By Mary Harper Do you know what the Kenyan police call Somalis?\u201d asked a successful Somali businessman from his office in downtown Nairobi. \u201cThey call us ATM machines. That\u2019s because the only way we can navigate the situation here is to bribe the police at every turn.\u201d The man never uses his name in dealings with the authorities because it would be \u201ccommercial suicide\u201d, and, to make things easier, he has a non-Somali business partner. He has good reason to speak like this. Life is becoming increasingly difficult for Somalis in Kenya. They are treated with suspicion even though many of them are natives of the country. In central Nairobi, I watched every ethnic Somali \u2013 identified by the security guard by their distinctive physical features \u2014 being scanned with a metal detector and searched as they entered an office block; non-Somalis were left alone. In August this year, the Central Bank of Kenya directed all financial institutions in the country to monitor the transactions of Kenya-based Somalis suspected of having links with Islamist insurgents in Somalia.<\/p>\n