U.S. asks Indonesia

U.S. asks Indonesia
to freeze bin Laden assets

Bernie K. Mustafa
The Jakarta Post
in Jakarta

In its global campaign against terrorism, the U.S. government
has asked Indonesia to freeze assets belonging to Osama bin
Laden, although Bank Indonesia said it needed evidence against
bin Laden to back up the request.

Bank Indonesia director for International Affairs Veronica
Sulistyo said on Thursday the central bank was discussing
the U.S. government's call to freeze terrorists' assets.

"We haven't come to a decision yet on what to do," Veronica
told The Jakarta Post.

Earlier, a Bank Indonesia official, who requested anonymity,
said the bank received a copy of a letter from the local U.S.
embassy to the Indonesian government requesting the asset freeze.

"We have asked the Indonesian government to implement U.N.
Security Council resolution 1333 dated Dec. 19, 2000, and call
upon all U.N. member nations to freeze assets of Osama bin Laden
without delay," a source at the U.S. embassy confirmed with the
Post.

"This is a high priority of the U.S. government, as seen by
the president's executive order on Sept. 24," he added, but
declined to say more.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, the U.S. government has begun preparations for a war
against terrorism.

U.S. President George W. Bush called on countries around the
world to cut off terrorists from their funding sources by
freezing assets belonging to them.

The U.S. government issued a list of 26 terrorist-related
organizations to which Bush's executive order applies.

Included on the list are Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, Abu
Sayyaf's group in the Philippines and the Salafist Group for Call
and Combat in Algeria.

Organizations whom the Bush administration suspects are linked
to terrorist groups include the Wafa Humanitarian Organization in
Saudi Arabia, the Al Rashid Trust in Pakistan and the Mamoun
Darkazanli Import-Export Co..

President Bush has threatened to take action against financial
authorities should they fail to seek out and freeze assets of the
suspected terrorists.

Bank Indonesia director Veronica said banks here could only
freeze someone's account if ordered by the Attorney General's
Office.

"We have our own regulations and we must follow them," she
said, adding that the situation would probably be similar in many
other countries.

She also said the Attorney General's Office would be unlikely
to issue an asset freeze order without proof to support the U.S.
claims.

"The best we have now is our 'know your customer' ruling,"
Veronica said.

She was referring to a Bank Indonesia ruling stipulating that
banks must report suspicious transactions to help, among other
things, curb money laundering.

Analysts said it was difficult to detect terrorist-linked
assets here with the absence of laws against money laundering.

In June, Indonesia was added to an international money
laundering blacklist on the grounds that it lacked measures to
detect illegal transactions that could be linked to terrorist
groups.

The House of Representatives is deliberating a money
laundering bill that could get Indonesia off the blacklist.

Regional bank analyst Lin Che Wei at SG Securities said
Indonesia's weak legal infrastructure hampered efforts to track
down terrorists' assets.

"We can't even get our hands on the assets of our own corrupt
officials, let alone from sophisticated terrorist groups," Che
Wei said.

Even if banks know of certain individuals or organizations
with links to terrorist activities, obtaining evidence is a whole
different story, he said.

Osama bin Laden's family owns a business empire ranging from
construction, telecommunications to soft drinks, with annual
revenues amounting to billions of U.S. dollars.

Thus far, Saudi Arabian authorities have found no evidence
proving that Osama bin Laden derives funding from his family
business.

Che Wei did not rule out the possibility that terrorist groups
might have stashed their assets in Indonesian banks.

"It's only natural that countries with weak law enforcement
attract such groups," he said.

But he added that the U.S. government must also understand the
constraints Indonesia faced in cracking down on them.