by Jay Bahadur
Like “Butch Cassidy” or “Billy the Kid,” “Garaad” was an outlaw sobriquet that had grown notorious in its own time—at least within the borders of Puntland. Like most pirate handles, his was an assumed name, taken from the Somali word for “clan elder,” and was thus a sign of his status amongst his colleagues. In the world of Somali seafaring careers, Garaad had scaled the corporate ladder with remarkable dexterity, rising from artisanal fisherman to fishing vessel hijacker, and finally to one of the most famous pirate organizers and financiers in Puntland.
As I began my questions, Garaad instantly prickled when he heard the word “pirate.”
“Illegal fishing ships, they are the real pirates,” he rejoined. “I don’t know where they all come from, but there are nearly five thousand ships doing illegal fishing in our territory.” Garaad’s estimate, far more generous than the 200–250 illegal ships projected by the Puntland Ministry of Fisheries, may have been coloured by his strong personal sentiments.
“I was one of the first to start fighting against the illegal fishing, before Boyah,” he bristled. So far, his quest against the “real pirates” of Somalia had netted Garaad a total of about a dozen illegal fishing ships. Despite these successes, he assured me that little in the way of ransom money has come his way. “Ransom negotiations over captured fishing ships are very difficult,” he said, “because the people you’re dealing with … drag the negotiations on and on. They don’t care how long you keep the ships, they won’t pay you anything.” But Garaad insisted that his goal was not to make money, but to fight illegal fishing. Aiding him in his crusade, he said, was a pirate army spanning the entire length of the Somali coast.
“I have direct control over a total of eight hundred hijackers operating in thirteen groups spread from Bossaso, through Hafun, Eyl, Harardheere, Hobyo, and Kismaayo,” he said. Each of these groups had a “sub-lieutenant” who reported directly to Garaad and did not make a move without his authorization, he claimed. “Independent groups”—those whom he did not control—accounted for an additional eight hundred individuals. To take Garaad at his word, therefore, would have been to give him credit for exerting a half-Stalinist, half-Mafioso grip over half of Somalia’s estimated 1,500–2,000 pirates, spread over a criminal empire stretching almost twenty-five hundred kilometres of lawless coastline. Given the decentralized nature of most pirate operations, it was an understatement to say that Garaad’s self-portrayal stretched credulity thin.
“If the international community ever pays us our rightful compensation for the illegal fishing,” he said, “attacks will stop within forty-eight hours.” As to what this compensation might entail, Garaad was less than specific. “Nobody can count it,” he answered. “It’s a lot of money. The people of the world know how long they have been doing illegal fishing, and from that they can calculate how much they owe us.”
* * *
Throughout our interview, Garaad seemed anxious to prove that he was no profiteer. His manner was evasive whenever I asked for specific monetary details, and persistent questioning invariably caused him to retreat. “I’ve never personally attacked commercial ships,” he said. “The only one I’ve ever captured is the Stella Maris, and the reason for it was the financial problems we were having then. At the time, there was a lack of illegal fishing vessels to attack, and we needed money to keep our operations going.”
The MV Stella Maris, a Japanese-owned bulk carrier, was seized in the Gulf of Aden in July 2008 and held for eleven weeks before being released for a ransom of $2 million, which Garaad reinvested in future operations. His operating expenses since then must have been rather high, because Garaad insisted that he was broke. “I don’t have one cent,” he said. “I don’t even have a house.”
Despite his protestations of poverty, the word was that Garaad had been involved with the hijacking of the MV Faina, the Ukrainian transport ship laden with Russian tanks that first drew international media attention to the Somali coast. But his level of involvement was anyone’s guess, and Garaad himself was not going to provide any clarification. When I asked him about the Faina, he immediately tensed up, telling me that he “supported some young guys” for the mission, but volunteering no more information.
There is a credible rumour, however, surrounding Garaad’s involvement. In December 2008, Garaad reportedly left Garowe with a cohort of armed men, aiming to relieve the Faina hijackers and bring them back to safety in Puntland. They were much in need of his assistance; after forcing the captured ship to anchor at Harardheere, south of the Puntland coast, the US Navy had proceeded to encircle and blockade the pirates on board the Faina. On shore, the environment was equally hostile; Harardheere was near territory controlled by the Islamist organization Al-Shabaab, and the group’s militias were waiting patiently inland to relieve the Faina pirates of their ransom as soon as they dared come ashore.
