A press release with an ever so slightly frustrated tone reaches me from the EU’s anti-piracy operation:
On December 7th 2009, EU NAVFOR Netherlands warship HNLMS Evertsen detected a sailing vessel in the Gulf of Aden. The region is considered a hotbed for piracy and is considered too dangerous for lone yachtsmen.
Fair enough. Maybe not everyone has got the message about the risks from piracy. Or maybe he thought he could skirt the danger zone by keeping well out to sea. Anyway, the warship pulled up alongside the yachtsman, who explained he was fully aware of the dangers. This is where it gets good…
Because his engine and auto steering gear had already broken down and he had no money left after being robbed in Aden to buy food and stores, a French officer of the EU NAVFOR staff on board Eversten strongly advised him to return to Djibouti and have second thoughts on his planned journey.
Daniel’s points on Women’s Lib and Islamic Leaders Look to the Sky are important messages to remember before we assume the worst about Somalis, extremism and al Qaeda. And here, for what it’s worth, are my favourite things and the things that give me a small amount of hope (in no particular order)
K’naan – this kind of stuff (and Jal from South Sudan) makes gangsta rap look absurd. K’naan grew up in Mogadishu and is using his story to inform his songwriting. He’s the real deal. His music is cool, and Wavin’ Flag (above) has apparently been selected as the official World Cup song
Seafood – favourite Mog story involves a bunch of hacks who order lobster at their hotel. After two hours they ask the waiter what’s taking so long. Oh I’m sorry, says the waiter, we have no lobster. Anyway, generally cheap and tasty as is all the seafood (well, what’s left by the foreign trawlers)
Fruit – Somalia is gifted with fantastic grapefruit, mango and various other fruits. Fantastically sweet even before you get the obligatory ladle of sugar. Several warlords have substantial fruit plantation interests
Architecture – OK, it’s the symbol of a former colonial power but who can fail to be impressed by the whitewashed Italianate villas, hotels and cathedral that line the Mogadishu shoreline. All bombed to pieces now
Coffee - macchiatos, espressos and cappucinos were easily available in Mogadishu at a time when they were alien objects on British high streets. Generally taste of mud, but the point is you sit outside in the sun discussing important issues of the day
Hospitality – and those coffees? Never paid for them once. Fixers, drivers, security guards always saw it as their duty to keep me fed, watered and in general comfort. Can be double edged…
Journalists – never has such a small number of dedicated and professional journalists worked so hard to keep news coming out of a conflict despite incredible pressures. I’m lucky enough to know a couple as friends. And once again this week, some paid the ultimate price for their job
Entrepreneurial Spirit – let’s leave the pirates out of it for now, but every Somali is a businessman at heart. Just look at the telecoms industry. And this is the thing that ultimately gives me hope. At the moment too many people make too much money from conflict for the war to stop. But one day this will change
Goat Liver – a breakfast fit for a king. Fried up with a little onion and green pepper, the juices mopped up with a hunk of bread. Nothing better
Public Spirit – many of those who died on Thursday were graduating as doctors. They were young, bright and from well-to-do families. Why didn’t they leave? Just like K’naan’s song and the journalists who have stayed, they knew that Somalia was their home. They wanted to do their bit and could see better times ahead
Another bloody day in Somalia. This looks like one of the worst suicide bombings to be carried out in the lawless country. So far it looks as if 19 people have been confirmed dead – although that is likely to rise way beyond 40.
The target was also a desperately cynical choice – a hotel graduation ceremony for health workers, exactly the sort of people this fractured land needs. The place was also packed with government ministers and journalists. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to suspect the deadly handiwork of Al Shabaab.
Nor is it difficult to predict what comes next – a fresh round of handwringing by the international community. The danger as always is that spectacular bloodshed will lead to a spectacular attempt at fixing the country and then, inevitably, another round of spectacular bloodshed.
WEAK GOVERNMENT
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is a decent man and a man with the potential to unite his country. His government though has only a thin hold on power; nothing more than a few blocks of Mogadishu. His power is limited by the machinations of the warlords, clan leaders and Islamists who are constantly jockeying for position. Nor though should the power of Al Shabaab be overestimated. They do not represent many in Somali society and the scale of destruction wrought today is no indication of their military strength. Suicide bombers always punch above their weight.
This latest bombing makes it tempting to believe that Somalia is locked into a Groundhog Day cycle of misery, repeating its mistakes day after day, year after year in a wearying spiral of death.
Yet it is equally possible to point out that the United Nations, Western diplomats and now the African Union are guilty of making the same mistakes time after time. Policy after policy has viewed Somalia as nothing but collateral in the war on terror. Decisions are made not because of what they mean for Somalia – but what they mean for global security. The Islamic Courts were destroyed three years ago, because the world mistakenly feared them. With them went any (albeit still slim) chance of stability. Somalia and its people have to be the reason for acting, not the fear of a global Jihad.
