The Pirates of Somalia_ Inside Their Hidden World - Jay Bahadur [116]
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At a chaotic guardhouse at Bossaso airstrip, scurrying travellers clamoured for boarding passes from a few overburdened officials. Upon handing over my passport I learned that, on my way into Somalia, the customs agent had scribbled the incorrect exit date on my visa stamp. Now, an official informed me that I had been in the country illegally for the past ten days and would be required to pay a fine of $200. I had spent the last of my US dollars on the wages of my bodyguards, Said and Abdirashid, and had no money for my exit ransom. Colonel Omar was stuck with the bill; he fixed me with one of his menacing glances, as if deciding whether he should arrest me, let me go, or shoot me. Beyond the chain-link fence separating the parking lot from the sand-covered airstrip, a mob was pressing around the gangway; the plane was starting to board. I left the Colonel grumbling at me and shouting at the official, and made my way onto the runway, past a solitary guard who made no motion to check my passport.
The Ilyushin Il-18 turboprop was Soviet-made, the seat fabric torn and seatbelts broken, but it was larger and seemingly sturdier than the rattletrap Antonov that had brought me into Somalia. I left Puntland decidedly less apprehensive than I had first arrived.
For me, Somalia will always be a land of adventure, my memories of it forged in a mixture of adrenaline and wonder. In the span of a few weeks, I had gone from writing marketing reports to tracking down pirates in one of the world’s most dangerous countries, under the protection of a man I had never before met. The romanticism of the journey was intoxicating.
Like their seventeenth-century forebears, the Somali pirates were outnumbered and outgunned, yet dared to challenge the might of the world’s navies, casting themselves as heroic defenders of their seas against the forces of foreign exploitation. It was hard not to feel some slight admiration for their reckless courage, regardless of the iniquity of its ends. In reality, the pirates more resembled self-interested, amoral, and often barbaric gangsters than principled crusaders, as any hostage seafarer could attest to. “It is when the pirates count their booty,” author William Bolitho once wrote, “that they become mere thieves.”6
As the plane gained altitude, Bossaso shrank to a pale yellow smudge in the side window. A pair of Australian cameramen chatted loudly in the seats in front of me. Far below, the Gulf of Aden stretched to the horizon, blue and unbroken.
Appendix 1
Simplified Somali Clan Tree
*Considered by some to be a sub-group of the Dir.
Appendix 2
The Victoria Gang
IN CHAPTER 14, WE LOOKED AT THE FEATURES OF THE VICTORIA that made her a tempting target. But what of her captors? How did Computer’s organization measure up to a typical pirate gang? Stig Jarle Hansen’s extensive research into the organization and operational methods of pirate groups allows us to establish a comparative framework with which to place the Victoria gang in perspective.1 I will examine seven criteria in turn:
Size
Investment structure
Cost structure
Attack strategy
Technology
Role of the diaspora
Other
1. SIZE
According to Hansen, “an average group tends to consist of around 12 to 35 individuals.” At 35 members, Computer’s organization was large, though still smaller than the top-tier operations, such as the hundreds-strong consortium of gangs involved in the Faina hijacking.
2. INVESTMENT STRUCTURE
Venture Capital
Hansen describes three methods of capital financing for pirate operations, which I label the “single investor,” “co-operative,” and “private equity” investment models. Under the single investor model, one man—often a local businessman—funds the