Into this melee allegedly charged Garaad, his Toyota cavalry gleaming in the sun. His intention, presumably, was to escort the hijackers to Puntland once they had secured the ransom payment for the Faina. Unfortunately, on his way to Harardheere, Al-Shabaab militants reportedly ambushed Garaad’s convoy, confiscated his weapons and vehicles, and left him, unharmed, to make the long journey back to Puntland on foot. At the first opportunity, I asked Garaad for the truth behind this incredible story. His shields instantly dropped. “No, that’s not true, I wasn’t involved with that,” he said. “I don’t have any enemies, only friends … everyone is happy with the job I’m doing.”
After four months in captivity, the Faina had finally been released a week before our meeting, commanding a then-record bounty of $3.2 million. Considering that he had partially financed the mission, Garaad was curiously ignorant of the state of his investment. “I was busy with other things,” he said. “I didn’t hear about any ransom money.” A few moments later, his memory seemed to clear up. “We didn’t get that much money,” he said. “By the time it finally came down to it, everyone only got a few thousand. A lot of money was spent on that ship, and hundreds of people were involved.”
This is one part of Garaad’s story, at least, that I was able to verify independently, through a Nairobi source who had been directly involved in the Faina ransom negotiation process. As the negotiation dragged on, my source told me, burgeoning expenses forced the original hijackers (Afweyne’s group) to approach three or four additional pirate organizations for financial assistance—in effect, issuing stock in their operation. By the time the ransom was delivered, the complement on board the ship had ballooned to over a hundred pirates.
* * *
As the interview progressed, Garaad gradually began to open up.
“Right now, as I talk to you, there are twenty different groups I’m invested in, from Kismaayo to Hafun.” He hesitated before continuing. “We control the entire Somali coast.” When asked what he thought of Boyah’s recent radio-announced ceasefire, a mocking note entered his voice as he shook his head. “My organization is different … We’re not similar to Boyah … We are going to keep going until our seas are cleansed of illegal fishing ships.”
When I asked for the names of some of the commercial ships seized by his organization, Garaad deflected my question once more. “I don’t know the names of any of the ships my men capture, and I don’t care,” he said. “The only thing I care about is sending more pirates into the sea.
“Sometimes, the commercial vessels,” he continued, “have the same names as the illegal fishing ships. They are owned by the same companies … so that makes it legal to capture those commercial ships as well.”
Garaad’s tenuous justification sounded similar to the Roman emperor Caligula’s remark upon being told that he had executed the wrong man for a crime: “That one deserved it just as much.” Fishing companies and international shippers rarely share parent companies, but to Garaad, any ship he caught merited equal punishment.
Garaad’s vehement quest for maritime justice had recently brought him into the open arms of SomC
an, which at the time still had four months remaining on its contract. “Yes, I will be part of [SomCan],” he said. “If the coast guard is going to stop people from doing illegal fishing, destroying the marine environment, and doing toxic dumping, then we will work with them.” In other words, having tried his hand at fishing and piracy, Garaad was looking for a shot at coast-guarding. “The reason I’m with SomCan now,” Garaad said, “is because they have special ships that are well-armed with proper guns—with anti-aircraft guns—and their ships are capable of getting close to the illegal fishers.” Pressed for specifics about his job description, he continued, “I will be training their marines, and providing them with information and intelligence.”
Given his adamant hatred of illegal fishing, Garaad was curiously unconcerned by the fact that his current partners had only recently been in the business of protecting the very foreign ships he vowed to hunt down. “The reason I joined them,” Garaad said, “is that they told me that they stopped those practices. If I see that they are still doing that, then we’ll have a problem.”