Again the temptation is to try to send in more peacekeepers, more cash for security and call in more American airstrikes to prop up the transitional government and bolster its hold on power. Tomorrow the op-ed pieces will again be warning us that failure to do so risks leaving Somalia to Al Qaeda.
PICKING SIDES IS THE KISS OF DEATH
But imposing solutions does not work in Somalia. Picking sides merely upsets Somalia’s ability to reach a balancing point. Sheikh Sharif will ultimately pay the price for accepting Western support. Finding solutions requires a different approach. Somalia is the ultimate bottom-up society. Villages and clans control the destiny of the country. Winning them over is an impossible task. Leaders have to emerge from within, building consensus and support as they rise. Only then can the rest of the world have a meaningful impact, pouring in aid to build a government that already belongs to the Somali people.
Picking one side, in this case the Transitional Federal Government, is the kiss of death. If we are serious about wanting a stable, successful and ultimately peaceful Somalia then we are going to have to take a step back.
The Kurosawan story of the origin of the state is still played out in our times in Africa, where gangs of armed men grab power—that is to say, annex the national treasury and the mechanisms of taxing the population—do away with their rivals, and proclaim Year One. Though these African military gangs are often no larger or more powerful than the organized criminal gangs of Asia or Eastern Europe, their activities are respectfully covered in the media—even the Western media—under the heading of politics (world affairs) rather than crime.
A Somali pirate remake of The Seven Samurai? Now that’s a movie I’d like to see.
I made a rather rash prediction at the end of last year about Somalia’s pirates. I think I got it wrong. They won’t be buying Djibouti any time soon. They have their eyes on Dubai.
This brilliant piece from Reuters explains the emergence of a new type of equity, one that pretty much guarantees a pretty steady return (so long as shipping companies, insurers and British security firms continue to shower wads of cash across the fractured Horn of Africa country, while the UN and aid agencies hand money to warlords, and politicians try to find the place on the map, but that’s another story…)
In Somalia’s main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate. Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorised shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.
The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore. It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations — and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.
The pirates are the one reason I occasionally feel optimistic about Somalia. The country is filled with a population blessed with a can-do entrepreneurial zeal. Of course much of that is directed in, erm, problematic directions but it just shows that the country does not necessarily have to be a basket case. All that needs to happen is for Somalis to find a way of making money from peace. Then peace has a chance.
I haven’t done a very good job, but in my posts about Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan I’ve tried to avoid using a know-it-all, old-Africa-hand tone. But the truth is that from the moment they were kidnapped it was obvious that they had only themselves to blame. There’s nothing wrong with throwing yourself in at the deep end and pushing yourself to the limits to bring back back an otherwise unreported story. The problem is when you put other people at risk through naivety and inexperience.
The hack pack in Nairobi had never heard of Lindhout and Brennan when they disappeared. That in itself was a bad sign. Anyone heading to Mogadishu should take a few days talking to people who know the place – the Somali journalists exiled to Nairobi, the international press corps who have parachuted in and out, and the NGOs and UN agencies who try to keep aid flowing into a broken country- to find out the latest security information.
Hotels in Mogadishu come in and out of fashion. Who has the best security and which part of the city is free from shelling?
Which stringers are operating in Mogadishu, and who has the best contacts and feel for the situation in the ground?
These are the sorts of thing you learn to ask over weeks and months reporting from increasingly hostile places. My first trip to Somalia was carefully organised by the United Nations. There were two more trips to Baidoa, at a time when it was relatively stable. Only then – and at a time when the fighting had calmed – did I feel confident enough to make a trip to Mogadishu.
In contrast, Lindhout and Brennan seemed unprepared for what they faced.
This piece in The New York Times sums up the lure of wars for the newbie…
Wars have long provided a way into journalism for some adventurous aspiring reporters (as well as death, kidnappings and injury for others). And courageous, if inexperienced, freelancers have brought important stories to light that might otherwise have gone unreported.
But it goes on to spell out how the pair lacked experience
Robert Draper was already in Somalia on an assignment for National Geographic when Ms. Lindhout and Mr. Brennan arrived. Mr. Draper said that it was apparent that she had been the driving force behind their trip. She had met Mr. Brennan backpacking in Ethiopia. While Mr. Brennan was in Somalia as a photographer, Mr. Draper said, it was not clear whether he had ever sold any photographs.
“She was eager to make a name for herself, and I don’t say that as a negative,” Mr. Draper said. “But a lot of the early and intermediate steps one does to become a journalist, she bypassed. Amanda was very eager to go where the action was.”
