UN sanctions against the al-Qaeda terror network and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime need "more teeth," the chairman of the UN committee overseeing sanctions said.
Heraldo Munoz, the Chilean ambassador to the UN, said Wednesday many countries are not freezing all assets and enforcing an arms embargo and travel ban on the 272 individuals and entities linked to the two groups that are on the UN sanctions list.
And he said the list itself is woefully incomplete.
While 4,000 individuals linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been detained in over 102 countries, Munoz said, the UN list has just 272 names culled from reports by only 84 countries.
This "disappointing" showing "makes it clear that there's a reticence on the part of many member states to provide the United Nations with adequate information" which is critical to the global fight against terrorism, he said.
"This is urgent," Munoz said. "There are people dying on the streets -- innocent people. Therefore, when countries cooperate with us, they cooperate with themselves because we are a conduit for multilateral cooperation. They cannot do it alone."
The 84 countries that have submitted reports represent less than half the 191 UN member states.
"I will by the end of the year report on those who are in non-compliance," he said.
Munoz spoke to reporters after briefing the Security Council on his recent trip to Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Indonesia to see the successes and problems of implementing the sanctions, which were imposed in 1999. He also gave council members a preview of a report expected to be released in a few weeks by an expert group monitoring sanctions.
The council shifted sanctions from the government of Afghanistan to terror leader Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban in January last year, after a U.S.-led force ousted the Taliban.
Munoz said the sanctions committee is concerned "about the way that al-Qaeda is circumventing the sanctions."
"For example, member states are clearly willing to freeze bank accounts but the report states that often times individuals and organizations related to al-Qaeda have property and businesses that continue to function despite the fact that some of those organizations are designated on our list," he said.
More than US$135 million has been frozen, but mostly last year, "and we haven't been able to discover new bank accounts," Munoz said. "The report ... will describe these new ways through which individuals and organizations are circumventing sanctions."
In addition, he said, the committee has discovered that some individuals on the sanctions list "have violated the travel ban -- in fact to engage in activities related to their financial and economic assets."
"This information is preoccupying and signals the need to strengthen the sanctions regime," Munoz said.
"If we can have more teeth on the sanctions, I think that would be welcome by our committee," he said.
Munoz said some countries have asked what happens to individuals who are on the sanctions list, forbidden to travel and living in a country where their assets have been investigated and in some cases frozen.
"What do we do next? Do we put them in jail? Do we deliver them to someone? This is a question mark. What do we do with individuals that are identified as active participants of terrorist activities that are residing in a country?" he asked.
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