As a “reformed pirate,” Garaad hoped to be a kind of Hannibal Lecter of Puntland, helping the authorities hunt down the serial hijackers of the Gulf of Aden. But “reformed” might have been a premature descriptor, for Garaad was not about to give up his pirate activities just because he happened to be working as a coast guard. “The agreement I made is to help them fight against illegal fishing,” he said. “These days, I’m concentrating on illegal fishing ships. But I will still be doing my other operations on the side.”
The exact nature of Garaad’s coast-guarding aspirations seemed to vacillate. In one version, his aim was to serve SomCan in a capacity falling somewhere between naval school drill instructor and marine commando; in another, he would use his supposedly massive pirate empire as a paramilitary force to fight foreign fishing in Somali waters, with SomCan tagging along for the ride. His next statement appeared to support this latter interpretation. “SomCan is one of us now,” he said, “it is part of our organization.” Garaad would not give any more details of the terms of his agreement, other than to say that it would remain in effect as long as illegal fishers trawled Somali seas. Despite our lengthy exchange, it was impossible to say what he saw as his role in SomCan, and I was beginning to think he had little idea himself.
Hoping to clarify these ambiguities, I brought up the subject of Garaad’s employment during my meeting with the SomCan executives the following day. I quickly learned an interesting fact: Garaad was the cousin of SomCan co-owner Said Orey. “Yes,” said Orey, “we’ve been in contact with Garaad. As his relative, it is my duty to stop him from doing bad things.” Garaad’s role in the company, Orey was quick to emphasize, would be to work on board ship as a marine, “not as a coast guard trainer.”
Hiring a pirate to police coastal waters seemed like hiring a bank robber to guard the vault, and, in Garaad’s case, one who intended to keep robbing banks during his off-hours. Yet Garaad was not the only pirate SomCan was hoping to work with. What the company had in mind, Orey told me, was a kind of employment retraining program for pirates. “Let us first try and educate these young guys,” Orey said, “and if we succeed, then, whoever refuses to cooperate, maybe we can fight against them.” At SomCan’s behest, Garaad was using his influence to recruit as many pirates as possible into its ranks. According to Orey, many were already lining up to get fitted for uniforms. Yet, if Garaad was any indication, transforming dozens of erstwhile pirates into marine security officers would be a difficult task, especially if many of them also saw their new job as fundamentally identical to their old one.
For better or worse, the end of SomCan’s contract quashed its pirate employment experiment in its infancy. Garaad, however, appeared to have seen some limited service with the company before being decommissioned. According to Joaar, SomCan’s May 2009 attack on the three ministry-licensed fishing vessels was carried out by a strike team composed of former pirates. “There were sixteen pirates from Eyl onboard, including Garaad,” he said. “These [SomCan owners] are crazy people.”
* * *
Our meeting over, Garaad got up and silently walked away. An hour after he left, a call came to Warsame’s phone: it was Garaad, asking for his help to arrange an interview with President Farole. As with Boyah, his reason for talking to me had been rendered perfectly transparent.
He was, I heard, already back with his friends, chewing khat as the sun set.
6
Flower of Paradise
THE ARRIVAL OF KHAT IN GAROWE IS A CURIOUS SIGHT.
Each day at around noon, the first khat transports begin to roll in from Galkayo, coinciding with the typical waking hour for a pirate. The angry honking of the incoming vehicles rouses the city from its lethargy, bringing expectant crowds flocking into the streets in defiance of the midday heat. Screaming down the highway at reckless speeds, high beams flashing, guards perched on top, the transports arrive on the southern road. Turning off the highway and rumbling down the embankment towards Garowe’s main checkpoint, they are eagerly greeted by barking soldiers, who fill their arms with leafy bundles before waving the vehicles through. Behind the barrier, a fleet of white station wagons stands ready to be loaded; hired hands follow behind female merchants decked in vibrant headdresses, hauling rectangular bushels wrapped in brown canvas.
As the transports arrive at the khat market, or suq, the whole city begins to buzz with activity. Throngs of shouting men press into the suq as older children and adolescents mob the transports, hoping to snatch what they can in the scramble of the unloading. In the poorer neighbourhoods, barefoot children gather in circles in front of hovels, slapping hands and jostling for a few stalks scattered in the dust. Even the goats respond with Pavlovian consistency to the tooting of the station wagons, trotting after them in the hopes of nabbing a few fallen leaves.
