by Jay Bahadur
“We appreciate that you’ve come here with so little security,” said Abdirizak. “It shows that you trust us, that you respect the people of this town.” Though I had not considered a carload of AK-toting soldiers to be “light security,” my retinue was apparently meagre compared to the veritable invasion forces marshalled by BBC and Al Jazeera reporters during their recent visits to Eyl.
“We’re not criminals. No one here likes the pirates,” Abdirizak said, gesturing in the direction of the ocean. “Those two ships are the last ones here, and I think they are very close to being freed. Everyone in Eyl will be happy to see them go.”
Hawa Abdi Hersi, a middle-aged woman with a black headscarf and a leathery face, joined us at the table; consistent with the trend of unofficial titles, she was introduced to me as the “spokesman for the women of Eyl.” The three spoke eagerly about the problems facing the women of the town, the need for education, and democracy. I listened in silence.
At my request, the two men agreed to convene a town gathering on the following day.
* * *
Back at the guest house, dinner consisted of tuna canned in Las Qoray—one of the few products bearing the exceedingly rare stamp of “Made in Somalia”—and plain spaghetti, which we scooped off a communal platter with our hands. A few of the soldiers had managed to hook up a small generator, which emitted a soothing half buzz, half hum. Daylight was quickly supplanted by the pale hue of two flickering bulbs.
Half a kilometre distant, two generator-powered floodlights illuminating the centre of town were all that saved Eyl from total darkness, while the blackness enveloping the ocean was broken only by the distant lights of the Victoria, gently moving back and forth like a floating lantern. As I gazed over the wall of the compound, I spotted the tail lights of a four-wheel drive tracking across the beach, probably delivering the night’s ration of khat to a waiting skiff.
* * *
I rose early the next morning to find that a few empty oil containers, fashioned into makeshift wash buckets, had been filled with water from the courtyard well. I emptied a bucket over my head and felt the water begin to melt yesterday’s layer of sandy paste off my skin. Grabbing Said and Abdirashid, I exited the compound for a stroll along the deserted beach. The sand was blinding under the early sun; the wind was just awakening, whipping a fresh onslaught of fine grains into the grooves of my camera lens. A few hundred metres away, a fresh cohort of young pirate stevedores had picked up where the night shift had left off; they were loading several fishing skiffs beached near the edge of the surf, outboard motors attached. A lone goat stood tethered to the side of a boat, and a maroon 4×4 was parked on the sand nearby.
Whenever I glanced out to sea, the Victoria’s distance from shore appeared to fluctuate, at times so close that I could make out the colour of the deck cranes, other times so far to sea that she was almost lost to the horizon. Whether the ship was adrift and being swept in and out with the tide, or whether it was an optical illusion, I was unable to discern. I was told that the pirates on board had ordered the Victoria’s crew to keep the vessel in constant motion, in order to prevent US frogmen or submarines from latching cables onto its hull. The pirates erroneously believed US naval forces had employed these tactics during the Maersk Alabama incident to tow the ship’s doomed hijackers into sniper range.
In town, Omar, the Colonel, and I ate breakfast in a small lean-to, reclining in bare feet on woven mats. Abdirizak, Eyl’s “sheriff,” told me that a special meal had been planned in honour of my arrival, a fish caught especially for me late the previous night, when the wind was calm enough for a skiff to manage. A tray containing a single bony fish was brought out, which the four of us proceeded to attack with our injera bread. “This is the worst fish,” Abdirizak said apologetically. “The good ones all stay away during the hagaa. You should come back in December, which is the best time for fishing.”
Following our breakfast, I met with the townspeople of Eyl outdoors, on the sprawling veranda of a general store. Seated directly in front of me on plastic lawn chairs were Abdirizak, Abdul, Abdi Hersi, and a new man by the name of Aaul Mohammad, who introduced himself as the head of Eyl’s “public relations department.” The place of honour was reserved for a withered, silver-haired man said to be the oldest fisherman in the town. For the duration of the meeting, the old man remained placidly rooted to his seat, staring vacantly into space. On the other end of the age spectrum, a large crowd of young men and women formed a ring of spectators around us; their only contribution to the conversation was the intermittent ringing of their mobile phones, as loud as stereo speakers.
