BOOSAASO, Somalia — This may be one of the most dangerous towns in Somalia, a place where you can get kidnapped faster than you can wipe the sweat off your brow. But it is also one of the most prosperous.
Money changers walk around with thick wads of hundred-dollar bills. Palatial new houses are rising up next to tin-roofed shanties. Men in jail reminisce, with a twinkle in their eyes, about their days living like kings.
This is the story of Somalia’s booming, not-so-underground pirate economy. The country is in chaos, countless children are starving and people are killing one another in the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, for a handful of grain.
But one particular line of work — piracy — seems to be benefiting quite openly from all this lawlessness and desperation. This year, Somali officials say, pirate profits are on track to reach a record $50 million, all of it tax free.
“These guys are making a killing,” said Mohamud Muse Hirsi, the top Somali official in Boosaaso, who himself is widely suspected of working with the pirates, though he vigorously denies it.
More than 75 vessels have been attacked this year, far more than any other year in recent memory. About a dozen have been set upon in the past month alone, including a Ukrainian freighter packed with tanks, antiaircraft guns and other heavy weaponry, which was brazenly seized in September.
The pirates use fast-moving skiffs to pull alongside their prey and scamper on board with ladders or sometimes even rusty grappling hooks. Once on deck, they hold the crew at gunpoint until a ransom is paid, usually $1 million to $2 million. Negotiations for the Ukrainian freighter are still going on, and it is likely that because of all the publicity, the price for the ship could top $5 million.
In Somalia, it seems, crime does pay. Actually, it is one of the few industries that does.
“All you need is three guys and a little boat, and the next day you’re millionaires,” said Abdullahi Omar Qawden, a former captain in Somalia’s long-defunct navy.
People in Garoowe, a town south of Boosaaso, describe a certain high-rolling pirate swagger. Flush with cash, the pirates drive the biggest cars, run many of the town’s businesses — like hotels — and throw the best parties, residents say. Fatuma Abdul Kadir said she went to a pirate wedding in July that lasted two days, with nonstop dancing and goat meat, and a band flown in from neighboring Djibouti.
“It was wonderful,” said Ms. Fatuma, 21. “I’m now dating a pirate.”
This is too much for many Somali men to resist, and criminals from all across this bullet-pocked land are now flocking to Boosaaso and other notorious pirate dens along the craggy Somali shore. They have turned these waters into the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world.
With the situation clearly out of control, warships from the United States, Russia, NATO, the European Union and India are steaming into Somalia’s waters as part of a reinvigorated, worldwide effort to crush the pirates.
But it will not be easy. The pirates are sea savvy. They are fearless. They are rich and getting richer, with the latest high-tech gadgetry like handheld GPS units. And they are united. The immutable clan lines that have pitted Somalis against one another for decades are not a problem here. Several captured pirates interviewed in Boosaaso’s main jail said that they had recently crossed clan lines to open new, lucrative, multiclan franchises.
“We work together,” said Jama Abdullahi, a jailed pirate. “Good for business, you know?”
The pirates are also sprinkled across thousands of square miles of water, from the Gulf of Aden, at the narrow doorway to the Red Sea, to the Kenyan border along the Indian Ocean. Even if the naval ships manage to catch pirates in the act, it is not clear what they can do. In September, a Danish warship captured 10 men suspected of being pirates cruising around the Gulf of Aden with rocket-propelled grenades and a long ladder. But after holding the suspects for nearly a week, the Danes concluded that they did not have jurisdiction to prosecute, so they dumped the pirates on a beach, minus their guns.
Nobody, it seems, has a clear plan for how to tame Somalia’s unruly seas. Several fishermen along the Gulf of Aden talked about seeing barrels of toxic waste bobbing in the middle of the ocean. They spoke of clouds of dead fish floating nearby and rogue fishing trawlers sucking up not just fish and lobsters but also the coral and the plants that sustain them. It was abuses like these, several men said, that turned them from fishermen into pirates.
Nor is it even clear whether Somali authorities universally want the piracy to stop. While many pirates have been arrested, several fishermen, Western researchers and more than a half-dozen pirates in jail spoke of nefarious relationships among fishing companies, private security contractors and Somali government officials, especially those working for the semiautonomous regional government of Puntland.
“Believe me, a lot of our money has gone straight into the government’s pockets,” said Farah Ismail Eid, a pirate who was captured in nearby Berbera and sentenced to 15 years in jail. His pirate team, he said, typically divided up the loot this way: 20 percent for their bosses, 20 percent for future missions (to cover essentials like guns, fuel and cigarettes), 30 percent for the gunmen on the ship and 30 percent for government officials. Abdi Waheed Johar, the director general of the fisheries and ports ministry of Puntland, openly acknowledged in an interview this spring that “there are government people working with the pirates.”
But, he was quick to add, “It’s just not us.”
What is happening off Somalia’s shores is basically an extension of the corrupt, violent free-for-all that has raged on land for 17 years since the central government imploded in 1991. The vast majority of Somalis lose out. Young thugs who are willing to serve as muscle get a job, albeit a low-paying one, that significantly reduces their life expectancy. And a select few warlords, who have sat down and figured out how to profit off the anarchy, make a fortune.
