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Jeffrey Gettleman reviews two new books about Somalia @ New York Review of Books.
Abshir Boyah is one of Somalia’s pirate chieftains. Last spring, he took me to lunch at a small restaurant directly across the street from the presidential palace of the Puntland semiautonomous regional government. Boyah has hijacked dozens of ships and is a member of a secretive council of pirates called “The Corporation.” He is six foot four, very thin, with a long, handsome face, brilliant white teeth, and a booming, supremely confident laugh.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The minute we walked into the restaurant, he was surrounded by admirers. Before we sat down at a plastic table for our meal of spaghetti and camel meat, Boyah must have shaken half a dozen hands. He seemed to have excellent relations with high-ranking officials in the Puntland “government”—a limited, clan-based authority in northern Somalia—including a police commander who sat next to him and called him “cousin.” Boyah joked that his eating with white men was like “the cat eating with the mice.” It was becoming clear that Boyah was not simply operating in the open. In this part of Somalia, he was a celebrity.
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