Aiming to strike a sympathetic tone, I began with a question about the town’s troubles with illegal fishing.
“In 1991, after the government collapsed, ships from all different countries started coming here,” said Abdirizak.
“Italians, Taiwanese, Japanese, Koreans, everyone comes here,” added Aaul Mohammad. “The trawlers come as close as one mile. Illegal fishing vessels were around here last night, not very far away; we saw their lights. But no one can get close to them, they carry such heavy weapons.”
“They use drag nets made of hard metal, and they pull everything off the bottom,” added Abdirizak. The result, he said, had been the destruction of the local lobster population. “There used to be a lot, now they’re all gone. The trawlers took the rocks off the bottom, and the lobster eggs along with them.”
But the lobsters had not been the only victims, Abdi Hersi lamented. “One time, four young men—lobster divers—were caught up in a trawler’s drag net. They all drowned. We’ve lost a lot of boys, about twenty of them. The foreign ships come and run over their small fishing boats. They used to die every day … and no one cares about them.”
Though small-scale sustenance fishing continued, exports had trickled to a halt.
“We don’t even have a market here where we can sell our fish,” explained Abdirizak. Referring to the ubiquitous laid-up refrigeration trucks, he continued: “They’re all rusted and broken down now. There used to be a lot of business here.”
Where were their export markets? “Dubai!” the townspeople enthusiastically exclaimed in unison, where they used to receive a good price for their lobster and shark fins. The 2004 tsunami, they said, had destroyed Eyl’s fishing economy, as well as reduced local fish stocks. In the aftermath of the disaster, an immense NGO relief mission had distributed new fishing gear to 105 fishermen, but it was soon destroyed by illegal fishing vessels. This type of hostility had spurred local fishermen to fight back, beginning, if Boyah is to be believed, with his attack on a Korean fishing vessel in 1995. But Eyl’s townspeople did not appear ready to take Boyah at his word.
“It was in 1999 that Boyah started attacking ships around Eyl; in 1995 it was a different one—near Garacad,” they debated. Each time I had attempted to establish a piracy timeline—whether through Boyah, members of his gang, or the people of Eyl—the dates seemed to change. Only a hatred of the rampant corruption and double-dealing miring the illegal fishing trade united the various accounts I had heard.
“In 1999, we caught an Italian fishing trawler and brought it to court,” said Abdirizak. “But a Somali businessman arrived and arranged for its release. There was one Somali stationed on board the ship, who translated for the crew.” Indeed, since 1999 many illegal fishing vessels had placed armed Somali guards on their decks, and there was a widespread belief amongst local Somalis that local businessmen in the diaspora were responsible. “Somali businessmen from overseas are organizing it. They call their cousins, some local guys here, and tell them, ‘Go on that ship, I’ll give you a hundred bucks,’ ” Abdirizak added.
A voice addressing me in English drew my attention to the periphery of the circle. It belonged to a man by the name of Hussein Hersi, whom I had first met months earlier during my first trip to Puntland, when I had found him sitting by himself on a plastic lawn chair in the middle of Bossaso prison’s courtyard. Having spent
much of his recent life in self-exile in various cities across North America, Hersi had returned to Puntland some months earlier to visit relatives. His presence in Eyl was no coincidence; I learned later that day that Hersi’s cousins were members of the gang responsible for hijacking the Victoria.
“Western warships, you know the NATO ships, all the European countries are just here to protect their own fishing ships,” he began. “These people are victims. We’re seeing a lot of diseases that never used to happen: skin diseases, cancer—Somalis never had that problem.” The crowd murmured its assent—yes, yes, cancer, they said.
“One thing we’re one hundred percent sure about is that they’re dumping a lot of things in the ocean, because every month we find new diseases that we never had before,” said Mohammad. “Also, there are a lot of fish and birds dying for no reason all along the coast. It’s been getting worse and worse over the last three years.”