Take Boosaaso, once a thriving port town on the Gulf of Aden. Piracy is killing off the remains of the local fishing industry because export companies are staying away. It has spawned a kidnapping business on shore, which in turn has scared away many humanitarian agencies and the food, medicine and other forms of desperately needed assistance they bring. Reporting in Boosaaso two weeks ago required no fewer than 10 hired gunmen provided by the Puntland government to discourage any would-be kidnappers.
Few large cargo ships come here anymore, depriving legitimate government operations of much-needed port taxes. Just about the only ships willing to risk the voyage are small, wooden, putt-putt freighters from India, essentially floating jalopies from another era.
“We can’t survive off this,” said Bile Qabowsade, a Puntland official.
The shipping problems have contributed to food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and less work for the sinewy stevedores who trudge out to Boosaaso’s beach every morning and stare in vain at the bright horizon, their bare feet planted in the hot sand, hoping a ship will materialize so they will be able to make a few pennies hauling 100-pound sacks of sugar on their backs.
And yet, suspiciously, there has been a lot of new construction in Boosaaso. There is an emerging section of town called New Boosaaso with huge homes rising above the bubble-shaped huts of refugees and the iron-sided shacks that many fishermen call home. These new houses cost several hundred thousand dollars. Many are painted in garish colors and protected by high walls.
Even so, Boosaaso is still a crumbling, broke, rough-and-tumble place, decaying after years of neglect like so much of war-ravaged Somalia. It is also dangerous in countless ways. On Wednesday, suicide bombers blew up two government offices, most likely the work of Islamist radicals trying to turn Somalia into an Islamist state.
Of course, no Somali government official would openly admit that New Boosaaso’s minicastles were built with pirate proceeds. But many people, including United Nations officials and Western diplomats, suspect that is the case.
Several jailed pirates have accused Mr. Muse, a former warlord who is now Puntland’s president, of being paid off. Officials in neighboring Somaliland, a breakaway region of northwestern Somalia, said they recently organized an antipiracy sting operation and arrested Mr. Muse’s nephew, who was carrying $22,000 in cash.
“Top Puntland officials benefit from piracy, even if they might not be instigating it,” said Roger Middleton, a researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Actually, he added, “all significant political actors in Somalia are likely benefiting from piracy.”
But Mr. Muse said he did not know anything about this. “We are the leaders of this country,” he said. “Everybody we suspect, we fire from work.”