They were released after 15 months. But not without a hefty chunk of cash being paid to their kidnappers. Paying up is the only way to get people out. Yet once again the armed gangs are richer and emboldened. Journalists mean cash. And for the long suffering people of Somalia, the two-decade cycle of violence shows no signs of ending.
It’s wonderful news that the two journalists kidnapped last year in Mogadishu have been freed today after 15 months. The dribs and drabs of news coming out of Somalia have at times suggested Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan might not survive. Both had been desperately ill and rumours circulated constantly that, with little prospect of a ransom, their kidnappers might simply decide to shoot the pair and call it a day. There are other horror stories that may or may not be confirmed in the days ahead.
But for now the main thing is that after $1m was reportedly paid for their release, the two are free and back at the Sahafi hotel – ironically the scene of another kidnapping this year.
Good news for both, although I dread to think what emotional and physical scars the two will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Now I just pray that no-one else ends up in the same situation. The press pack in Nairobi – of which I was until recently a part – always treated Mogadishu with the utmost respect. We only went if we knew we could do it safely. Too often though we were surprised by the attitude of others parachuting in. Veterans of Baghdad and Kabul assumed they’d seen it all. They hadn’t. Mogadishu may as well be on another planet. Here are some things to think about and some lessons to learn:
Money talks in Somalia – whatever you think about the ethics of paying money to gunmen, this is the only way to get people out
Diplomats have few links on the ground – negotiations apparently went nowhere for months as clueless Australian and Canadian officials dealt with numerous intermediaries with no connection to the hostage takers
Mogadishu is dangerous – no-one has control. There are no green zones or security consultants to hide behind. Don’t trust anyone you are paying. All kidnappings involve someone on the inside
Journalists are targets – no-one is going to believe any “I’m here to tell your side of the story” nonsense
Mogadishu is dangerous – if your fixer says to you, “They are saying bad things,” then leave. Don’t stay for one more snap
Everyone knows everything and everyone knows nothing – one colleague arrived in Somalia a few years back to learn that his arrival was the second item on the radio news. At the same time, if people want to disappear you, they can. Easily
There are ways of operating in Mogadishu. There are good fixers and stringers who can help. There is a wealth of information and advice from experts in Nairobi. But if you don’t bother asking around and taking the temperature then you only have yourself to blame. Sometimes – but not always – the place is simply best avoided. No story is worth your life.
One of the first things that puzzled me about Darfur was why the West cared about what was happening in Sudan’s western region, when it gave such little attention to conflicts in Somalia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others that I’ve forgotten about. Now it seems that Darfur is going the way of those other wars. My regular Google Trends search shows that news outlets (in the lower of the two graphs) are now paying more attention to Somalia – predominantly its pirates – than Darfur, represented by the blue line which has now slipped beneath that of Congo too. Its last spike came in March, when President Bashir was indicted by the ICC and responded by expelling 13 aid agencies.
Now it is in danger of becoming just another forgotten crisis. Its pulling power was always based on its status as the first genocide of the 21st century – a dubious claim and one that is clearly no longer true. The outgoing AU-UN hybrid force commander has declared the war is over, and the statistics provided by Alex de Waal at Making Sense of Darfur have long suggested that simmering tribal conflicts – over land or livestock – are the biggest cause of violent death. In his latest update, he reports 67 violent deaths during the month of October, the biggest contributor being clashes between the Zaghawa and Birgid around Muhajiriya (although these are the aftershocks of fighting earlier this year, part of the higher-level rebels versus government conflict).
The question now, given that the humanitarian crisis continues, is what next for advocates? There’s no longer a genocide button to push. How do we keep people interested in just another African disaster?
I spent five years as a stringer for various British, American and Irish news organisations in Africa. I built my portfolio from scratch until I was the first port of call for up to a dozen newspapers and radio stations. The money was good, the hours flexible enough for the occasional 18 holes in mid-morning and the work took me from my base in Nairobi to Liberia, Botswana and Mozambique – as well as across my home turf of East Africa and The Horn.
Foreign bureaux are shrinking. The days of the linen-suited staff foreign correspondent are gone. That’s sad and probably means foreign coverage is getting patchier. But it means there are more opportunities for motivated, well-organised and professional stringers – reporters who file to multiple outlets.
