The War on Terrorism

• Author: David M. Tanovich
• Pages: 105-117

[105]

[7]

The War on Terrorism

On November 7, 2001, the United States president, George W.

Bush, spoke to the nation about the need to stop terrorist f‌inanc-

ing. He announced that he had named sixty-two individuals and

organizations that were, in his words, “quartermasters of terror.”

The next morning Liban Hussein, a thirty-one-year-old Somali-

Canadian, discovered that both he and his money-transfer com-

pany, Barakaat North America, which had off‌ices in Dorchester,

Massachusetts, and Ottawa, had been listed by Bush on a terrorist

f‌inancing list.1 The Canadia n government and the United Nations

Security Council immediately followed suit. One month earlier

Canada had adopted the United Nations Suppression of Terrorism

Regulations, which created a Canadian list of entities and individ-

uals with suspected ter rorist ties and made it an offence to engage

in f‌inancial transact ions with listed targets.2

With civil war destroying the ex isting Somali banking sys-

tem, money transfer companies, or hawalas, provide an impor-

tant means for family members to send money back to Somalia.3

Suddenly it was a crime to do business with Hussein, his bank

account was frozen, he was charged, and he was subjected to ex-