He said that Puntland was taking aggressive action against the pirates. And Boosaaso’s main jail may be proof of that. The other day, a dozen pirates were hanging out in the yard under a basketball hoop. And that was just the beginning.
“Pirates, pirates, pirates,” said Gure Ahmed, a Canadian-Somali inmate of the jail, charged with murder. “This jail is full of pirates. This whole city is pirates.”
In other well-known pirate dens, like Garoowe, Eyl, Hobyo and Xarardheere, pirates have become local celebrities.
Said Farah, 32, a shopkeeper in Garoowe, said the pirates seemed to have money to burn.
“If they see a good car that a guy is driving,” he said, “they say, ‘How much? If it’s 30 grand, take 40 and give me the key.’ ”
Every time a seized ship tosses its anchor, it means a pirate shopping spree. Sheep, goats, water, fuel, rice, spaghetti, milk and cigarettes — the pirates buy all of this, in large quantities, from small towns up and down the Somali coast. Somalia’s seafaring thieves are not like the Barbary pirates, who terrorized European coastal towns hundreds of years ago and often turned their hostages into galley slaves chained to the oars. Somali pirates are known as relatively decent hosts, usually not beating their hostages and keeping them well-fed until payday comes.
“They are normal people,” said Mr. Said. “Just very, very rich.”
Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia. 發(fā)自布薩阿索，索馬里 —— 這個地方也許是索馬里最危險的小鎮(zhèn)之一，可能要不了擦把汗的工夫，你已經(jīng)被綁為肉票了。但是這里也是該國最繁榮的小鎮(zhèn)之一。
兌換外匯的黃牛們帶著一打打厚厚的百元美鈔走來走去。錫皮屋頂?shù)呐镂菖?，富麗堂皇的嶄新別墅正在拔地而起。身陷牢獄的男人向我追敘往事，眼中閃著光，他們曾像國王一樣闊綽地生活過。
這是一個關(guān)于索馬里那欣欣向榮、半地下半公開的海盜行業(yè)的故事。在這個深陷動蕩的國家，無數(shù)兒童在忍饑挨餓，首都摩加迪沙的人們?yōu)榱艘稽c谷物當街殺人。
但有一種工作正公然受益于這種無法無天和令人絕望的境況——那就是海盜。索馬里官員表示，今年海盜們的收入將達到創(chuàng)紀錄的5000萬美元，而且，這全是免稅的。
“這些家伙可掙得不少呢，”布薩阿索鎮(zhèn)的政府官員穆罕默德·穆瑟·海爾斯說道。他矢口否認了當?shù)貜V為流傳的他本人也為海盜工作的說法。
今年共有75艘船只遭到海盜的侵襲，數(shù)量超過最近的任何一年。僅僅上個月就有約12艘船只遭襲，包括一艘滿載坦克、高射炮和其他重型武器的烏克蘭貨船也于九月份被膽大的海盜劫持。
海盜們通常駕駛機動性很強的快艇迅速接近目標，利用梯子——有時后甚至用銹跡斑斑的錨鉤——爬上甲板。登船之后，他們就將船員劫為人質(zhì)，直到得到贖金為止，贖金常常達100萬到200萬美元。關(guān)于這艘烏克蘭貨船的談判還在進行當中，由于此事受到了媒體的廣泛關(guān)注，贖回該船可能需要超過500萬美元。
看起來在索馬里，犯罪確實回報頗豐。實際上，這里有所回報的行業(yè)屈指可數(shù)。
“帶上三個人和一條小艇，第二天你就是百萬富翁了，”艾卜拉?！W馬爾·考登說。他曾在索馬里荒廢已久的海軍中擔任過艦長。
在布薩阿索南邊的加魯威鎮(zhèn)，人們總是說起海盜們?nèi)绾握袚u地一擲萬金。居民們說他們富得流油，駕駛最寬敞的汽車，經(jīng)營鎮(zhèn)上的許多產(chǎn)業(yè)——比如旅館——還時常舉行奢華的派對。法圖瑪·阿卜杜爾·卡迪爾說起她六月份參加過的一個海盜的婚禮，整整兩天時間里，舞會和羊肉都不曾停止，從鄰近的吉布提（譯注：位于非洲東北部索馬里半島的國家，與索馬里接壤）請來的樂隊為人們演奏助興。
“那次婚禮實在棒極了，” 21歲的法圖瑪說，“現(xiàn)在我正在和一個海盜約會。”
這種誘惑對于許多索馬里男子來說確實難以抗拒，現(xiàn)在這片滿目瘡痍的土地上的罪犯都云集在布薩阿索和索馬里沿岸其他聲名遠揚的海盜巢穴。他們已經(jīng)把這片水域變成世界上最危險的海上航線。
隨著局勢已明顯失去控制，美國、俄羅斯、北約、歐盟和印度都已經(jīng)派軍艦前往索馬里海域，作為全球范圍內(nèi)興起的消滅海盜行動的一部分。
但是這可不是件容易的事。海盜們久經(jīng)風(fēng)浪，無所畏懼，手中有錢而且錢越來越多，擁有最新的高科技裝備，如手持GPS定位系統(tǒng)等。更何況他們團結(jié)一致。在這一行里，長期導(dǎo)致索馬里人內(nèi)斗的無所不在的家族界限并未成為問題。在采訪中，布薩阿索主要監(jiān)獄中關(guān)押的幾名海盜都表示，海盜近來已經(jīng)跨越家族鴻溝，組成了新的、更有錢途的跨家族海盜集團。
