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What's It Like to Be a Pirate? In Dirt-Poor Somalia, Pretty Good
A pirate's life in Somalia isn't for everyone. However, nothing comes easily in one of the poorest and most unstable countries on Earth, and when you consider the dearth of career options for Somalis on land, a pirate's life starts to look more than cushy by comparison.
"Is there any Somali who can earn a million dollars for any business? We get millions of dollars easily for one attack," bragged Salah Ali Samatar, a 32-year-old pirate who spoke by phone from Eyl, a pirate den on Somalia's desolate northern coast.
Hundreds of pirates such as Samatar — zipping around in simple fiberglass speedboats and usually armed with nothing more sophisticated than automatic rifles — have turned the waters off East Africa into a terrifying gantlet for cargo vessels, oil tankers and even cruise ships sailing between Europe and Asia.
The International Maritime Bureau says that at last count 42 ships have been hijacked off Somalia this year, and experts in neighboring Kenya estimate that Somali pirates have pocketed $30 million in ransoms.
While their countrymen suffer through another political crisis and the looming threat of famine, pirates are splashing hundred-dollar bills like play money around the nowhere towns of northern Somalia.
Residents say that the pirates are building houses, buying flashy cell phones and air-conditioned SUVs, gifting friends and relatives with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars and winning the attention of beautiful women, who seem to be flocking to pirate towns from miles around.
Shopkeepers charge the pirates a premium for food and khat — a narcotic leaf that Somali men chew religiously — but the buccaneers don't seem to mind.
"It is true," said a 28-year-old pirate who identified himself as Jama. "We are getting very rich."
Jama, who described himself as a high-ranking member of a group based in Eyl, has earned $375,000 as a pirate, enough to buy a Toyota Land Cruiser and to begin building a six-bedroom house in Garowe, the regional capital, for his family.
His biggest payday came last month, when he earned a $92,000 share of a $1.3 million ransom for a Greek ship, the MV Centauri, which was released after 10 weeks with its crew unharmed.
Almost overnight, Jama said, his standing with the fairer sex has improved dramatically.
"Once there was a girl who lived in Garowe," 100 miles from Eyl, Jama said. "I loved her. I tried to approach her many times, but she rejected me. But since I became a pirate, she has tried nine times to get with me.
"But I refused, because I'm already married."
For years, piracy was a middling trade in Somalia, just one way that desperate young men with guns could make a living in a desperately poor land. In recent months, however, with food prices soaring, the interim government careening toward collapse and local authorities powerless to intervene, hardly a day has gone by without an attempt to commandeer a ship.
"Socioeconomic status in Somalia is very bad right now, as we know, and this is one of the reasons pirates have turned to hijacking," said Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau, based in London. "There are a few people who are gaining a lot."
In September, pirates captured the world's attention by seizing the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship ferrying tanks, grenade launchers and other weapons, reportedly to southern Sudan. In November came an even more brazen haul: the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker, the biggest ship ever hijacked, loaded with $100 million worth of oil. Both vessels are still being held for ransom.
The U.S. military and NATO have deployed warships to patrol the region, and China said this week that it would send a fleet to join the effort. Also this week, the U.N. Security Council authorized nations to chase pirates onto land, although U.S. military officials are skeptical of that tactic, arguing that pirates can easily blend into the local population.
Many of the pirates are former fishermen who claim that they're retaliating against rich countries for years of illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters, and a small portion of the ransoms is thought to go to local fishermen.
One pirate group in Eyl goes by the name "Saving the Somali Sea," although residents complain that the lion's share of the cash stays in the pirates' pockets.
"This town benefits nothing from the pirates," said Bishara Said Ahmed, a 38-year-old housewife in Eyl. "There's no business increase. It's like how it was before. The pirates use this town just to take ships, and when they have their money, they go to other towns to spend it."
Ransom payments used to be made via hawala, a money-transfer system that functions as a low-fee Western Union in the Muslim world. As the sums have grown, however, ship owners increasingly rely on helicopter drops from Kenya. Wooden crates packed with cash sometimes fall from the sky in Eyl, like manna to the impoverished civilians barely eking out an existence on dry land.
