The Pirates of Somalia_ Inside Their Hidden World - Jay Bahadur [123]
21. Hansen, Piracy, 33.
22. International Crisis Group, Somalia: The Trouble with Puntland, Africa Briefing no. 64 (Nairobi/Brussels: August 12, 2009), http://www.crisisgroup.org, 3.
23. Hansen, Piracy, 33.
CHAPTER 3: PIRATE LORE
1. I have used International Maritime Bureau statistics here (rather than ECOTERRA’s, which I employ elsewhere in the book), since the IMB figures more accurately represent the number of commercial ships hijacked while transiting through the Gulf of Aden. IMB Piracy Reporting Centre, http://www.icc-ccs.org/home/piracy-reporting-centre.
2. “Somali Adulterer Stoned to Death,” BBC News, November 6, 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news.
3. Quoted in Martin Plaut, “Pirates ‘Working with Islamists,’ ” BBC News, November 19, 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news.
4. Jeffrey Gettleman, “In Somali Civil War, Both Sides Embrace Pirates,” New York Times, September 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.
5. Ibid.
6. Quoted in Martin Abbugao, “Somali Pirates Controlled by Syndicates: Interpol,” Agence France-Presse, October 14, 2009.
7. Mike Pflanz, “Somali Pirates ‘Helped by Intelligence Gathered in London,’ ” Telegraph (London), May 11, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk.
8. See, for example, Tom Odula, “Pirate Ransom Money May Explain Kenya Property Boom,” Huffington Post, January 1, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.
CHAPTER 4: OF PIRATES, COAST GUARDS, AND FISHERMEN
1. UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia submitted in accordance with resolution 1853 (2008), S/2010/91, March 10, 2010, http://www.un.org/sc/committees/751/mongroup.shtml, 40.
2. Ombaali’s math does not add up. If, as he claims, $1.8 million and $1.6 million were paid to release the two vessels, a 20 per cent share of both ransoms, divided equally amongst the thirty-five holders, would have earned Ombaali just over $19,000 (this, as we will see in Chapter 14, is much more in line with a pirate foot soldier’s average wage).
3. Stig Jarle Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden: Myths, Misconceptions and Remedies, NIBR Report 2009:29 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 2009), http://en.nibr.no, 35.
4. Marine experts have estimated that Somalia could support sustainable marine production of between 300,000 and 500,000 tonnes per year; yet prior to the civil war, official output stood at 20,000 tonnes, a mere 4 per cent of this potential (Andrew Mwangura, “Militia vs. Trawlers: Who Is the Villain?” East Africa Magazine, July 9, 2001). In Puntland, development of the fisheries sectors—as with all industries—has lagged even behind the south of the country. Local fishermen have no access to export markets other than through the Somali middlemen who peddle their rock lobsters to fish importers in the Gulf states; there is also a single industrial-scale tuna canning plant, located in the northern coastal town of Las Qoray. Road and refrigeration infrastructures are so bad that the coastal communities cannot find customers in their domestic market—little fish from Eyl is transported even as far as Garowe, two hundred kilometres distant.
5. Quoted in International Crisis Group, Somalia: The Trouble with Puntland, Africa Briefing no. 64, Nairobi/Brussels: August 12, 2009, http://www.crisisgroup.org, 11.
6. Quoted in Jonathon Gatehouse, “This Cabbie Hunts Pirates,” Macleans, January 12, 2009.
7. Stig Jarle Hansen, “Private Security and Local Politics in Somalia,” Review of African Political Economy 118 (2008): 588.
8. Choong also claimed that Sirichai falsely labels its tuna products “Product of Thailand” and markets them in Kenya. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, “The MV Faina Piracy Crisis Chronicle-VII,” http://www.california-chronicle.com, December 7, 2008.
9. A patrol run from SomCan’s base in Bossaso to Garacad, spanning almost the entire Puntland coast, requires approximately sixty drums of diesel, or twelve thousand litres. At $150 per drum, the fuel for a one-way trip costs $9,000.
10. A short time after this violent encounter,