Pirates of Somalia (18 page)

This claim was not entirely hollow: Bryden has openly campaigned for the international recognition of Somaliland—with which Puntland has a hostile relationship—indicating a political stance that made him an unusual choice to head up a UN body. Nor was it the first time that Bryden, who has familial ties to Somaliland politicians, had been accused of partiality: the pro-Somaliland reports he issued while director of the International Crisis Group’s Africa Program in the mid-2000s earned him the criticism of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development states (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda), while the Puntland government declared him a
persona non grata
. This order was still standing as of 2010; the group’s March report had been compiled without Bryden ever having set foot in Puntland.

* * *

Though the Puntland government, as Bryden suggested, has become increasingly willing to pursue the pirates on land, enthusiasm alone may not be sufficient to offset its lack of capacity. With an annual budget in the range of $20 million, derived almost exclusively from Bossaso port taxes, the Puntland government cannot afford an effective police force, let alone a justice system capable of processing hundreds of suspected pirates.

With such meagre resources at his disposal, Puntland’s president can perhaps be better described as an inter-clan mediator than as the leader of a modern state. Even to fund basic state services, the president is routinely forced to beg for handouts from unconventional sources. Addressing an assembly of Bossaso businessmen at a dinner one evening, Farole appealed for donations to pay for a list of absurdly modest projects: replacing road signs, long ago stripped bare for the valuable metal; building a six-kilometre road from the livestock inspection station to the port; constructing a small hospital.

Given Puntland’s capacities, the counter-piracy potential of the local military forces is limited. The Darawish’s five to six thousand soldiers are garrisoned at Garowe, Bossaso, and Qardho—far from the locus of pirate activity—so any land operation against the pirates involves transporting troops hundreds of kilometres across roadless terrain. The logistical difficulties in deploying such a response make successful results extremely rare, and almost entirely dependent on timely local intelligence gathering.

One such operation occurred when I was with the president’s entourage in Bossaso. Acting on a tip-off, Farole led an impromptu raid on the village of Marero, a well-known human trafficking and piracy launching site just east of Bossaso. In what was more a public relations exercise than a model for future action, Puntland security forces captured two speedboats, several outboard motors, barrels of fuel, food, and ladders. The seized equipment was proudly displayed to local media in lieu of the would-be pirates themselves, who had absconded in a speedboat as the troops approached.

If provided with sufficient financial and technical support from the international community aimed at overhauling its police and justice system, the Puntland government would be in a good position to tackle piracy on land. Like other kinds of undesirables who move and find shelter amongst civilians—militants, revolutionaries, even common criminals—the pirates’ success depends on the goodwill and protection of the local people. Though initially welcomed as heroes, they have become increasingly unpopular amongst the local inhabitants due to their perceived un-Islamic influence.

It was perhaps with a view to mending community relations that Boyah’s redemption movement had proved so popular amongst his former colleagues. Of these ex-pirates, perhaps none had expressed a greater desire to reform than Momman, a taciturn and thoughtful man whom I had first met at the khat picnics outside Garowe. Two weeks after the picnics, in July 2009, the two Omars procured me an invitation to visit Momman at his home.

8

Momman

M
OMMAN’S HOUSE STOOD ALONE AMID A FIELD OF RUBBLE ON
the outskirts of Garowe, past the ruins of the long-abandoned airport, a vast tract of stone and concrete slabs struggling to poke through decades of layered dust. Nearby was a Japanese-funded settlement for internally displaced persons, ramshackle rows of tent-like structures cast in cracking concrete and tin—a damning testament to what a million dollars buys with Somali contractors. The only human activity in the early afternoon heat was a lone woman labouring over a wash bucket with a few haggard, half-naked children scampering in orbits around her.

As with many upscale Somali dwellings, the wall ringing Momman’s compound was a vibrant sky blue, decorated with brilliant yellow and red circles and triangles, like a child’s finger painting. We parked outside the walls beside another 4×4; this area of town was so deserted that there was no serious risk of theft. We had come directly from the khat
suq
, where, as a friendly offering, I had financed the purchase of several hefty bags of the drug.