Money-counting machines like the ones at your local bank — "We have to make sure it's real money," Jama explained — tally up amounts so huge that families who have survived on fishing for generations say that young children now want to grow up to be pirates.
"Whenever we hear that a ransom was paid, children's dreams of becoming pirates just increase," Ahmed said.
It isn't just children who are starry-eyed. Mustaf Mohamed Abdi, a 48-year-old taxi driver in Garowe, marveled at the excitement in town when a band of pirates comes through on a spending spree. If he's lucky, Abdi said, a friendly pirate might tip him with a hundred-dollar bill.
"The pirates are the hottest men in town," Abdi said. "Girls from all over Somalia moved here to marry pirates. But if the girl isn't cute she's out of luck, because the pirates only go with beautiful girls."
(McClatchy special correspondent Ahmed Ali Sheik contributed to this article.)
24 Comments so far
Show AllKind of like the Wall Street pirates that own the US Government.
Somalis are some of the most repressed people in the World. In the 19th century, the Italians ripped off Southern Somalia (Mogadishu, the British ripped off the north (Hargeish), the French ripped off Djibouti, the British did an end sweep and bounced the Somalis out of East Africa, where they controled much of the trade between the coast and the interior.
In the 1960, the US, through Tennaco, "explored" the Ogaden. There is a large possibility that a major oil reserve exists (downstream from Saudi Arabia)
Of course the US backed Haile Selassie, who had just retruend from JFKs funeral and who was out favorite emperor. The longest runway in Africa was built in Gode, just off the Somali boarder. The Russians came in to counter the US and Ethiopians and built their base in Berbera.
While they were in Berbera, they began the systematic overfishing of the coast and developed a major dumping ground for their huge navy and commerical fleet.
With the disolution of the evil empire, the shit hit the fan in Somalia and nobody was there to pick up the pieces. Total anarchy. Warlordism. No more trade with Saudi and the Gulf, since there was no government to trade with.
Samalia became one of the largest minefields in the world. If you kid did not starve to death, they were often limbless from stepping on mines.
No food, no jobs, no future, lots of left-over AK 47s. Boats donated by USAID in the 1980s. To quote Sam Kinneson "Let them eat sand"
No thanks, I will be a pirate and feed my kids. The romantic crap in the above article disguises the reality of people who have been shit on for centuries.
And the US Government does not know shit about Somalia...
Military jobs are recession-proof too.
So, anyone care to speculate where the piracy problem would be if Ethiopia with the backing of the U.S. hadn't overthrown the first central government in Somalia in years that might have led to peace? Name, the 'evil' Islamist government.
The so-called government is in the south, the pirates are in the north. The north does not listen to the south, they have their own country and leaders.
The Ethiopians agreed to attack the south to get the World bank and the IMF off their backs. They lauched their attacjs from the Gode Air Base, built by the US in the late 1960s under Haile Selasie.
And the Ogaden Clan and the Issa on the nothern desert above Dire Dawa would never listen to the warlords in the south.
What is ironic is the pirates are using boats donated by USAID, which were confiscated from drug smugglers in the Caribbean. In the early 1980s, the US would confiscate drug boats and make them available to aid agencies
Ugh, such horribly hilarious irony. Thanks for the info.
Quite apart from anything else, how do the pirates manage to hold up a ship the height of an office block? Do they drop ladders down the sides to them?
Grappling Hooks and sometimes they have nets,ladders or ropes on the side.
Only one seaman was killed by the Vigilantes in all their hijackings and him possibly accidentally.
Now the USA ups the ante by sniping three Vigilantes who had just offered a bloodless no ransom for no arrests deal.
All the MSM coverage of the Vigilantes is distracting Fluff from Banksters and Afghanistan and Drones and No Criminal Prosecutions for War Crimes.
"No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto."
--Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts
Pirates are cool. I support all of them. America is the largest pirate and even America is a push over.
The Piracy began, when the European ships started dumping toxic material, and then, along with the West, Illegally fished for Tuna, Lobster, and Shrimp, so the pirates were place to keep them away. Somalia relies on the sea for their food.
Somalis have always been outlaws, They have attacked desert caravans for centuries.
