Tristan McConnellTimes Online (UK)June 12, 2009 The first time Farah Ismail Eid set out to hijack a ship off the
coast of Somalia his boat was easily outrun. On the second occasion he
kept pace but his
boarding ladder was too short. On the third attempt
he was captured.Eid, 38, from Eyl on the Somalia coast, is one of an estimated 1,500
fishermen-turned-pirates who have made the seas
between the Suez Canal
and the Indian Ocean the most dangerous shipping route in the world.“I believe the title of pirates should be given to those who come to our waters
illegally,” he told The Times
after shuffling into a room at the British colonial-era Mandheera
prison, 40 miles south of Berbera, wearing plastic sandals, a T-shirt
and a length of
printed material wrapped around his skinny waist.Eid may have not proved himself much of a pirate, but others have
attacked at least 114 ships this year, 29 successfully. About 20 ships
and
300 crew are being held hostage, while dozens of international
warships now patrol the Gulf of Aden.International forces have been wringing their hands over how to deal
with captured
pirates. In many cases they are simply released after
their equipment is destroyed — but Eid and his four-man crew were tried
and given 15-year prison terms. “When we capture the pirates
we bring
them to justice,” said Ahmed Ali, the deputy head of the ill-equipped
Somaliland Coastguard.Mandheera prison is straight out of a spaghetti western: hot wind
blows dust devils
across a scorched plain surrounded by rocky,
scrub-covered hills. A few eucalyptus trees offer scant shelter from
the 40C (104F) heat. Barred windows in the 6m (20ft) walls let little
light into the
sweltering cells that are home to 633 prisoners,
including the five pirates caught in September last year. Another 31
have been captured and brought here since.Eid blamed foreigners for the
rise of piracy. He said he had a
couple of boats and a fish-trading business in Eyl until illegal
trawlers ruined the fishing: “The fish we caught used to be enough for
the local people and
enough to sell, but now there is not even enough
to eat.”Foreign ships started dumping toxic waste in Somali waters, he said,
and one day he found shoals of fish floating. “We
thought we were
lucky. We collected the fish and stored them in refrigerators, then
later we discovered they were like plastic.“These problems fell on us like rain,” he said, his
right leg
twitching as he chewed on a mouthful of qat, a narcotic leaf enjoyed by
many Somalis.Eid said that fishermen bought guns and set out to exact informal
taxes on the foreign owners
of illegal trawlers. The kidnapping
business proved lucrative, with ransoms of hundreds of thousands of
dollars regularly paid out — and any noble motives were soon forgotten
as pirate gangs
launched attacks on cruise liners and cargo ships,
including those carrying food for Somalia’s starving millions.He justified the attacks as a way of highlighting their concerns.“We are quite aware that what we are doing is wrong, but this is a way
of shouting to the world,” he said. “The world should ask: ‘Are these
people wrong or were they wronged
themselves?”Eid has his own solution to the problem. “The international
community should come and talk to us; they should compensate us for the
problems caused to our waters by
illegal fishing and toxic waste,” he
said. “Then, until the government is in place in Somalia, we could
protect the ships as they cross our waters.”The international
community is unlikely to take him up on the offer.Learn more about this reporting project.See
this story as it originally ran in Times Online.Back to top
Somali women in veils walk along the main street in the Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi, June 25, 2009. The bustling Eastleigh suburb has been the hub of business for Kenyan-Somalis and ...
