Deadly Waters: The Hidden World of Somalia’s Pirates

Jay Bahadur

Scribe (2011)

Around five years ago a new pirate area developed off the wartorn Somalia coast. More correctly it was based on a breakaway province of Somalia called Puntland, an unruly desperately poor province riddled by corruption and lack of any administration system. One major reason for the chaos is the system of clans in Puntland. How can the Somali troops enter the province to restore order when they will be fighting their cousins? Bahadur mentions the clan system frequently in connection with the region’s many problems.

Bahadur entered the province under the rather shaky protection of a local military man with the vital clan connections. They visited many of the pirates (they are quite well known in Puntland) but always under the protection of armed men. The book is based mostly on his interviews with the pirate leaders, who have now become more like businessmen than primitive pirates. It is hard to describe the pirates’ reaction to his questions as some seem to genuinely believe what they are saying, even though the facts suggest otherwise.

The first lie Bahadur had to investigate was their claim that they had been driven to piracy by the destruction of their fishing grounds by foreign trawlers. There is some truth in this. Fishing was Puntland’s only practical export industry but the loss of fish may be equally due to the illegal dumping of toxic and radioactive waste off the coast. Most of Puntland’s fishing fleet stayed close in to the coast. Trawling would not have affected the fishing grounds much but the chemicals would. Local people will not each local fish, fearing poisoning and deformities.

A licensing system was introduced for foreign inshore fishing vessels but the administrators were so corrupt that it was pointless. The funds were to be used to finance a Coastguard but when the wages stopped coming the officers simply turned to piracy themselves.

The reaction of the Puntlanders was to turn to piracy against the foreign fishing boats, then against foreign ships generally. Or so they claim. They bought fast launches and AK47s. When the fishing ships started to arm themselves the pirates invested in old Russian anti-aircraft guns and the arms race escalated.

Another lie Bahadur regularly encountered was the assertion that the pirate leaders did not make much money out of each raid after they paid for wages, fuel costs and weapons. Many of the leaders live in rich houses (“it is not mine, it is my wife’s”) and make money by loaning the new pirates the funds to get each raid started. It can take months to get a ransom through and the financier must cover many of the costs while they wait for settlement. The piracy is not, as was frequently asserted, the work of an international cartel. Most of the lower level pirates are indeed poor because they waste their money on khat (the local narcotic drug, a bit like the Andean coca leaf) and a 4WD that is the status symbol in Puntland.

The khat trade is mostly serviced by next-door neighbour Kenya. Puntland is now a net exporter of money because of the trade. Bahadur goes into a lot of detail about khat and even tried the drug himself to win favour with the pirates he wanted to interview. Arriving at a meeting with a few bags of khat was a surefire way to relax the meeting.

The pirates are hard to control on land due to the clan structure already mentioned. They are not full-time, preferring to work only when they want a new 4WD or the money for khat runs out. There is no local police force to intervene (not enough money) and the army will not come into the area.

The international opposition to piracy is disorganised and largely ineffective and Bahadur runs through some of the obstacles to stopping piracy. The U.N. seems incapable of a concerted effective reaction. The worldwide laws regarding piracy are dreadfully out of date. The shipping companies prefer to pay a couple of million dollars in ransom rather than try to take back their ships. Generally the crews are treated fairly well so there is little humanitarian reason to intervene. Even if you capture pirates what do you do with them? In a patchwork set of new laws the pirates are handed over to Kenya for trial and imprisonment but Kenya only has one prison that is now desperately overcrowded. The U.N. will build Kenya a new prison but will do nothing to stop the khat trade or help Puntland with new industries.

Because Bahadur’s evidence is first hand it carries a lot more weight than all the paperwork generated by other sources. In spite of the conflicts and even outright lies, the people of Puntland still have a serious problem that has led to piracy. The world seems to be accepting that piracy in the area is an overhead that must simply be tolerated. Would it not be wiser to provide a better way for the Puntlanders to generate income?

The appendices contain much useful information including a guide to Puntland’s clan system. There is a timeline charting the growth of piracy. A further appendix provides the references Bahadur uses to support his statements.

He has done an excellent job of putting a growing problem area under the microscope in a detailed way that is as easy to follow for the layman as for the academic.

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