And, they have a long history of ocean trade on the Indian Ocean. Didn't the Dutch and English finance much of their spice trade through pirace.
The English ripped off entire boat loads of gold from the Spanish.
Ripping off a countries oil wealth is not piracy ??? especially when several hundred innocent people die...
Arrgh
I know we don't want to demonise people who are doing what they can to make a living, but this article almost seems to glorify them, which is an even worse message to send.
What's it like to be a mercenary? In war-torn Iraq, pretty good. And the mercs there kill far more people.
"ducksawce April 16th, 2009 9:38 pm
Somalis have always been outlaws, They have attacked desert caravans for centuries."
I agree with the rest of ducksawce's post, but wouldn't agree that it's a good idea to say the above-quoted words about Somalis. For one thing, Somalis refers to [all] Somalis, and definitely not all of them have ever been outlaws. Secondly, what's an outlaw; according to who's law is another person outlaw or not and is this evaluation done in ethically sane ways so as to remove all falsehood, prejudice, ... etcetera from the result that's arrived at? The Hells Angels are outlaws, they are organised crime, Mom or Momm (spelling?) Boucher, one of the top leaders of the chapters of the province of Quebec, Canada, if not of all chapters in all of Canada, said so himself in an interview with some U.S. news media station during the second half of the 1990's. I viewed that interview, which was with him, the chairman or another top-ranking leader of the HA's NYC or metro NYC chapter, two L.A. police detectives, and the author of a book on the HA, which was a compilation of data from police records in Canada and the USA. Boucher was entirely frank about the HA being a criminal organisation, which is a very rare thing among criminals, for rare is it that any will admit to being criminals, especially members of criminal organisations speaking about the organisations they're members of.
In any case, Americans certainly have no grounds upon which to stand when calling others outlaws, unless we state what laws we're referring to and explain how it is that the people we call outlaws are indeed this in all fair judgement of their actions or conduct. The same applies to more-or-less all Europeans, Canadians, and Euro-descendants globally.
I would therefore not claim that Somalis have always been outlaws, for certainly not all of them have ever been this, and then I'd want to state why they were outlaws, how they were; and only for those who were.
News media pundits, etc., should cease referring to these present Somalis as pirates. To say that within quotes is one thing, but to say it without the quotes is to infer it as literally applying, and we can't justify doing that until we prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Somalis referred to as pirates are that indeed, that is, definitely. Most presently acting in terms referred to as piracy aren't pirates, but defenders, like they say, the Somalian National Coast Guard sort of defenders, protectors; against the real pirates, of the U.S., Europe, possibly or probably Israel, and maybe more.
It's sort of or much like when UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan stated in 2006 that it was legitimate for Hezbollah of Lebanon to capture a couple of Israeli soldiers and to use them for demanding an exchange of prisoners, while Israel holds 10,000 or more Palestinians and Lebanese without any due process of just law, and he was rather inarguably right! His statement, though not that he'd agree, for maybe he would, or maybe he wouldn't, but even if he wouldn't, well, what he said really also applies with the present Somalian situation. They are robbed and they capture the foreign powers' complicit workers and supporters to demand ransoms, financial ransoms, in exchange for the return of these captured foreigners. The Somalians have been extremely robbed, economically and environmentally, so what they're doing definitely is [not] an exaggeration; it's quite wholly fair, right, and probably, or certainly, their only means of defence, and getting a little justice.
Well, I guess that I'll now take my words, of my first post in this page, mostly back; just having read the article below and which tells of a very, very different story than any I've read so far about these Somalis being referred to as 'pirates'. It seems they really are pirates, and that they're operating with protection of or from the governments of the USA and its proxy Ethiopia.
VERY IMPORTANT is this. And surprising? I'd say ... not; not really.
QUOTE:
Exclusive: Ethiopia/USA/Somali pirates’ cover-up
By Thomas C. Mountain
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Apr 16, 2009, 00:26
ASMARA, Eritrea -- One of the best kept secrets in the international media these days is the link between the USA, Ethiopia and the Somali pirates. First, a little reliable background from someone on the ground in the Horn of Africa.
