Thursday, August 11, 2011

A Book on Somalia Pirates

Jay Bahadur (blog), a Canadian journalist, has written a book about Somalia pirates, titled "The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World". According to NYTimes Sunday book review:

"Bahadur has gone deep in exploring the causes of this seaborne crime wave, charting its explosive growth and humanizing the brigands who have eluded some of the world’s most powerful navies...Bahadur captures the inner workings of Somali piracy in extraordinary detail. The organizational structure of typical pirate cells, he explains, includes not just attackers, interpreters, accountants and cooks: almost every group also has its supplier of khat, a plant flown into Somalia by the ton every day from Kenya and Ethiopia and chewed for an addictive high. Like low-level urban crack dealers, the pirates at the bottom rung of the hierarchy make barely enough to survive. But, high or low, these brigands practice some peculiar rituals. After receiving his cut of the ransom on the captured ship, one pirate tells Bahadur, each man must toss his mobile phone into the ocean - a precaution to make sure no one can call ahead to his kin to arrange an ambush of his fellow cell members."

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show also interviewed Bahadur this past Tuesday about his endeavor and the writings of the book.

No comments: