ba’asyir is scheduled to be released from prison in June and Gunawan in 2008 – and because some countries use numbered bank accounts not linked to names, banking sanctions might not work, according to George Benston, who teaches banking at Emory University in Atlanta.
The Treasury spokeswoman said the designation is a civil action that is just one of many tools used to stop terrorists and that investigators often watch terrorist money to see where it goes before asking the U.N. for the terrorist designation.
Peter Navarro, a professor of business at UC Irvine, said new regulations have come into place all over the world that make it harder to change your name and put money in a new account. He said even money-transaction rules in the Cayman Islands are tighter than they used to be. “Where can you go with $20 million today and park it if you don’t have bona fides in terms of your identity?” he asked. “I suspect it’s a lot fewer places.”
For additional information on U.S. policy, see Response to Terrorism.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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