Pirates of Somalia (26 page)

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 clear: 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

H
USSEIN
H
ERSI WAS NOT A PIRATE
. B
UT 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.

As Said and Abdirashid watched warily, Hersi and I unrolled a prayer mat onto the whitewashed floor of a westward-facing enclave tucked into the side of the principal residence, as far out of the path of the raking wind as possible. Even so, powerful gusts briefly turned our
dirin
into a billowing sail, upending our 7-Up bottles and sending our stainless-steel water cups clanging down the steps of the veranda. We finally managed to pin a variety of weights onto the corners of the
dirin
, and, pouring cups of sweet tea, we started to chew the khat. A few minutes later, feeling out of place in my jeans, I excused myself and changed into my only
ma’awis
, a cheap piece of fraying yellow and green cloth I had picked up in Bossaso.

When I returned, Hersi was the first to fire off a question. “Is it all right if I borrow a hundred dollars from you, man?” he asked. “I’ll send it back to you in a few days, through Dahabshiil,” referring to Somalia’s largest
hawala
(money transfer) company. I informed him that I would be making a trip to a Dahabshiil branch later in the afternoon to pick up some much-needed cash, and would be happy to give it to him then. He smiled, stuffing another khat stalk into his mouth. Hersi had been spending most of his recent days in Eyl, chewing khat and waiting, quite literally, for his cousins’ ransom to fall from the sky. To his credit, he did not wish to remain a welfare case, but was looking for gainful employment as a pirate interpreter—the man responsible for communicating with the crew on board a captive vessel, and often for negotiating with the shipping company. Unfortunately, it was the wrong season for hiring new pirate help; the
Victoria
hijackers had been grounded, along with all other pirate groups, since the monsoons began. That fact, however, had not stopped Hersi from anxiously monitoring the international news in the hopes of catching wind of a hijacking—a ship he could call his own.

Though the
Victoria
remained in captivity, Hersi had temporarily returned to Garowe. Since our encounter in Eyl, he had been calling two or three times daily with one of two invariable themes: arranging a time to chew khat together (at my expense), or asking for a $900 video camera with which to shoot a documentary about pirates. While the latter desire remained beyond my ability or inclination to fulfil, I gladly obliged Hersi’s request for a khat picnic. Since my attempts to get aboard the
Victoria
during my visit to Eyl had been rebuffed by Computer—the gang’s leader—as the machinations of a CIA spy, Hersi was likely the furthest I would get in my attempts to infiltrate the organization. “They’re my cousins,” he explained. “I can hang out with them, and nobody can touch me.”

Hersi had already succeeded where I had failed. A few days after I returned to Garowe from Eyl, he had called me at three o’clock in the morning from on board the
Victoria
, obviously high on khat. “I need a video camera, man, so I can film what’s going on here, so I can show the world!” After I patiently pointed out that his request was impossible, he calmed down and promised to contact me once he was back in Garowe. Sitting with me now, Hersi explained what he was doing that night. “Computer is on [the
Victoria
] now. He offered me some money, but I told him that I didn’t need it, but that I did want to chew some
mirra
with them,” he said, using the Kenyan word for khat. “So since I am their cousin, they let me come on the ship and chew with them.”