During yet another parliamentary debate on piracy in the Dutch parliament the VVD, the senior coalition party, suggested sending in Apache attack helicopters. Canadian journalist Jay Bahadur maintains that international muscle-flexing in the form of naval patrols is pointless and the only effective way to stop Somali pirates is to tackle the problem on land. He conducted lengthy interviews with the pirate leaders in their safe havens in northern Somalia.

Jay Bahadur is one of the very few western journalists to have visited Somali pirates in their home bases in Puntland. He made contact with them through a local journalist, who just happens to be the son of the recently-elected president of the autonomous region of Puntland, Abdirahman Farole.

Qat sessions
Even though President Farole has declared war on the Somali pirates, he is a member of the same clan as some of the most important and powerful pirate leaders. This made it relatively easy for Bahadur to make contact and to treat them all to a round of the local drug qat to grease the wheels of negotiation and communication.

In his book Pirate Coast, he gives a detailed account of lengthy qat sessions with Boyah and Gareed, two of the original pirate leaders. They were blacklisted by the United States in 2010 and eventually arrested by President Farole.

Infrastructure
The president’s heart probably wasn’t really in it; you don’t thrown members of your own clan in jail just like that. He had allegedly been bribed by the pirates but eventually succumbed to international pressure and now works closely with the US.

Bahadur concludes that the costly and ineffectual naval operations are no solution to the pirate problem. What will help is investing in the development of a police apparatus in Puntland itself – and in other infrastructure.

“Even roads. There are no roads at all along the coast in the east of Puntland. And you need to get information from the local population. Local people hate the pirates. You could set up a phone line for informants on new actions being prepared by the pirates. You could offer them a reward of 50 or 100 dollars.”

Robin Hoods
Boyah and Gareed operated from a pirate den called Eyl. This is a virtually inaccessible fishing village where captured boats were anchored and supplied while they waited for the ransoms.

At one time, the pirates were popular with the people and were regarded as local Robin Hoods. Often they were fishermen fighting the arrival of foreign trawlers. Foreign fishermen destroyed and exhausted Somalia’s coastal waters with much too heavy trawl nets. Boyah, formerly a crab diver, saw himself as a kind of coastguard.

That excuse is no longer accepted. The foreign trawlers called in the protection of Somali warlords and became a much tougher target. The pirates then switched to easier game like merchant shipping. The arrival of huge amounts of pirate money served to drive up prices in the stores and local markets. Pirates are no longer seen as heroes in Puntland.

Myth
The Canadian journalist also dismisses another myth surrounding the pirates. Supposed links with Islamist and terrorist groups like al-Shabaab are nonsense, he says.

“It’s only very recently that we have seen pirates giving money to al-Shabaab. And that’s only because al-Shabaab invaded northern Somalia and captured pirate dens there. The pirates decided to make the best of it and paid up so they could be left in peace. Piracy is all about money, they have no ideology.”

(jc/imm)