1/ Post-#Brexit, a trade partner sought by the #UK government is the #UnitedArabEmirates (UAE). It has pledged billions of £ in investment into UK and wants to have ownership in UK telecoms, media and nuclear. But UAE backing of genocide in #Sudan raises questions in #London.🧵
4/ The gold laundromat stretches beyond Sudan. Gold smuggled from war-torn #Mali, #BurkinaFaso and #Niger, where jihadists have captured some of the gold supply chain and where Russia has made alliances with governments, ends up in UAE. See UN report: unodc.org
5/ It doesn’t stop there. Gold from war torn #Congo is piped to the UAE. Even #Venezuela gold transits Mali’s capital #Bamako and then to the UAE. The flight path from Venezuela to the #Sahel mimics the cocaine trafficking route between the two locations. bit.ly
6/ And so while the UK government talks tough on the war in Russia, it is doing business with a UAE government that is not only accused of supporting mass atrocities in Africa, but is also acting as a conduit for Russian sanctions busting. This matters.
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
7/ In the last days the UK government seem to be having a reckoning. UAE diplomats cancelled meetings with the UK related to UAE-UK investments after London failed to leap to the defence of the UAE in a UN Security Council meeting concerning Sudan.
middleeasteye.net
middleeasteye.net
8/ This is all critical to UK foreign policy. The UAE is, as @TheEconomist says, using wealth to buy influence. The Sudan spat raises a question whether UK’s political system is being hacked by the UAE. What will prevail? Ethical policy or UAE's cash? bit.ly
9/ The investment deal between London and Abu Dhabi was a tie up during the premiership of Boris Johnson, one of the chief architects of Brexit. But it should be noted that UK shadow foreign secretary @DavidLammy is also a fan of the UAE. bit.ly
10/ I disclaim that, in 2022, I was refused entry to UAE for work I did as a UN sanctions monitor in 2014 exposing how money was laundered from the UAE by the #AlShabaab terror group in #Somalia. (Picture of me briefing the UN Security Council in 2022). bit.ly.
11/ In Feb the @FATFNews, an international financial crime watchdog that groups countries from the United States to China and includes the UK as a member, removed the UAE from its 'grey list', saying the country poses no money laundering risk. Go figure. reuters.com
12/ As a proud Brit, and one raised in Africa, I wonder what kind of country we are turning into. Needless to say, UAE deny all allegations. Many British politicians also meanwhile seem wedded to the idea that Brexit was a great idea.
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