Written by Abdinasir Mohamed Guled
Published Friday, May 08, 2009
In recent times, stories involving Somali pirates have ranked among the most read and most followed news stories.
The world’s attention has been fixed on Somalia’s notorious waters, swarming with pirates. Many ships have been hijacked along the Somali coast and, in some cases, hundreds of miles out into the Gulf of Aden.
Hoping to secure larger ransoms the pirates have started attacking larger ships and ships with more valuable cargos.
International awareness of piracy increased when pirates seized a Saudi supertanker carrying $100-million worth of oil, and when a Ukrainian ship was captured with a huge military cargo including 33 tanks, as well as an American captain, Richard Phillips, who was rescued by the United States Navy in an operation that killed three pirates and captured one, who is being questioned in the U.S.
Somali officials have asked the Western navies to storm the ships and arrest the pirates because they say that paying ransoms only fuels the chaos in the war-wracked nation.
International navies patrolling the waters along the Somali coast have restored a little nationalism to some Somalis, who, while hating the pirates, have expressed a reserved sympathy for them because of the issues that created them.
The recent news rush and hysteria has often been short on context and long on conspiracy theory. The pirates, as unsavory sounding they may be, are the product of an era that has seen a massive, almost wholesale neglect of the humanitarian crisis plaguing Somalia, with international ships plundering its coastline, and numerous cases of illegal dumping of toxic waste along Somalia's shores.
The Media Line (TML) looks at some of the myths and misinformation surrounding Somali piracy, its roots, and its objectives.
One of the main issues facing people living in Somalia’s coastal villages is the presence of large foreign vessels with large nets and aggressive crews intimidating local fishermen and over-fishing in areas once essential for local fishermen to make their living. Due to this fish plundering and terrorization, the primary food and income source for many Somalis has dwindled significantly.
TML met with one of the "pirates,” who related that he had become a pirate to join the fight against the ships destroying local fishermen's boats.
Identifying himself as “Mohamed Hadle,” he explains his reasons for taking part in the practice of hijacking ships.
“This unusual tactic was spawned from many years of poverty and oppression; this was the root of the uprising,” he says, proudly detailing some of the exploits of himself and his colleagues.
Since 1991, Somalia has been the scene of violence and chaos. After warlords toppled former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, the country has been wracked with violence and starvation, and to the anger of many locals there has been a constant binge of illegal fishing, industrial waste and toxic waste dumping.
Hadle recounts that after years of exploitation by foreign boats, dozens of fishermen held a meeting to address how best to deal with the situation. Some decided to plug on, hoping for the best, but for the majority of fishermen reality had pounded them too hard and too often, and the decision was made to form a seafaring militia.
“We decided to use our small boats, along with some guns we had in our houses, to hijack any ship violating Somali waters,” Hadle says.
Hadle's group of fishermen became one of several groups of pirates that now identify themselves as “Somalia’s coastguards."
Describing some of the operations carried out by his group, Hadle claims the group has hijacked three ships and received $1 million of ransom from each one. The money energized the group and they began to ratchet up both their hijacking efforts and business aspirations.
After collecting the first million, the group decided to construct a piracy network, buying speedboats, modern marine equipment and additional weapons.
There are unconfirmed reports that the pirates have their own management and offices in Mogadishu and the two pirate havens, the towns of Harardhere and Eyl.
For many years, Hadle says, he was a fisherman who kept to himself and even after numerous instances of harassment by international ships still refused to take up arms against them. But eventually reality set in and he was forced into piracy by "belligerent vessels."
“In truth, I had absolutely no desire join the pirates, but after the total ruination of my livelihood I was forced into it,” he says.
Hadle describes an incident in 2008 when a boat that his group wanted to seize sprayed them with boiling water and shot at Hadle and his colleagues. Several of the pirate crew were wounded; they decided not to return fire and fled. One of Hadle’s friends is missing and is presumed dead after the ordeal.
When asked how the pirates distinguish whether the vessels under attack are armed or not, he says that the attacks are games of chance, but they fire shots at the ships before boarding them, seeing that many of their friends had been killed during such attacks.
When a ship is hijacked, the crews are controlled by having guns pointed at them and they are sometimes beaten; but they feed the hostages well, he says, smiling.
“We give them the best Somali food, because we will get undreamed of ransom,” Hadle tells TML.
He adds that the pirates are misunderstood – they are not bandits but coastguards who defend the waters from waste dumping and illegal fishing.
When TML asked Hadle if the pirates gave some of their ransom money to Islamists, he denies it saying they are money seekers not weapons suppliers, and fear that arms would fall into the hands of al-Qa’ida-linked Somali insurgents.
In the last two years piracy recruitments have risen markedly because poor young Somali teenagers consider piracy the road to “quick riches.”
“Piracy is really good work, because you will get hundreds of thousands of dollars at once,” says Somali high school student Abdullahi Farah.
According to Hadle, the ransoms are divided among the pirates, but the biggest share falls to the commanders, and he was one of them.
Clutching a small, elegant walking stick, Hadle says that at 35 years of age he is a well-respected man with status provided by his piracy skills.
“I have three wives, two are in Garowe, Puntland and one in Mogadishu and I’m able to support them in the best way,” he tells TML proudly in an interview at one of his houses.
He owns two small cars, one lorry and several commercial sites, including stores. He is thinking of quitting the piracy business in the coming months, and says he will become “an elder.”
The pirates are ambitious young men trying to live the good life in a troubled country, but they face constant danger in a game of chance. But despite the dangers, hundreds of armed men join the pirates every week.
In the northern coastal towns such as Harardhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving because of the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached tens of millions of dollars this year alone.
But not everyone thinks of the pirates as the Robin Hoods they see themselves as: helping the poor when ransom money comes in.
“The pirates are a major force in the mindless violent crime in our country,” Somali ex-maritime officer Mohamed Abdi tells TML by phone from Hargeysa, Somaliland.
He says the wealthy pirates are tricking poor young women into humiliating acts, such as sex for money.
Nevertheless, hundreds of people support the piracy.
“I would not be against marrying a pirate man because I would be living in a good life, because they have a good income,” says Sahra Abdullahi, a resident of Harardhere.
Copyright © 2008 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.
 

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