Momman had once been Boyah’s running mate, a founding father of the core group of Eyl fishermen-cum-pirates, before he split off to form a group of his own. Judging by the size of his house, he had enjoyed a fair measure of success prior to joining the recent pirate redemption movement.

We moved through the gate and into a courtyard carved up by weeds and empty except for a lonely gazebo. My two Special Police Unit guards secured themselves a ration of khat and found a spot under the gazebo to settle down and chew. We were told to wait outside as Momman prepared the house for us.

After about five minutes we received permission to go inside. The dim hallway leading into the house hit my eyes as a formless smudge of black and blue as I left the bright sun of the courtyard behind. Following the Omars’ example, I slipped off my sandals and stepped barefoot into a low-lit, spacious room serving as a joint dining and living space. The cloying smell of Arabian perfume hung heavily in the air, reminiscent of the scented tissues provided at Somali restaurants following a meal. To my immediate left a sleek stainless-steel fridge and freezer rested flush against the door jamb; further down the adjoining wall, a brand-new twenty-one-inch TV and DVD player shared a beige wall unit with neat stacks of china. At the room’s midpoint it cast off its modernist airs and morphed into an approximation of a sultan’s tent: a three-piece divan framed an ornate crimson carpet, itself encircled by thick crimson drapes that blocked the daylight struggling through the barred windows behind them. Reddish, gold-tasselled bolsters sat propped on the floor against the base of the divan, while a few smaller similarly coloured pillows were scattered on the cushions above.

This was one of the nicest houses I had yet seen in Somalia, and I paid Momman the compliment. He was quick to correct me. “This is not my house.” he said. “It belongs to my wife and kids.” I felt like a tax agent investigating the assets of a mafia don.

Colonel Omar, dressed in his usual striped tracksuit, stocking cap, and scarf, lay staring at the ceiling on the divan across from me. He cradled his AK across his chest, almost caressing it. He was still khat sober: fifty days and counting. On the ground, the smaller Omar reclined against the cushion propped beneath the Colonel’s legs. To his left sat his driver, a blithe, lanky man named Mahad.

Momman settled at the head of the gathering, leaning on the floor against a bolster. Behind his head on the divan lay a loaded Belgian semi-automatic pistol—the little brother, around these parts, to the AK-47. Momman was flanked on either side by two of his former foot soldiers, Mohamed and Abdirahman (not their real names), who casually lounged, fastidiously picking at khat stems.

Momman, like Boyah, looked to be in his early forties, with broad shoulders that gave him an air of great physical strength. But in place of Boyah’s free-flowing goat’s tuft and traditional elder’s garb were a meticulously trimmed goatee and an equally dapper combo of striped red dress shirt and olive slacks. His face was hard, his eyes old and almost fatigued, their gaze producing the impression—impossible to feign—that he did not care at all what I thought of him. He studied me intently, his eyes tracking over my face, and I found it difficult to meet them. His rare smiles slipped by with obvious reluctance, as if his facial muscles had briefly triumphed over his brain for control of his expression.

His austere gaze remained unchanged even when I produced the copious bags of khat I had brought with me. We dropped the black plastic bags in the centre of the carpet and clustered around them, like children around a campfire, an atmosphere that was instantly dashed when Momman rose and threw open the drapes, flooding the room with daylight. I settled back against the cushions, letting my
ma’awis
cascade comfortably over my folded legs, and picked apart the binding of a bundle. Selecting a stalk, I stripped away the tough, leathery leaves until only the soft shoots remained. As I lifted it to my mouth, the hint of bitterness hitting my nostrils carried with it a vision of the day to come: the stomach pains, the nervous chain-smoking, the tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. Time itself doesn’t seem quite real when you’re chewing khat; the activity is perfectly in tune with Somalia—the slow, lethargic chewing keeps pace with the plodding of the days, lives measured out in pulpy mouthfuls. “Khat days” are endless, and there was no rush to begin the interview. I relaxed and waited for tongues to loosen.

