HARADHERE, SOMALIA — Straddling a wooden crate filled with $1 million in cash ransom, a cranky old pirate bellows names from a notebook as his anxious, bleary-eyed minions lean against the stone walls of their cramped hide-out.
The grizzled buccaneer, chain-smoking Marlboros as he taps into his calculator, checks the notebook again for outstanding loans or fines before counting out each man's share of the bounty in musty $100 bills paid to release a hijacked Thai ship off the Somali coast.
"Those of us who went to sea and intercepted the boat get $30,000," said Ahmed Salad, 24, as he waited for his share of the take. "Those who waited on the shore and helped defend us get $20,000."
When one young thug complains that a $5,000 deduction for disobeying an order is "illegal," the old man snaps back: "Even the $15,000 you are getting is illegal! It's all stolen!"
Rampant piracy is the latest, strangest and by far the most lucrative survival technique employed by Somalia's desperate populace, which has struggled without a functioning government since 1991. Seizing boats on the high seas along this lawless Horn of Africa nation is turning once-quiet fishing villages such as Haradhere into Mafia-style dens of greed and vice.
As the men file out of the room, their wallets fat, they are swarmed by prostitutes, gin hawkers and peddlers of khat, a leaf that people chew for its amphetamine-like stimulant. Special bragging rights go to the young man who can blow through $2,000 in a single evening.
"One night I got $1,000 from a pirate," a prostitute from Djibouti said. "But the luckiest is to sleep with the group leader. You get $3,000."
Rising desperation
Some Somalis have long managed to find legitimate means of prospering amid the despair. Even without the rule of law, entrepreneurs have built thriving cellphone networks, cattle export ranches and money transfer businesses. But amid soaring inflation, civil war and rising malnutrition, many Somalis are resorting to almost anything to survive.
Entire villages along the coast now engage in piracy. Unemployed youths provide the muscle. Idle fishermen offer boats and knowledge of the coastline. Foreign businessmen provide the money for guns, radios and satellite phones. Islamic hard-liners are lured by the chance to attack Western interests offshore.