“我們緊密合作，”服刑中的海盜賈馬·阿卜杜拉希說?！斑@對生意有好處，你知道吧？”
海盜們出沒的海域也綿延數(shù)千平方英里，從紅海狹小門戶的亞丁灣到瀕臨印度洋的肯尼亞海岸。就算各國軍艦?zāi)茉诤Ｉ献阶∷麄?，他們能做些什么也還不清不楚。九月份，一艘丹麥軍艦捉住了10名帶著火箭筒和一架長梯在亞丁灣海域游弋的男子，懷疑他們就是海盜。但是在將嫌犯關(guān)了近一個禮拜之后，丹麥人得出的結(jié)論是自己沒有起訴這些人的司法權(quán)，于是他們沒收了海盜的武器，把海盜丟到一處海岸上離開了。
目前看來，還沒有人能拿出一套平靖索馬里多事海域的明確方案。幾個亞丁灣一帶的漁民說曾在海水中看到成桶的有毒廢料，他們還說起附近海面浮起大片死魚，非法的捕魚拖船不僅撈起大量魚蝦還撈走魚蝦賴以生存的珊瑚和海底植物。有人說，就是因為人們對海洋這么胡來，才讓他們從漁民變成了海盜。
更不清不楚的是索馬里政府是否真的希望消滅海盜。雖然很多海盜被捕，一些漁民、西方研究者和我采訪的超過六名獄中海盜都說到漁業(yè)公司、私人保安服務(wù)商以及索馬里官員——尤其是半自治的龐特蘭地區(qū)的政府官員——同海盜之間的骯臟交易。
“請相信我，我們的錢有非常多都跑到政府口袋里去了，”法拉·伊斯梅爾·艾德說。他是一名海盜，在鄰近的伯貝拉地區(qū)被捕入獄，被判處15年徒刑。據(jù)他說，他的海盜團伙是這么分贓的：百分之二十歸首領(lǐng)，百分之二十作為未來的活動經(jīng)費（購買槍支、燃料和香煙等必需品），百分之三十歸登船的持槍海盜，百分之三十進貢給政府官員。
阿布迪·瓦希德·喬哈爾是龐特蘭地區(qū)的漁業(yè)與港口事務(wù)首席官員，他在今年春天的一次采訪中曾公開承認“有些政府工作人員在為海盜效力”。
不過他很快補充說：“當然不是我們?！?BR> 在索馬里海域上發(fā)生的一切只是這個國家自1991年中央政府垮臺之后17年來滋生于其國土上的腐敗和無盡暴力的延續(xù)而已。大多數(shù)索馬里人沒有工作。愿意充當打手的年輕人才能得到一份工作，但是收入微薄，這大大降低了他們對生活的預(yù)期。而一些地方軍閥看到了利用這種無政府狀態(tài)謀取暴利的機會，于是發(fā)家致富。
拿布薩阿索來說，這里曾經(jīng)是亞丁灣上一個欣欣向榮的港口小鎮(zhèn)。日益猖獗的海盜導(dǎo)致當?shù)貪O業(yè)日漸萎靡，因為出口公司都躲得遠遠的。由此也催生出陸地上的新行當——綁票，而這又接著嚇跑了人道主義援助機構(gòu)以及他們帶來的食物、藥品和其它這里急需的物資。兩周前，在布薩阿索進行報道需要雇傭至少10名龐特蘭政府提供的荷槍實彈的保鏢才能嚇阻潛在的綁架者。
很少再有大型貨船前來此地停留，于是當?shù)卣褪詹坏绞种匾母劭诙愂?。愿意來此地冒險的大都是來自印度的輕型木制小貨船，這些船基本上都是些老掉牙的陳年古董。
一位名叫拜爾·卡包薩德的龐特蘭官員說：“靠這個我們沒法活下去?！?BR> 航運業(yè)蕭條加重了食品短缺、通貨膨脹，也意味著碼頭工人找不到活干。這些體格結(jié)實的工人每天早上徘徊在布薩阿索海濱，時常失神地注視明亮的地平線，他們赤腳站在灼熱的沙子上，盼望能有一艘船出現(xiàn)在天邊，這樣就能扛上一天100磅一麻袋的砂糖，換取幾個銅板。 然而令人生疑的是，布薩阿索出現(xiàn)了很多新建筑。鎮(zhèn)上有一片正在興建的區(qū)域名叫新布薩阿索，在一片泡沫形狀的難民棚屋和很多漁民稱之為“家”的鐵皮小屋中間，寬敞闊綽的新住宅正在拔地而起。這些嶄新的住宅動輒價值幾十萬美元，很多都漆成了亮麗的顏色，高高的圍墻保護著它們。
即便如此，布薩阿索依然是一個日益破碎、瀕臨破產(chǎn)、粗陋衰敗的地方，就和飽經(jīng)戰(zhàn)亂的索馬里一樣被世人年復(fù)一年地遺忘。它也充滿了危險，不論你從什么角度來考慮。星期三，幾個自殺炸彈襲擊者炸飛了兩處政府機構(gòu)，很可能是那些想把索馬里變成伊斯蘭國家的伊斯蘭激進分子所為。
當然，沒有政府官員會公開承認新布薩阿索的迷你城堡是用與海盜有關(guān)的收益建造的。但是很多人，包括聯(lián)合國官員和西方外交官，都懷疑這才是事實。
幾名獄中的海盜說穆瑟先生——這位過去的軍閥現(xiàn)在是龐特蘭地區(qū)主席——被海盜收買了。索馬里西北部緊鄰布薩阿索的索馬里蘭地區(qū)的官員聲稱，他們最近組織了一次反海盜行動并逮捕了穆瑟先生的侄子，當時在他身上搜到2萬2千美元現(xiàn)鈔。
“即使龐特蘭的高級官員可能沒有鼓勵海盜行徑，但是他們都在從中獲利，”倫敦皇家國際事務(wù)學(xué)院的研究者羅杰·米德爾頓說。他還說：“在索馬里，所有重要的政治人物很可能都受益于海盜。”
但是穆瑟先生表示他與海盜完全無關(guān)。“我們是這個國家的，”他說道?！氨晃覀儜岩傻拿恳粋€人都被開除了出去?！彼f龐特蘭正在采取積極舉措遏制海盜。布薩阿索的主要監(jiān)獄可能就是這些舉措的證據(jù)，前幾天，幾名海盜被絞死在監(jiān)獄院子中的籃球架下。而這僅僅是個開始。
“海盜海盜海盜，這座監(jiān)獄里全是海盜，整個城市都是海盜。” 關(guān)押在這里的一名被控謀殺的加拿大裔索馬里人古爾·阿麥德如是說。
在其他遠近聞名的海盜窩點，比如加魯威、伊爾和沙拉德西爾，海盜已經(jīng)成了當?shù)氐拿恕?BR> 32歲的薩伊德·法拉是加魯威的一個商店老板，他說海盜似乎錢多得花不完。
他說：“要是他們看到一個人開了輛好車，他們會說，‘這車值多少？要是值三萬，這兒有四萬，把鑰匙給我?！?”
每當一艘被劫持的船在岸邊拋錨，海盜們的購物狂歡就開始了。綿羊、山羊、水、燃料、大米、意大利面、牛奶和香煙——海盜們光顧索馬里海岸的各個小鎮(zhèn)，什么都買，而且一買就是一大堆。索馬里的海上盜賊可不像幾百年前威脅歐洲海岸的那些北非海盜——他們常常把人質(zhì)鎖在船槳上作為奴隸驅(qū)使——索馬里海盜以相對“好客”而聞名，他們通常不會毆打人質(zhì)，而且讓人質(zhì)吃的不錯，直到收到贖金的那一天。
“他們只是些普通人，”薩伊德先生說，“只是非常、非常富有。”
索馬里摩加迪沙的穆罕默德·易卜拉欣對此報道亦有貢獻。
Money changers walk around with thick wads of hundred-dollar bills. Palatial new houses are rising up next to tin-roofed shanties. Men in jail reminisce, with a twinkle in their eyes, about their days living like kings.