Now I’m starting again in Jerusalem, and as I wait for the phone to start ringing I’ve been thinking back to the lessons learned over the past five years. So here’s how to make it as a stringer:
Learn it – you’ve been an accounts manager in a small stationery firm in Slough and fancy a change? This isn’t going to work for you. Get proper experience at a real news organisation. Learn how print, radio or TV news works. Learn how to pitch a story. Learn how to write it, record it, file it. Learn how editors think. You don’t want to be learning on the job when the job is in 50C heat of the Danakil Depression with a deadline and gunmen looming
Bust it – be on call all day and all night. Never say no. Don’t turn your phone off. Somone wants a story, then give it to them. They have to call someone else because you have a nice lie on the fifth fairway and they won’t bother interrupting you next time. I’ve sat on newsdesks where editors have rolled their eyes at the prospect of calling an unrealiable, awkward or alcoholic stringer. Be Mr Available
Read it - local papers are dull: full of boring council meetings and interminable political wrangles. But if you’re not reading them you’ll never spot the nib that says a British man has been found dead in a hotel room or the second sentence that happens to mention that police are questioning two women. Lots of stringers don’t bother. Idiots
Meet it – stories come from contacts, right? Get out and about. So the conference sounds dull, or the activist comes across as a nutter? You never know when they might come in useful. What else are you doing? Probably not much in those first few weeks. And make friends with the snappers and the wire guys while you’re at it. They know what’s happening long before you do
Blog it – chances are you’ll have time on your hands when you’re starting out. Maybe no-one wants to buy your stories just yet. Write them anyway and stick em on your blog. It gets you out and about reporting When a radio producer needs someone in Lubumbashi in a hurry, they might just find your name on google. Tweet it too. You’re not just a writer, you’re a businessman. Advertise. I’ve got work and story ideas from twitter
Slum it – you wanna be a feature writer for The New York Times? Forget it. Sure they might come calling, but don’t be too snooty at first. Be realistic. Take work, any work so long as the publication is not going to put off other clients. Getting editors to trust you is half the battle. Once your name is out there, albeit in smaller publications, bigger news outlets are more likely to trust you. Oh, and drop the middle initial – it looks daft
Flog it – never, ever forget that you are running a business. Someone hasn’t paid? Chase em. Keep yourself and your expenses organised and tidy. You aren’t going to change the world, or reinvent Gonzo journalism. This is your job, your living, your livelihood – not your calling. Write stories that will sell, not ones that sound like a PhD title or a development thinktank’s press release. Make sure you get paid and don’t lose your receipts (my own particular weakness)
Whore it – an editor wants your arse, he can pay for it. So until they pull out the cheque book and pay you a juicy retainer there’s no problem with selling your stories around. Be sensible though. Don’t stitch people up. Build relationships with editors so that you know what they want and can expect them to call when they need a hit in a hurry. They’ll want to know they can count on you. But at the same time, remember they’ll happily use someone else if they can. You find Lord Lucan riding Shergar in the Timbuktu carnival? Go to the biggest payer but remember…
Structure it – if you’ve got a big player using you, then use them to underwrite trips, guarantee your safety and cover your back. Bad things can happen to exposed stringers. Put your big player at the top of your list. Give them the best of your stuff. Organise the demands of your other strings around them. Everyone is a winner when you can share the expenses around a bit
Do it – it’s a jungle out there (particularly if you base yourself in the Democratic Republic of Congo). But if you are any good you’ll survive. It’s the ultimate meritocracy – no room for pedestrians. And if you work really hard, run things like a business and follow these tips then you’ll be set on the ride of your life. There’s no rewriting press releases or being stuck on diary, like you would back home. You’ll be kicking news in the nuts – and occasionally having it vomit on your shoes
Not content with bringing shipping lanes to a standstill off Somalia, gunmen are now intent on snagging European passengers from flights in and out of the lawless country and holding them for ransom. Yusuf M Hasan has written a gripping account of the thwarted hijacking of a flight from Bossaso, Puntland, to Djibouti…
Diyaarada way afduuban tahay. The four words, screamed by a mad man wielding a pistol in mid-air, are etched into my memory like lyrics in a veteran singer’s mind. This plane is hijacked.
The pilots turned the plane around and landed, pretending it was the destination the hijackers had demanded. Shots were fired but no-one was hurt. The passengers had no doubt about what the hijackers wanted…
The hijackers say they wanted to take two hostages – German journalists on board the plane – and that the rest of us Somalis would be set free in Las Qorey.
Security is rudimentary at most Somali airports. A few dollars in the right palms would make it easy to carry guns on board. In fact, I’m rather surprised this doesn’t happen more often. The limiting factor may well be the small number of westerners who risk flights in and out of the country. (It might be time for the UN to reconsider its ban on journalists buying seats on its flights to and from Somalia.)
What does all of this mean? I have no idea. But it can’t be good.
Not content with bringing shipping lanes to a standstill off Somalia, gunmen are now intent on snagging European passengers from flights in and out of the lawless country and holding them for ransom. 
