Pirates of Somalia by Jay Bahadur Read Free Book Online Page B

ransom negotiation with the shipping company. Before working with Ombaali’s group, Yusuf had been involved with a much more nefarious hijacking—though the case is perhaps better described as a kidnapping at sea. On June 23, 2008, pirates belonging to the northern Warsangali clan seized the German sailing yacht Rockall in the Gulf of Aden and brought it to the fishing town of Las Qoray, whereupon the middle-aged couple on board were taken ashore and force-marched into the mountains of Sanaag region. After being held for fifty-two days, during which they were allegedly abused and brutally beaten by the pirates, the Germans were released for a reported ransom of $1 million. 1 Yusuf’s references from his previous employers must have been laudatory, because Ombaali’s gang quickly sought his services. “We knew him from that operation, so we gave him a call,” said Ombaali.
    Interpreters, I would later learn, are in such high demand that they essentially functioned as independent contractors, hiring themselves out to various pirate groups and moving from job to job. Many translators are simply English-speaking members of the Somali diaspora out to make a few quick dollars in their homeland—where English is rarely spoken by the local inhabitants—while others establish themselves as dilals , professional negotiators who take pride in exacting the best possible price from shipowners.
    From his two operations, said Ombaali, he had received a total of $50,000. 2 Unlike some of his more spendthrift colleagues—who had blown their earnings on cars and khat—Ombaali had invested in his future, using a portion of his profits to construct a house. “The rest I invested in a pirate operation,” he said. “But I got unlucky. They were at sea for a long time, but they didn’t find any ships.”
    Whatever Boyah’s actual level of control over the day-to-day operations of the gang, Ombaali’s testimony made it clear that the position of investor was open to anyone who had the money. Like many pirate operations, Boyah’s extended group apparently employed a shareholder structure, with Boyah and the other members of the “management board” responsible for gathering funding from local investors and organizing the crew. 3
    With his dreams of early retirement dashed, Ombaali was forced back to work, albeit in the public sector; with his sub-clan, the Isse Mahamoud, now in power, he had had little difficulty in finding a job with the Puntland armed forces. If Ombaali was to be believed, this opportunity might have prevented his foray into the pirate world. “The reason that I became a pirate was that the government was not functioning,” he said. “With the new government, I have expectations that things will change. If they do, I will stay a soldier. If not, I’ll go back to the pirates.”
    Ombaali was evidently still struggling with this dilemma when I returned to Puntland five months later. By that time, he was working as a driver and bodyguard for Omar, one of my interpreters. When Omar fired him for incompetence, Ombaali repeatedly threatened to return to piracy unless he was reinstated. Following the failure of this strategy, Ombaali somehow got hold of my phone number, and would call me up to three times a day for no apparent reason.
    Throughout the interview, Ombaali had sat squirming in his chair, his manner suggesting more the subject of a police interrogation than a friendly exchange. By the forty-minute mark I had clearly nearly exhausted his limited supply of patience, and he began to grumble about being late for an appointment. I squeezed in one final question: With hours of idle time and few diversions, how did he and his fellow guards get along with their hostages?
    “We gave them the best treatment,” he said. “We never stole anything from them, even their cellphones.”
    “But what if you had not received any ransom money?” I asked.
    Ombaali leaned back in his chair and calmly replied, “Then we