This is the story of Somalia’s booming, not-so-underground pirate economy. The country is in chaos, countless children are starving and people are killing one another in the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, for a handful of grain.
But one particular line of work — piracy — seems to be benefiting quite openly from all this lawlessness and desperation. This year, Somali officials say, pirate profits are on track to reach a record $50 million, all of it tax free.
“These guys are making a killing,” said Mohamud Muse Hirsi, the top Somali official in Boosaaso, who himself is widely suspected of working with the pirates, though he vigorously denies it.
More than 75 vessels have been attacked this year, far more than any other year in recent memory. About a dozen have been set upon in the past month alone, including a Ukrainian freighter packed with tanks, antiaircraft guns and other heavy weaponry, which was brazenly seized in September.
The pirates use fast-moving skiffs to pull alongside their prey and scamper on board with ladders or sometimes even rusty grappling hooks. Once on deck, they hold the crew at gunpoint until a ransom is paid, usually $1 million to $2 million. Negotiations for the Ukrainian freighter are still going on, and it is likely that because of all the publicity, the price for the ship could top $5 million.
In Somalia, it seems, crime does pay. Actually, it is one of the few industries that does.
“All you need is three guys and a little boat, and the next day you’re millionaires,” said Abdullahi Omar Qawden, a former captain in Somalia’s long-defunct navy.
People in Garoowe, a town south of Boosaaso, describe a certain high-rolling pirate swagger. Flush with cash, the pirates drive the biggest cars, run many of the town’s businesses — like hotels — and throw the best parties, residents say. Fatuma Abdul Kadir said she went to a pirate wedding in July that lasted two days, with nonstop dancing and goat meat, and a band flown in from neighboring Djibouti.
“It was wonderful,” said Ms. Fatuma, 21. “I’m now dating a pirate.”
This is too much for many Somali men to resist, and criminals from all across this bullet-pocked land are now flocking to Boosaaso and other notorious pirate dens along the craggy Somali shore. They have turned these waters into the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world.
With the situation clearly out of control, warships from the United States, Russia, NATO, the European Union and India are steaming into Somalia’s waters as part of a reinvigorated, worldwide effort to crush the pirates.
But it will not be easy. The pirates are sea savvy. They are fearless. They are rich and getting richer, with the latest high-tech gadgetry like handheld GPS units. And they are united. The immutable clan lines that have pitted Somalis against one another for decades are not a problem here. Several captured pirates interviewed in Boosaaso’s main jail said that they had recently crossed clan lines to open new, lucrative, multiclan franchises.
“We work together,” said Jama Abdullahi, a jailed pirate. “Good for business, you know?”
The pirates are also sprinkled across thousands of square miles of water, from the Gulf of Aden, at the narrow doorway to the Red Sea, to the Kenyan border along the Indian Ocean. Even if the naval ships manage to catch pirates in the act, it is not clear what they can do. In September, a Danish warship captured 10 men suspected of being pirates cruising around the Gulf of Aden with rocket-propelled grenades and a long ladder. But after holding the suspects for nearly a week, the Danes concluded that they did not have jurisdiction to prosecute, so they dumped the pirates on a beach, minus their guns.
Nobody, it seems, has a clear plan for how to tame Somalia’s unruly seas. Several fishermen along the Gulf of Aden talked about seeing barrels of toxic waste bobbing in the middle of the ocean. They spoke of clouds of dead fish floating nearby and rogue fishing trawlers sucking up not just fish and lobsters but also the coral and the plants that sustain them. It was abuses like these, several men said, that turned them from fishermen into pirates.
Nor is it even clear whether Somali authorities universally want the piracy to stop. While many pirates have been arrested, several fishermen, Western researchers and more than a half-dozen pirates in jail spoke of nefarious relationships among fishing companies, private security contractors and Somali government officials, especially those working for the semiautonomous regional government of Puntland.
“Believe me, a lot of our money has gone straight into the government’s pockets,” said Farah Ismail Eid, a pirate who was captured in nearby Berbera and sentenced to 15 years in jail. His pirate team, he said, typically divided up the loot this way: 20 percent for their bosses, 20 percent for future missions (to cover essentials like guns, fuel and cigarettes), 30 percent for the gunmen on the ship and 30 percent for government officials. Abdi Waheed Johar, the director general of the fisheries and ports ministry of Puntland, openly acknowledged in an interview this spring that “there are government people working with the pirates.”
But, he was quick to add, “It’s just not us.”
What is happening off Somalia’s shores is basically an extension of the corrupt, violent free-for-all that has raged on land for 17 years since the central government imploded in 1991. The vast majority of Somalis lose out. Young thugs who are willing to serve as muscle get a job, albeit a low-paying one, that significantly reduces their life expectancy. And a select few warlords, who have sat down and figured out how to profit off the anarchy, make a fortune.
