The Pirates of Somalia_ Inside Their Hidden World - Jay Bahadur [30]
Puntland specialist Stig Jarle Hansen, who has conducted extensive research into the use of private security in the region, agreed. “As I understand it, Abdiweli Ali Taar was authorized to sell licences,” he told me. “They were sold through networks, but SomCan was in the end responsible.”
Unlike Hart, SomCan required foreign fishing companies to obtain a Somali agent to represent them. Once the companies—mostly Korean, Thai, or Japanese concerns—had established ties with a Somali businessman, local government militiamen would be placed on their ships to provide protection, particularly from hostile local fishermen. In many cases, the fishing companies also hired additional security through their Somali agents. “SomCan was keeping the security of their own licensed ships, instead of keeping the security of the sea,” explained Abdiwahid Mahamed Hersi “Joaar,” the long-serving director general of the Puntland Ministry of Fisheries.
SomCan’s tripartite role as law enforcer, trade commissioner, and independent contractor enabled the company to establish what could be described as a maritime protection racket. From 2002 to 2005, the coast guard served directly as an agent for the Thai concession Sirichai Fisheries, guaranteeing the company’s security in Somali waters and protecting it from local fishermen-cum-pirates, even to the point of posting its own armed guards on the decks of Sirichai’s ships. Sirichai’s relationship with SomCan was literally skin tight; according to Noel Choong, director of the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre, Sirichai went so far as to provide uniforms for the coast guard troops.8
If there was any conflict of interest in a government coast guard protecting a private client, it was lost on Orey. “Yes, we were the agent for Sirichai,” he said. “It was always the best company at following the rules and regulations.”
SomCan’s penchant for defending a select group of foreign fishing ships ran directly counter to the coast guard’s raison d’être and brought it into conflict with local fishermen. For this reason, said Orey, the Ministry of Fisheries kept a close eye on the activities of licensed ships. “There were always inspectors from the Ministry of Fisheries on-board ship, whose duty it was to check if they were using legal equipment, and to protect local fishing boats from them,” he said. “Sometimes these ships would overrun small fishing boats, and the inspector’s job was to stop them, to keep them away from the locals.”
Despite these measures, confrontations were common. According to Hansen, SomCan actively defended both foreign and domestic “licensed” fishing vessels from local fishermen. “Local fishermen were often unable to obtain the proper permits,” he said, “and were forcibly prevented from fishing by the coast guard.” Exacerbating the problem was the fact that SomCan-licensed ships would routinely come within close range of the shore. “They were coming two miles from the shore. Several times they destroyed nets,” Mudan had told me. “Foreign fishing ships came very close to the shore and local fishermen started firing on them. SomCan responded.”
SomCan’s first coast-guarding stint came to an inglorious end in March 2005, when its employees hijacked a fishing trawler operated by Sirichai Fisheries, the company’s own client. In another incident that blurred the distinction between coast guards and pirates, three SomCan guards on board the fishing trawler Sirichainava 12 seized control of the vessel, demanding an $800,000 ransom for its release. Their actions provoked a quick and decisive response; within hours, a joint British and American strike team freed the ship and took the renegades into custody. The US Navy subsequently transported them to Oman, after which they were brought to Thailand and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for piracy. (The hijackers served only a few years of their prison term; in 2007, President Hersi arranged their release under unknown circumstances.)
What had prompted their ill-advised gamble was not completely clear. One report