Pirates of Puntland

Large numbers of Majertain migrated south, many settling in cosmopolitan Kismayu after independence. The turbulence erupting in the south forced many of them to undertake the precarious journey back to Puntland.

Thousands of these internally displaced persons live in camps on the outskirts of Bossaso, swelling the population of this isolated gubanistan to an estimated 800,000 souls.

A VISIT TO PUNTLAND LAST year introduced this well-travelled writer to the most forbidding landscape I have ever seen.

Puntland makes Kenya’s most arid district, Marsabit, appear lush in comparison. Except for several tame gazelle in the walled compound where I stayed in Bossaso, I did not see one domestic animal on the ground or from the air; no one I talked to could report seeing man or animal during the eight-hour journey to Puntland’s capital, Garowe.

I was pleasantly surprised by the popularity of fish in the local cafes and the extent to which Kiswahili is spoken in the port and in the streets.

Bossaso’s port, a larger version of Lamu’s main jetty, is the engine of the Puntland economy and competes successfully with the modern facilities in Berbera. Yemeni-style wedding cake high-rises are sprouting along the oceanfront.

Security is at best tenuous. A mid-day shootout at a petrol station caused a traffic jam while I was there, and armed youth manning mobile roadblocks routinely collect cash and mobile phones after 8pm.

Wahabi fundamentalists now control most of Bossaso’s mosques, while the persistence of Eastleigh-style nightlife provides a counterpoint.

The rise of Bossaso’s role as the headquarters of the piracy sector is consistent with these trends.
Puntland’s long coastline borders Africa’s richest fishing grounds but Somalia’s marine fishery has declined to less than 10 per cent of the tonnage recorded before the governance meltdown.

When Kenya’s Environment Minister, Francis Lotodo, finally chased away the foreign trawlers that used to light up the coastal horizon at night in 1997, the poachers moved north to the waters off Puntland.

The shimmering offshore lights induced impoverished entrepreneurs to join the illicit food chain. Unlike the occasional reports of small freighters (usually transporting famine relief) coming under attack while at dock, it follows this activity went unreported at the time.

The growth of the pirate industry followed the usual curve, and began to spike in 2006. Capital investment enabled the maritime mooryan to range over 200 kilometres offshore; a captured vessel was converted into a mother ship and the self-proclaimed Central Somalia Coast Guard began to justify their designation as pirates proper.

Details of the operation have circulated in the press of late: 60 ships captured, $30 million in ransom, the TFG’s laissez faire stance, a money trail leading from the pirates’ cove in Eyl to Garowe, Nairobi, and Canada; and imputed links to Al Shabaab militias.

But comparisons to the Carribean privateers who transformed the British colony of Port Royale into the party capital of the New World are superficial; the Pirates of Puntland are social bandits in the tradition of Robin Hood, not buccaneers.

They steal from the rich and share the cash with extremely poor communities. If the investors claim the lion’s share according to local custom, their spokesman, Ali Sugulle, reports that the syndicate also funds local community development projects.