Take Boosaaso, once a thriving port town on the Gulf of Aden. Piracy is killing off the remains of the local fishing industry because export companies are staying away. It has spawned a kidnapping business on shore, which in turn has scared away many humanitarian agencies and the food, medicine and other forms of desperately needed assistance they bring. Reporting in Boosaaso two weeks ago required no fewer than 10 hired gunmen provided by the Puntland government to discourage any would-be kidnappers.
Few large cargo ships come here anymore, depriving legitimate government operations of much-needed port taxes. Just about the only ships willing to risk the voyage are small, wooden, putt-putt freighters from India, essentially floating jalopies from another era.
“We can’t survive off this,” said Bile Qabowsade, a Puntland official.
The shipping problems have contributed to food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and less work for the sinewy stevedores who trudge out to Boosaaso’s beach every morning and stare in vain at the bright horizon, their bare feet planted in the hot sand, hoping a ship will materialize so they will be able to make a few pennies hauling 100-pound sacks of sugar on their backs.
And yet, suspiciously, there has been a lot of new construction in Boosaaso. There is an emerging section of town called New Boosaaso with huge homes rising above the bubble-shaped huts of refugees and the iron-sided shacks that many fishermen call home. These new houses cost several hundred thousand dollars. Many are painted in garish colors and protected by high walls.
Even so, Boosaaso is still a crumbling, broke, rough-and-tumble place, decaying after years of neglect like so much of war-ravaged Somalia. It is also dangerous in countless ways. On Wednesday, suicide bombers blew up two government offices, most likely the work of Islamist radicals trying to turn Somalia into an Islamist state.
Of course, no Somali government official would openly admit that New Boosaaso’s minicastles were built with pirate proceeds. But many people, including United Nations officials and Western diplomats, suspect that is the case.
Several jailed pirates have accused Mr. Muse, a former warlord who is now Puntland’s president, of being paid off. Officials in neighboring Somaliland, a breakaway region of northwestern Somalia, said they recently organized an antipiracy sting operation and arrested Mr. Muse’s nephew, who was carrying $22,000 in cash.
“Top Puntland officials benefit from piracy, even if they might not be instigating it,” said Roger Middleton, a researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Actually, he added, “all significant political actors in Somalia are likely benefiting from piracy.”