In the meantime, I produced my backgammon set and played a few games with my interpreter Omar. Mohamed and Abdirahman glanced over as we played and asked some idle questions, but before long Colonel Omar descended from his perch on the divan and snatched the board away from his cousin, pulling it close to him where the others were unable to see it. He pointed aggressively at my chest, indicating a challenge.

The Colonel’s militaristic philosophy on life was nowhere better expressed than in his backgammon game. He hit checkers in a mad frenzy whenever it was possible to do so, bellowing in victory each time. I tried to explain through Omar why restraint was necessary, but my interpreter lacked the translational nuance to properly convey backgammon strategy. I did what I could, uttering the Somali word for “dangerous”—
khatar—
after each ill-advised move, but it was of little use. After each inevitable loss, the Colonel scowled and half-jokingly accused me of cheating, wagging his finger.

Ignoring our game, Momman remained fixated on the television set, which was showing the latest Somali Broadcasting Corporation footage of Mogadishu in flames, the result of yet another Al-Shabaab suicide bombing. The conversation somehow turned to the multiple foreign journalists who had been kidnapped in Puntland, some by their own guards. “Here, in the Nugaal valley, we don’t kidnap people who are working with us,” Momman said, smiling at me for the first time. “It’s not our culture.”

Someone produced a tall thermos containing the saccharine tea that traditionally accompanies khat to counteract its bitter taste, and I poured a small helping into a cup. Every so often, Momman’s wife wandered into the room, arranging the already tidy chairs or checking the placement of the immaculately stowed chinaware.

Momman picked up his handgun and absently began to toy with it. Bored and anxious to develop some kind of rapport, I nonchalantly requested to see it. He removed the clip and passed it through an assembly line of hands until it reached me. I fiddled with the safety for a few seconds and examined the barrel, then cocked the hammer a few times for good measure, nodding approvingly.

An hour and a half on, heaps of discarded khat stalks joined cigarette butts in mounting piles next to half-drained teacups. Attention turned to the TV as a procession of images of Somalia’s past leaders began to scroll across the screen. Abdirahman and Mohamed excitedly named each one for me as his photo appeared. Momman sat in silence, watching the television and chewing ponderously.

Enough time had passed for the khat to take effect, so I decided to ask Momman some questions. The tale he began to recount was by now familiar to my ears. “Boyah and I used to fish together,” he said. “At first, we operated together in the same group, but later we split into different ones. There were a lot of independent groups … around fifteen of them. We used to only go after illegal fishing ships,” he explained. It wasn’t until 1999, according to Momman, that Boyah attacked his first commercial ship. “We started attacking them when we realized we couldn’t fight against fishing ships anymore,” owing to the improved state of their armament. “Commercial ships go into our waters, and they don’t pay any fees.”

Momman’s success soon elevated him, as with Boyah, to the position of financier: “I was the one who bought everything for the missions,” he explained, sometimes for his own group, but also for others. “We helped each other out.”

Boyah had taken credit for hijacking dozens of ships, but when asked for his own tally, Momman hesitated. “I can’t tell you that,” he said, “it’s a secret.” He paused, musing. “I got a lot of good ones.”

I decided to change tack. Boyah told me that his favourite ship was the
Golden Nori
, I said, referring to the Japanese chemical tanker he had steered into Bossaso port, What’s yours? The attempt met defeat against Momman’s hard eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he answered. “I’m ashamed of what I did.”

I pressed further, desperate for any scraps of information he could give me about the ships: the nationalities of the crew, their cargos or destinations.

“No, I won’t give you any of those details,” Momman said, “because you’ll be able to figure out the names of the ships later on.”

“He’s not stupid,” Omar interjected.

Momman invariably hijacked any question aimed at illuminating his buccaneering past and steered it back to the topic of his redemption. “I want to have a good career, and not have it ruined by my past deeds,” he said. “I want to be another man.” He gave April 20 as marking the beginning of this new life, which he insisted was before the redemption movement had come into fashion. “I renounced piracy before the Sheikh [Abdulkhadar] started taking people to mosque and making them swear off piracy. I made the decision on my own.