“I’m a successful Somali pirate”

Yassin Dheere is a 39-year-old Somali who took to piracy five years ago and has made a fortune from the mushrooming business.

A hulk of a man, Dheere towered over his bodyguards as he spoke to Reuters in Garowe, capital of the northern Puntland province.

Dressed in expensive-looking traditional robes, he chewed khat leaves and stroked an AK-47 rifle as he told his story, starting with his birth in a notorious pirates’ haven on the coast.

“I was born in Eyl town and I used to be a fisherman.

“I was forced to hijack foreign ships after the central government collapsed. No one was monitoring the sea, and we couldn’t fish properly, because the ships which trawl the Somali coasts illegally would destroy our small boats and equipment. That is what forced us to become pirates.

Forced you? So now you hold ships hostage for millions of dollars in order to make up for the meager income you would have made from fishing? You sit around all day coked out of your head on khat, contributing nothing at all to your village or the greater world, until it’s time for you to send someone to hit the high seas and steal from other people who actually have the ambition and respect to get off their asses and get a goddam job. You aren’t even a pirate now – you are a kingpin in organized crime!

And then Reuters writes a gushing story about this new hero of the high seas?

“I have also experienced many difficulties from my work.

“My life has been endangered. And some of my colleagues have died, some at sea when their boats capsized.

“The worst experience I had was when a U.S. warship attacked us while we were hunting a ship. It fired on us and captured some of us unexpectedly. We escaped with our speedboats while bullets buzzed over us.

I wonder if the Al-Reuters reporter wept at the tale of woe. I’m fairly certain they didn’t pick up the phone and call the feds or anything, to let them know the location of a known pirate.

“I was also once jailed in Garowe. But my family attacked the jail and they killed two of the policemen, and then in the exchange of fire I escaped together with other prisoners.

“I have employees doing the business for me now. I am a financier. I get my money and I don’t have to leave Eyl. I have not gone to sea to hijack in recent months.

Add murder to his list of exploits.

The mind reels. Can we end multiculturalism soon? Please? I really don’t want him getting it into his head that North America might be more fun to live in.

End of the Road