“Even in Garowe, a lot of people refuse to eat fish from here because they’re worried about it being toxic,” my interpreter Omar interjected.
These claims were supported by an initial UN assessment mission sent to the Puntland coast in February 2005, which confirmed reports that the tsunami had stirred up tonnes of submerged chemical and nuclear waste, breaking open rusting barrels and washing their contents ashore in northern Somalia. Amongst the local population, the mission had observed far higher than normal rates of ailments consistent with radiation sickness, including respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal haemorrhages and unusual skin infections. Subsequent studies, however, failed to corroborate these findings.1
“That’s the real problem,” Hussein Hersi said. “Fish can be replaced, but twenty years from now these people are going to have a lot of problems. Even if they get millions from piracy, it doesn’t pay back what they have lost.”
The millions had come recently, though the townspeople could again come to no agreement about when the attacks on commercial vessels began. The numbers flew at me: “ ’95; no, no, ’99,” the voices argued. A consensus was reached: by 1999, illegal fishing ships had become too tough to handle, arming themselves with anti-aircraft guns and other heavy weaponry. But it was not until 2007, according to the townspeople, that attacks on commercial shipping began in force.
And was Boyah the leader? A round of laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Yes, yes,” many exclaimed in unison, except for Aaul Mohammad, the sole dissenter: maya, no, he said. “Leader, no. Member,” he added in English.
“They didn’t have a leader at first, but Boyah just naturally took on that role over time,” Abdirizak said.
“He’s the one who first put the idea in their heads,” added Hussein Hersi.
In those early days, the pirates had been welcomed in the local community. “They were heroes at that time. We encouraged them. Now it’s out of control, and we’re not happy with them,” said Abdirizak. “They drive up all the local prices for everything, especially for food.” One farr—about half a kilogram—of khat cost twice in Eyl what it did in Garowe.
“Also, it’s against our religion. We’re too ashamed to support them,” said Abdul.
Another reason for the townspeople’s recent hostility was that pirate operations had been increasingly taken over by outsiders. “The pirates here now all come from somewhere else,” said Mohammad. “They’re not allowed to come into the town, or people will get angry. The pirates don’t want to study, they just want quick money. People here don’t want their children mixing with the pirates, exposed to such bad role models. They want their kids to grow up with good behaviour, to study.”
Perhaps they had forgotten, I suggested, about the good example that Boyah had set by giving a portion of his earnings as charity to the local poor. This set off another round of laughter.
“The only person he ever gave charity to was himself,” someone said.
“We don’t even want Boyah to talk to us,” added Abdi Hersi.
“If they had brought money here, you would see it. Take a walk around the town, go into every house if you want,” said Abdirizak.
The discussion turned to Boyah’s recent coast guard aspirations, and I asked if the people of Eyl believed he was fit for the job. A huge clamour of nos rippled through the crowd.
“But that’s not our business. That’s up to the government,” said Abdirizak.
Was Boyah serious about his desire to reform? I asked.
“Yes, yes, he is serious,” came the universal response.
“But we can’t give him a job,” said Mohammad. “That has to come from the government.”
I could not resist asking one final question: What had Boyah been like as a child?
“He was a good boy,” said Abdi Hersi, smiling. “He wasn’t that well educated, but he was a really good fisherman.”
* * *
With my impromptu town meeting accomplished, I decided to turn my attention to another goal: getting on board the Victoria. For the past few weeks, I had been shooting footage for CBS News with a small hand-held video camera. No Western journalist had yet been able to get a camera on board a hostage ship, but I intended to try. The difficulty lay in making direct contact with the gang; the pirates, despised by the local community, were lying low. My only potential foot in the door was a pirate who went by the name of “Eighty-nine”—a former friend of Omar’s who was holed up on the Victoria. But we had no way to get in touch with him.
The pirates may have been keeping a low profile, but their associates were not. Lounging in the courtyard of a whitewashed stucco house, chewing khat in the mid-afternoon heat, were a half-dozen young men dressed in polo shirts, Hussein Hersi among them. These were pirate groupies: friends, cousins, and miscellaneous hangers-on, bumming around Eyl with the sole purpose of begging handouts from the impending ransom money. Their greed was a potential ally in my quest to get on board the Victoria.
