The Pirates of Somalia

May 9, 2011
The inner workings of the world of Somali pirates are astutely explored by Bahadur, a journalist who embedded himself among them to detail how "a level of international naval cooperation unprecedented in human history has been unable to stop a motley assortment of half-starved brigands armed with aging assault rifles and the odd grenade launcher." It's an engaging account, full of solid analysis about the collapse of Somalia and the tight-knit clan and subclan networks that keep a failed state from dissolving into complete anarchy while fostering conditions ideally suited to ocean-going criminality. Few other economic options exist for young men along this harsh coastline, largely because of abusive fishing practices by foreign trawler fleets. The institutionalization of these hijackings has created an economic order among the pirates not unlike other forms of organized crime. Coupled with the widespread addiction to the narcotic herb khat, conditions for wiping out piracy may be impossible to achieve. Still Bahadur's interviews with the pirates reveal that they rarely relish criminality; it's genuine desperation that motivates them. What's especially impressive (aside from Bahadur's sheer nerve in insinuating himself among these dangerous men in a lawless corner of the world) is the amassing of multiple perspectivesâof pirates and policymakersâthat support a rich, suspenseful account.

May 15, 2011

A Toronto-based journalist debuts with a rare inside look at the pirates preying on tourist and commercial ships off the coast of Somalia.

Present-day piracy in the region began two decades ago, writes Bahadur, at the onset of a civil war in the impoverished, Muslim state of Somalia. At first, coast dwellers—rebel groups, militias and warlords—extorted "fines" from foreign fishing vessels that had devastated the lobster population. When such vessels armed themselves, the pirates began attacking commercial fishing fleets. By 2009, the buccaneers won world attention with hijackings of three vessels: a Ukrainian transport ship with a cargo of tanks; a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude oil; and the American cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, an incident that ended with action by Navy SEAL snipers. Winning entrance to pirate enclaves through the son of Abdirahman Farole, president of the autonomous region of Puntland, the author spent six weeks conducting interviews. Traveling with bodyguards and sharing a supply of khat, a popular drug, Bahadur talked with pirate leaders, officials and former hostages. "We're not murderers," said Abdullahi Abshir, who has hijacked more than 25 ships. "We've never killed anyone, we just attack ships." Another pirate explained how he turned piracy into a business by introducing investors, guidance technology and motherships from which pirates operate deep into the Indian Ocean. Bahadur captures the private lives of the pirates as well as their increasingly organized and sophisticated ways. A 2010 hijacking garnered a $9.5 million ransom for an oil tanker. Attacks now occur over such a huge ocean area that the multinational naval task forces patrolling off the 1,000-mile Somali coast remain "unable to stop a motley assortment of brigands armed with aging assault rifles."

A nicely crafted, revealing report.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011
Bored with his job in marketing research, Bahadur decided to travel to Somalia in 200809 to investigate maritime brigandage. His boldness results in an insightful report based on interviewing pirates in their lairs, educing their rationales for hijacking ships, figuring out the finances of piracy, and embedding the whole phenomenon in the clan-based society from which it emanates. He alighted in the Puntland region, whose bleak landscapes and crumbling buildings he economically describes as he recounts jouncing trips on pot-holed roads through trackless desert. Conducted during hours-long sessions of chewing the stimulant drug khat, Bahadur's conversations captured pirates' life stories and their apologia for buccaneering. They cynically claimed to be protecting Somali territorial waters. For their hostages' views, Bahadur went to a pirate cove, in which a captured ship lay at anchor. Not permitted to speak with the captive crew, he gathered its members' accounts after they were ransomed and released. Bahadur's revelatory journalism and astute analysis of causes and solutions prove far more informative than any TV footage about the contemporary piracy problem.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2011

A Toronto-based journalist debuts with a rare inside look at the pirates preying on tourist and commercial ships off the coast of Somalia.

Present-day piracy in the region began two decades ago, writes Bahadur, at the onset of a civil war in the impoverished, Muslim state of Somalia. At first, coast dwellers--rebel groups, militias and warlords--extorted "fines" from foreign fishing vessels that had devastated the lobster population. When such vessels armed themselves, the pirates began attacking commercial fishing fleets. By 2009, the buccaneers won world attention with hijackings of three vessels: a Ukrainian transport ship with a cargo of tanks; a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude oil; and the American cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, an incident that ended with action by Navy SEAL snipers. Winning entrance to pirate enclaves through the son of Abdirahman Farole, president of the autonomous region of Puntland, the author spent six weeks conducting interviews. Traveling with bodyguards and sharing a supply of khat, a popular drug, Bahadur talked with pirate leaders, officials and former hostages. "We're not murderers," said Abdullahi Abshir, who has hijacked more than 25 ships. "We've never killed anyone, we just attack ships." Another pirate explained how he turned piracy into a business by introducing investors, guidance technology and motherships from which pirates operate deep into the Indian Ocean. Bahadur captures the private lives of the pirates as well as their increasingly organized and sophisticated ways. A 2010 hijacking garnered a $9.5 million ransom for an oil tanker. Attacks now occur over such a huge ocean area that the multinational naval task forces patrolling off the 1,000-mile Somali coast remain "unable to stop a motley assortment of brigands armed with aging assault rifles."

A nicely crafted, revealing report.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)