But Mr. Muse said he did not know anything about this. “We are the leaders of this country,” he said. “Everybody we suspect, we fire from work.”
He said that Puntland was taking aggressive action against the pirates. And Boosaaso’s main jail may be proof of that. The other day, a dozen pirates were hanging out in the yard under a basketball hoop. And that was just the beginning.
“Pirates, pirates, pirates,” said Gure Ahmed, a Canadian-Somali inmate of the jail, charged with murder. “This jail is full of pirates. This whole city is pirates.”
In other well-known pirate dens, like Garoowe, Eyl, Hobyo and Xarardheere, pirates have become local celebrities.
Said Farah, 32, a shopkeeper in Garoowe, said the pirates seemed to have money to burn.
“If they see a good car that a guy is driving,” he said, “they say, ‘How much? If it’s 30 grand, take 40 and give me the key.’ ”
Every time a seized ship tosses its anchor, it means a pirate shopping spree. Sheep, goats, water, fuel, rice, spaghetti, milk and cigarettes — the pirates buy all of this, in large quantities, from small towns up and down the Somali coast. Somalia’s seafaring thieves are not like the Barbary pirates, who terrorized European coastal towns hundreds of years ago and often turned their hostages into galley slaves chained to the oars. Somali pirates are known as relatively decent hosts, usually not beating their hostages and keeping them well-fed until payday comes.
“They are normal people,” said Mr. Said. “Just very, very rich.”
Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia. 發(fā)自布薩阿索，索馬里 —— 這個地方也許是索馬里最危險的小鎮(zhèn)之一，可能要不了擦把汗的工夫，你已經(jīng)被綁為肉票了。但是這里也是該國最繁榮的小鎮(zhèn)之一。
兌換外匯的黃牛們帶著一打打厚厚的百元美鈔走來走去。錫皮屋頂?shù)呐镂菖?，富麗堂皇的嶄新別墅正在拔地而起。身陷牢獄的男人向我追敘往事，眼中閃著光，他們曾像國王一樣闊綽地生活過。
這是一個關(guān)于索馬里那欣欣向榮、半地下半公開的海盜行業(yè)的故事。在這個深陷動蕩的國家，無數(shù)兒童在忍饑挨餓，首都摩加迪沙的人們?yōu)榱艘稽c谷物當街殺人。
但有一種工作正公然受益于這種無法無天和令人絕望的境況——那就是海盜。索馬里官員表示，今年海盜們的收入將達到創(chuàng)紀錄的5000萬美元，而且，這全是免稅的。
“這些家伙可掙得不少呢，”布薩阿索鎮(zhèn)的政府官員穆罕默德·穆瑟·海爾斯說道。他矢口否認了當?shù)貜V為流傳的他本人也為海盜工作的說法。
今年共有75艘船只遭到海盜的侵襲，數(shù)量超過最近的任何一年。僅僅上個月就有約12艘船只遭襲，包括一艘滿載坦克、高射炮和其他重型武器的烏克蘭貨船也于九月份被膽大的海盜劫持。
海盜們通常駕駛機動性很強的快艇迅速接近目標，利用梯子——有時后甚至用銹跡斑斑的錨鉤——爬上甲板。登船之后，他們就將船員劫為人質(zhì)，直到得到贖金為止，贖金常常達100萬到200萬美元。關(guān)于這艘烏克蘭貨船的談判還在進行當中，由于此事受到了媒體的廣泛關(guān)注，贖回該船可能需要超過500萬美元。
看起來在索馬里，犯罪確實回報頗豐。實際上，這里有所回報的行業(yè)屈指可數(shù)。
“帶上三個人和一條小艇，第二天你就是百萬富翁了，”艾卜拉?！W馬爾·考登說。他曾在索馬里荒廢已久的海軍中擔任過艦長。
在布薩阿索南邊的加魯威鎮(zhèn)，人們總是說起海盜們?nèi)绾握袚u地一擲萬金。居民們說他們富得流油，駕駛最寬敞的汽車，經(jīng)營鎮(zhèn)上的許多產(chǎn)業(yè)——比如旅館——還時常舉行奢華的派對。法圖瑪·阿卜杜爾·卡迪爾說起她六月份參加過的一個海盜的婚禮，整整兩天時間里，舞會和羊肉都不曾停止，從鄰近的吉布提（譯注：位于非洲東北部索馬里半島的國家，與索馬里接壤）請來的樂隊為人們演奏助興。
“那次婚禮實在棒極了，” 21歲的法圖瑪說，“現(xiàn)在我正在和一個海盜約會。”
這種誘惑對于許多索馬里男子來說確實難以抗拒，現(xiàn)在這片滿目瘡痍的土地上的罪犯都云集在布薩阿索和索馬里沿岸其他聲名遠揚的海盜巢穴。他們已經(jīng)把這片水域變成世界上最危險的海上航線。
隨著局勢已明顯失去控制，美國、俄羅斯、北約、歐盟和印度都已經(jīng)派軍艦前往索馬里海域，作為全球范圍內(nèi)興起的消滅海盜行動的一部分。