This is the most significant daily event in Garowe life, repeated with unfailing precision every single day of the year. Steadily increasing in popularity in recent years, khat has become—along with livestock and fishing—one of Puntland’s most lucrative economic sectors. As a Puntland cabinet minister once told me: “In Somalia, there are two industries that work: hawala [money transfer] and khat.” If so, piracy has certainly made the khat trade work even better—since late 2008, the suq has been awash with the freshly minted bills of pirate ransoms, threatening to turn a tolerable vice into a national addiction.
* * *
Across clime, culture, and continent, people will find some way to intoxicate themselves. In Somalia, a uniformly Islamic society where alcohol consumption is highly taboo, the intoxicant of choice is khat, an amphetamine-like stimulant consumed either by chewing the plant’s leaves or by steeping its dried leaves to make a tea.
Khat—which the Arabs nicknamed the “flower of paradise”—has for centuries been used by Muslim scholars to assist the performance of their intensive day- and night-long studies (and, in more modern times, by Kenyan and Ethiopian students cramming for exams).1 Growing up to twenty metres high, the plant is extremely water-intensive and better suited to altitudes of 1,500–2,500 metres, giving the Ethiopian highlands and the provinces of northern Kenya a strong natural advantage over Somalia. Once confined to East Africa, the demand for the drug has been globalized over the last twenty years by refugees from conflicts in Somalia and Ethiopia; facilitated by modern transportation technologies, khat can now readily be found on the streets of London, Amsterdam, Toronto, Chicago, and Sydney.2
A social drug, khat is usually chewed for hours on end by groups of friends in picnic-like settings. Owing to its bitter taste, it is often accompanied by a special, heavily sugared tea or other sweet beverage, such as 7-Up. Once harvested, the plant retains its potency for only a short time and must be consumed fresh—the plant’s active chemical, cathinone, breaks down within forty-eight hours after its leaves have dried—a fact that explains its previous lack of international distribution. Shipments to Puntland are
flown three times daily from Nairobi and Addis Ababa into Galkayo airport. As is often the case with products designated for export, the khat that finds its way into Garowe is reputed to be of the lowest quality.
One company, SOMEHT, is responsible for importing virtually all of Puntland’s khat, around seven thousand kilograms per day as of 2006.3 According to Fadumo—a Garowe khat merchant whom I interviewed—each plane is greeted at the airstrip by large numbers of independent distributors, who deploy a network of transports for the slow and bumpy 250-kilometre journey from Galkayo to Garowe. Such is the addiction inspired by this delectable plant that crowds of youth throw up improvised roadblocks composed of small rocks or metal drums at frequent intervals by the sides of the road. At these unofficial checkpoints the young men, often armed with Kalashnikovs, clamour for handouts of the shrub. The drivers are happy to mollify their dangerous fans, throwing offerings of khat out the window at the outstretched hands as they pass. On rare occasions, these self-appointed tax collectors become too persistent, and are shot at, and sometimes killed, by the security guards stationed atop the trucks. Nonetheless, the khat trade generates relatively little attendant violence; Fadumo had never heard of a shipment being hijacked.4
Once the transports arrive at the main checkpoint outside Garowe, individual merchants meet them and transfer the cargo to their own cars. Fadumo’s arrangements were informal; she tended to buy from a regular distributor, but would sometimes go to other suppliers for smaller amounts, or if her supplier was out of stock.
Though khat has long been a facet of Somali life, the last decade has seen imports into the country soar, and Puntland’s piracy explosion in late 2008 brought consumption levels onto a whole new plane. Outside of cars and khat, there is not much available in Puntland on which to spend tens of thousands of dollars, and pirates are famous for the almost religious fervour with which they chew the drug (though they seem to lack the corresponding devotion to Koranic study). So overblown is the pirates’ infatuation with khat that at times it approaches comical proportions; there are stories, from the early days of multimillion-dollar ransoms, of recently paid pirates rushing to the khat suq and spending their US hundred-dollar bills as if they were thousand-shilling notes (which are worth about three cents).
