Somalia has officials?

3:16 pm, 10/23/05

Somalia has officials?
The story of the world's only functioning anarchy, where the most important natural resource is kidnapped foreign aid workers and you're advised to hire no less than ten machine gun toting teenagers to take you from the airport to the hotel (an advisory issued by the country's "tourism bureau", a guy who has a lot of free time because the country hasn't had a single tourist in about fifteen years and whose predecessor was kidnapped and held for ransom by his own bodyguards), continues:

Pirates have seized a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia, local officials have confirmed.

They said the Maltese-registered ship, Pagania, was attacked late on Wednesday as it sailed from South Africa to Europe with a cargo of iron ore.

The hijackers are reportedly demanding a $700,000 (£394,000) ransom for the release of the ship and its crew, all believed to be Ukrainian.

More than 20 ships have been seized or attacked in the area since March....

A UN-chartered ship carrying food aid to tsunami victims in northern Somalia, the MV Semlow, was released this month, after being held by hijackers for 100 days.

Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme from Kenya's port of Mombasa said the vessel was seized some 167km off the Somali coast....

Officials in Somali's capital, Mogadishu, confirmed the incident.

Apparently the old "stay 50 miles (80km) away" rule isn't good enough. Also hijacked in the last month were the Ibn Batuta, the MV Miltzow, and the MV Toregelow. I think this is the 23rd pirate seizure since March, and western navies spend plenty of time scouring the coast for these ships. The country was so bad during their civil war that cities would actually be bombed by planes flying from their own local airports, but in the last few years attempts at progress have been made, as community leaders established the tiny fake country of Somaliland in the north (along with the less successful tiny fake country of Puntland next to it, which fights tiny civil wars). You might think of southern Somalia, Puntland, and Somaliland as being sort of like the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and MGM Studios, except without any happiness.

The Islamist Escape From New York extras who rule the rest of the country promised to stop shooting each other for a while, maybe even come up with some kind of government, but probably only so that they can blow up the other guy who claims to run the country, although that guy says it was just an accident in which one of his own security guards dropped a grenade launcher. The Coca-Cola plant was recently reopened by an enterprising Somali, and it employs dozens of armed guards.

"Tourists can still go and see the former beautiful sights," [the Somali tourism minister] says. "The only problem is they're all totally destroyed." Your correspondent admired what was left of the cathedral. Graffiti outside warned "Beware of landmines".

"Most of the animals have disappeared too," he concedes, "Because we have eaten them."

"I'm sure tourists would leave Somalia alive and I'm hopeful they wouldn't be kidnapped," he says. "At least, we would try to make sure they were not kidnapped, although it can happen."

For a little while, they even had a foreign minister, whose credentials allegedly consisted of having once been a Washington, D.C. cab driver. This year's attempted government is expected to be destroyed, much like last year's attempted government, and, in fact, like every attempted government for the last fourteen years. The real irony? Somalia is the only country with a flag inspired by that of the United Nations.

I also notice that Hussein Farah Aidid is still claiming to run the show. You may remember Mohammed Farah Aidid, the warlord antagonist of the 1992 US/UN mission to Somalia depicted in Black Hawk Down. The bizarre story is that sometime between then and now, Aidid's estranged son from Los Angeles inexplicably decided to end a stint in the Marine Corps to go live with dad, then took over the Habr Gidr clan when the elder Aidid died. He's credited with imposing a little peace between warring clans but also with opposing the new government to maintain his own power. (Then there's the hilarious incident where a BBC reporter had to hide from Hussein's goons after being accused of faking news. Imagine that.)

Meanwhile, Mohammed Ali Americo, an official from the Somali "prime minister"'s office, says he really wishes someone would send them a navy, and maybe someone who can do something about the 48 Asian fishermen still being held hostage somewhere in the south of the country.

I'd bring up the Barbary War and suggest planting an aircraft carrier battle group off the coast to put an end to this pirate idiocy, but, well, you're probably already there.