但是這可不是件容易的事。海盜們久經(jīng)風(fēng)浪，無所畏懼，手中有錢而且錢越來越多，擁有最新的高科技裝備，如手持GPS定位系統(tǒng)等。更何況他們團結(jié)一致。在這一行里，長期導(dǎo)致索馬里人內(nèi)斗的無所不在的家族界限并未成為問題。在采訪中，布薩阿索主要監(jiān)獄中關(guān)押的幾名海盜都表示，海盜近來已經(jīng)跨越家族鴻溝，組成了新的、更有錢途的跨家族海盜集團。
“我們緊密合作，”服刑中的海盜賈馬·阿卜杜拉希說?！斑@對生意有好處，你知道吧？”
海盜們出沒的海域也綿延數(shù)千平方英里，從紅海狹小門戶的亞丁灣到瀕臨印度洋的肯尼亞海岸。就算各國軍艦?zāi)茉诤Ｉ献阶∷麄?，他們能做些什么也還不清不楚。九月份，一艘丹麥軍艦捉住了10名帶著火箭筒和一架長梯在亞丁灣海域游弋的男子，懷疑他們就是海盜。但是在將嫌犯關(guān)了近一個禮拜之后，丹麥人得出的結(jié)論是自己沒有起訴這些人的司法權(quán)，于是他們沒收了海盜的武器，把海盜丟到一處海岸上離開了。
目前看來，還沒有人能拿出一套平靖索馬里多事海域的明確方案。幾個亞丁灣一帶的漁民說曾在海水中看到成桶的有毒廢料，他們還說起附近海面浮起大片死魚，非法的捕魚拖船不僅撈起大量魚蝦還撈走魚蝦賴以生存的珊瑚和海底植物。有人說，就是因為人們對海洋這么胡來，才讓他們從漁民變成了海盜。
更不清不楚的是索馬里政府是否真的希望消滅海盜。雖然很多海盜被捕，一些漁民、西方研究者和我采訪的超過六名獄中海盜都說到漁業(yè)公司、私人保安服務(wù)商以及索馬里官員——尤其是半自治的龐特蘭地區(qū)的政府官員——同海盜之間的骯臟交易。
“請相信我，我們的錢有非常多都跑到政府口袋里去了，”法拉·伊斯梅爾·艾德說。他是一名海盜，在鄰近的伯貝拉地區(qū)被捕入獄，被判處15年徒刑。據(jù)他說，他的海盜團伙是這么分贓的：百分之二十歸首領(lǐng)，百分之二十作為未來的活動經(jīng)費（購買槍支、燃料和香煙等必需品），百分之三十歸登船的持槍海盜，百分之三十進貢給政府官員。
阿布迪·瓦希德·喬哈爾是龐特蘭地區(qū)的漁業(yè)與港口事務(wù)首席官員，他在今年春天的一次采訪中曾公開承認“有些政府工作人員在為海盜效力”。
不過他很快補充說：“當然不是我們?！?BR> 在索馬里海域上發(fā)生的一切只是這個國家自1991年中央政府垮臺之后17年來滋生于其國土上的腐敗和無盡暴力的延續(xù)而已。大多數(shù)索馬里人沒有工作。愿意充當打手的年輕人才能得到一份工作，但是收入微薄，這大大降低了他們對生活的預(yù)期。而一些地方軍閥看到了利用這種無政府狀態(tài)謀取暴利的機會，于是發(fā)家致富。
拿布薩阿索來說，這里曾經(jīng)是亞丁灣上一個欣欣向榮的港口小鎮(zhèn)。日益猖獗的海盜導(dǎo)致當?shù)貪O業(yè)日漸萎靡，因為出口公司都躲得遠遠的。由此也催生出陸地上的新行當——綁票，而這又接著嚇跑了人道主義援助機構(gòu)以及他們帶來的食物、藥品和其它這里急需的物資。兩周前，在布薩阿索進行報道需要雇傭至少10名龐特蘭政府提供的荷槍實彈的保鏢才能嚇阻潛在的綁架者。
很少再有大型貨船前來此地停留，于是當?shù)卣褪詹坏绞种匾母劭诙愂?。愿意來此地冒險的大都是來自印度的輕型木制小貨船，這些船基本上都是些老掉牙的陳年古董。
一位名叫拜爾·卡包薩德的龐特蘭官員說：“靠這個我們沒法活下去?！?BR> 航運業(yè)蕭條加重了食品短缺、通貨膨脹，也意味著碼頭工人找不到活干。這些體格結(jié)實的工人每天早上徘徊在布薩阿索海濱，時常失神地注視明亮的地平線，他們赤腳站在灼熱的沙子上，盼望能有一艘船出現(xiàn)在天邊，這樣就能扛上一天100磅一麻袋的砂糖，換取幾個銅板。 然而令人生疑的是，布薩阿索出現(xiàn)了很多新建筑。鎮(zhèn)上有一片正在興建的區(qū)域名叫新布薩阿索，在一片泡沫形狀的難民棚屋和很多漁民稱之為“家”的鐵皮小屋中間，寬敞闊綽的新住宅正在拔地而起。這些嶄新的住宅動輒價值幾十萬美元，很多都漆成了亮麗的顏色，高高的圍墻保護著它們。
即便如此，布薩阿索依然是一個日益破碎、瀕臨破產(chǎn)、粗陋衰敗的地方，就和飽經(jīng)戰(zhàn)亂的索馬里一樣被世人年復(fù)一年地遺忘。它也充滿了危險，不論你從什么角度來考慮。星期三，幾個自殺炸彈襲擊者炸飛了兩處政府機構(gòu)，很可能是那些想把索馬里變成伊斯蘭國家的伊斯蘭激進分子所為。
當然，沒有政府官員會公開承認新布薩阿索的迷你城堡是用與海盜有關(guān)的收益建造的。但是很多人，包括聯(lián)合國官員和西方外交官，都懷疑這才是事實。
幾名獄中的海盜說穆瑟先生——這位過去的軍閥現(xiàn)在是龐特蘭地區(qū)主席——被海盜收買了。索馬里西北部緊鄰布薩阿索的索馬里蘭地區(qū)的官員聲稱，他們最近組織了一次反海盜行動并逮捕了穆瑟先生的侄子，當時在他身上搜到2萬2千美元現(xiàn)鈔。
“即使龐特蘭的高級官員可能沒有鼓勵海盜行徑，但是他們都在從中獲利，”倫敦皇家國際事務(wù)學(xué)院的研究者羅杰·米德爾頓說。他還說：“在索馬里，所有重要的政治人物很可能都受益于海盜。”
但是穆瑟先生表示他與海盜完全無關(guān)。“我們是這個國家的，”他說道?！氨晃覀儜岩傻拿恳粋€人都被開除了出去?！彼f龐特蘭正在采取積極舉措遏制海盜。布薩阿索的主要監(jiān)獄可能就是這些舉措的證據(jù)，前幾天，幾名海盜被絞死在監(jiān)獄院子中的籃球架下。而這僅僅是個開始。
“海盜海盜海盜，這座監(jiān)獄里全是海盜，整個城市都是海盜。” 關(guān)押在這里的一名被控謀殺的加拿大裔索馬里人古爾·阿麥德如是說。
在其他遠近聞名的海盜窩點，比如加魯威、伊爾和沙拉德西爾，海盜已經(jīng)成了當?shù)氐拿恕?BR> 32歲的薩伊德·法拉是加魯威的一個商店老板，他說海盜似乎錢多得花不完。
他說：“要是他們看到一個人開了輛好車，他們會說，‘這車值多少？要是值三萬，這兒有四萬，把鑰匙給我?！?”
每當一艘被劫持的船在岸邊拋錨，海盜們的購物狂歡就開始了。綿羊、山羊、水、燃料、大米、意大利面、牛奶和香煙——海盜們光顧索馬里海岸的各個小鎮(zhèn)，什么都買，而且一買就是一大堆。索馬里的海上盜賊可不像幾百年前威脅歐洲海岸的那些北非海盜——他們常常把人質(zhì)鎖在船槳上作為奴隸驅(qū)使——索馬里海盜以相對“好客”而聞名，他們通常不會毆打人質(zhì)，而且讓人質(zhì)吃的不錯，直到收到贖金的那一天。
“他們只是些普通人，”薩伊德先生說，“只是非常、非常富有。”
索馬里摩加迪沙的穆罕默德·易卜拉欣對此報道亦有貢獻。