The Somali pirates operate out of the Ethiopian and USA created enclaves in Somalia calling themselves Somaliland and Puntland. These Ethiopian and USA backed warlord controlled territories have for many years hosted Ethiopian military bases, which have been greatly expanded recently by the addition of thousands of Ethiopian troops who were driven out of southern and central Somali by the Somali resistance to the Ethiopian invasion.
After securing their ransom for the hijacked ships the Somali pirates head directly to their local safe havens, in this case, the Ethiopian military bases, where they make a sizeable contribution to the retirement accounts of the Ethiopian regime headed by Meles Zenawi.
Of course, the international naval forces who are patrolling the Horn of Africa know all too well what is going on for they have at their disposal all sorts of high tech observation platforms, ranging from satellites to unmanned drones with high resolution video cameras that report back in real time.
The French commandos started to pursue the Somali pirates into their lairs last year until the pirates got the word that for the right amount of cash they were more than welcome in the Ethiopian military bases in their local neighborhoods. Ethiopia being the western, mainly USA, Cop on the Beat in East Africa put these bases off limits to the frustrated navies of the world, who are no doubt growling in anger to their USA counterparts about why this is all going on.
Now that the pirates have started attacking USA flagged shipping, something that was until now off limits, it remains to be seen what the Obama administration will do. One thing we in the Horn of Africa have learned all too well, when it comes to Ethiopia, don’t expect anything resembling accurate coverage by the media, especially those who operate under the cloak of “freedom of the press.”
Stay tuned for more on this from the Onlinejournal.com, the only site willing to expose the truth on matters no one else will touch.
Thomas C. Mountain, the last white man living in Eritrea, was in a former life an educator, activist and alternative medicine practitioner in the USA. Email thomascmountain at yahoo.com.
END QUOTE
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4599.shtml
I got the link after reading the article's copy at www.globalresearch.ca , btw.
They are Hi-Jacking weapons of war used to kill people, oil stolen from the land that produced it, and ships of Imperialist countries.
It sounds to me like they are serving the Interests of Justice and should be given UN authority and weaponry to assist them in their efforts to police the seas of contraband and weaponry.
May they go with God.
Leave it to "progressives" to justify pirates taking ships and crews hostage. Why don't you post your names, addresses and social security numbers for the poor disadvantaged minorities in the United States so they can hold your children hostage and steal from you?
Making excuses for bad behavior only encourages more of the same whether it's pirates in somalia , people who lied on their mortgage applications or wall street a-holes.
Careful, real world, when people have nothing to loose, they tend to get antsy. Comparing starvation or radiation sickness to mortgage fraud or wall street a-holes does not make since. Do you have the right to talk about 'bad behavior'? When was the last time your back was against the wall? You should either change your moniker, or start living in the 'real world'.
If you don't like them making excuses, then don't give them excuses.
This reminds me of home-town debates about the Latin Kings. The gangs also arise because of lack of opportunity. The gang leaders are often bright, charismatic guys whose narcissism would take them far if they had access to the corporate world. The followers are, well, followers.
Only rarely do their activities benefit women, children, the sick. Mostly the gang members spend lavishly on foolish things for themselves. They spend a lot of time and effort enforcing "respect" for themselves and suppressing women and challengers. There is targeted killing and accidental killing, frequently of children who are out on the street playing.
Then there are the majority of youth who struggle with education and jobs and who help their families. They can be kind, witty and peaceful. Or not. Some achieve economic success and others continue to struggle. Gang life is not a solution for the problems of such kids.
Just as we need education and jobs here rather than gangs, the Somali youth need economic opportunities in their country. We do not help the poor by justifying piracy NOR by ignoring the need for education, local enterprise and agriculture in Africa.
That being said, the rights of the pirates must be respected. We should have no joy in prosecuting an impoverished 17 year old.
Joe
"That being said, the rights of the pirates must be respected."
Of all the crazy things I have read here that statement takes the cake. Maybe you could volunteer yourself, your family or children as hostages.
In case I was not clear, I meant the captured pirate should have the right to a fair trial and treatment according to laws. It makes me feel safer when I know that everyone, including my family and kids, is guaranteed a fair trial.
Joe
You can eat cake if you feel that way.