We returned later in the afternoon to find them rooted to the same spot, lethargically chewing like a herd of pasture animals. I made a simple offer: help me to get on board the ship, and CBS’s subsequent news report would put such pressure on the Victoria’s German owners that they would load the ransom money onto the next available aircraft. My pitch had the desired effect; they immediately roused themselves from their stoned stupor and rushed to their vehicles.
The next hours were filled with fitful anticipation of the decision from pirate command. After another visit by our money-hungry go-betweens, Omar announced the bad news: the gang’s Garowe-based leader, a putative clairvoyant known as “Computer,” was less than enthusiastic about my proposal.
“He says there’s no way you’re getting on that ship,” Omar reported. “They think that you’re a CIA spy.” Computer would not even consent to allow Ombaali, the ex-pirate, to film the footage. The day’s efforts had come to naught, and there was nothing to do but wait for tomorrow to try again.
On the morning of my third and final day in Eyl, I awoke at twenty past five to Colonel Omar, fully dressed in his combat fatigues, obnoxiously snapping his fingers at his cousin in the bed across from me. I had counted on another two hours of sleep, but there was no chance of that; with military discipline, the Colonel had mapped out the day’s schedule, and it began now. I sloshed what little water was left in the wash bucket over my face and back, running it through my sand-laced hair. Snatching a rare glance in a mirror, I briefly considered trimming my dishevelled beard.
This early in the morning, the wind was quiet outside, but my soldier escorts were not. Shouting and wildly gesticulating in the direction of the sea, they were trying to draw my attention to a fact that was as plain as the empty water in front of me: the MV Victoria was gone. The word was that the ship had weighed anchor late the previous night, as if on one of its routine repositioning manoeuvres. Only on this occasion it hadn’t stopped, its lights getting gradually dimmer as it pulled out of the harbour. Where it had gone, no one had any idea. But one thing was cle
ar: they had left because of us. A few uniforms, some innocent inquiries, and one paranoid leader in Garowe were all it took.
The pirates were spooked.
* * *
Rejected by Computer and his underlings, I was forced to turn to an inside source for information about the gang. A few weeks after I returned from Eyl, Hussein Hersi, pirate informant, agreed to visit me at my guest house in Garowe.
12
Pirate Insider
HUSSEIN HERSI WAS NOT A PIRATE. BUT HE WANTED TO BE ONE.
In his early forties, Hersi was tall, with a closely shaved head and a pair of gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses perched high on his face. A black diamond-pattern ma’awis hung off his hips, terminating just a few centimetres above the ground, and a crimson shawl was slung over his right shoulder. The latter, he later explained, was not mere fashion. “It’s a kind of pirate gang sign, like with the Crips and the Bloods,” he said, referring to the infamous Los Angeles street gang rivals. Coiling around his right bicep was a menacing black snake tattoo, a serious transgression under the dictates of Islam. So anathema was this choice of body art that Colonel Omar disdainfully referred to Hersi only as “Tattoo.” (Later, the Colonel began repeatedly prank-calling Hersi, posing as a member of Al-Shabaab and threatening to execute him for his blasphemy.)
I met with Hersi in the courtyard of the compound in which I was staying for a leisurely day of khat chewing on the veranda. His local reputation was so unsavoury that my guards, Said and Abdirashid, only begrudgingly allowed him into the compound, and then decided to throw him out about fifteen minutes later; it was only through a combination of cajoling and threatening that I was able to persuade them to allow him to stay. Said’s distaste for Hersi came from personal experience: several months before, he had been summoned to help restrain a violently raving, high-out-of-his-mind Hersi, who repeatedly punched Said in the face for his troubles. Said called him a dhqancelis, the closest English translation of which is “one who is in need of cultural healing.” After spending most of the last twenty years in Ohio and Montreal, Hersi had returned to Somalia two years ago, allegedly (if Said is to be believed) to cure himself of his drug addiction through the purifying power of the local culture.