     Yaabane | Thursday, November 09, 2000 - 09:02 am
Riots Over Fake Currency Notes Rock Mogadishu
Story Filed: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 4:21 PM EST
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) (Panafrican News Agency, November 8, 2000) - Riots have rocked the Somali capital Mogadishu, in the past few days as small-scale traders protested, accusing government of flooding the local market with imported fake currency notes, a regional weekly newspaper, the Star of the Horn, reported.
The paper, which is published in Nairobi by the Central African News Agency, said in its current issue that the traders were accusing the new government of interim President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan of pumping 30 billion Somali shillings "into the country's comatose economy."
The traders complained of high inflation as a result of the move.
They complained that hours later, the value of the shilling had plummeted by 10 percent, from 10,140 to 10,093 to the dollar.
Media reports said trouble started after the arrival by sea of the cash cache from Canada last week.
About 600 heavily armed security men in 50 battle-wagons had escorted the containers from an airstrip, 90km outside Mogadishu to houses near the finance market.
The traders then turned Mogadishu's central business district into a war zone as they hunted down and attacked the foreign exchange bureaux and the illegal moneychangers.
There is nothing fundamentally new about the circulation of fake currency notes in Somalia.
At the height of the civil strife, the warlords brought in shiploads of cash to finance their political and other operations.
And every time this happened the shilling took a nosedive.
The difference this time round, the traders and the faction leaders argue, is that it is done by a government that is supposed to be recognised by the world community.
It also comes at a time when the new government is struggling to kick-start the economy by attracting foreign exchange after decades of economic isolation.
Flashing placards, some reading, "Down With the Money Changers" and "No Banditry Business", the demonstrators pelted the foreign exchange bureaux and the moneychangers with stones as they marched through the streets.
But security guards employed by the money changers dispersed the protesters and thereby prevented the march from degenerating into a full- scale confrontation.
Notwithstanding, tension remained high, according to other media reports.
What however surprised diplomatic and other observers was that, while the private security guards battled with the demonstrators, government security forces remained inactive.
This automatically fuelled the speculation that the Salat administration had admitted guilt.
The protests could not have come at a worse time. Demonstrators protesting a gripping fuel shortage and a spiralling increase in prices rocked Mogadishu and other major Somali urban centres last week.
The latest protest also comes at a time when the shadow interim government is floundering to stamp its authority in the face of stiff resistance from the warlords behind more than a decade of civil war and the destruction of the economy.
The protests caused many small and wholesale shop-owners to close their businesses for fear of looting and physical attacks.
The development has led shop owners to sell their wares in US dollars and not in Somali shillings because of fluctuations in the exchange rate.
Meanwhile, the country's six warlords have warned that they would not remain acquiescent as the country's economy was being ruined by the Salat administration.
They charged that the importation of fake currency into the country was aimed at indoctrinating the Somali people into supporting the regime while hoodwinking the international community.
In a statement signed by Hussein Aydid, Mohammed Qanyareh, Osman Ali Atto and Muse Sudi Yalahow, the faction leaders cited that the fake notes had caused great inflation and that the poor were now suffering more. |
| Anonymous | Friday, March 23, 2001 - 11:10 am
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filimada aad ka u xun xun, drags ka, iyo waliba wixii sooraaca oo xun. Marka walaalayaal maxay idillatahay arintaan.
Fadlan soo daabaca sida aad u aragtaan rayigiina!!! "Fadlan" |
