KHAT TRADE RULES IN SOMALIA

Since Fall of Government, Warlords Finance Fiefdoms With Control of
Narcotic Imports, Street Sales to 75 Percent of Adult Men

WAJID, Somalia -- Before Somalia's government collapsed in 1991,
Maryann Ali was an elementary school teacher who spent her days giving
fifth-graders geography and math lessons. Now she earns a living
dealing khat, a narcotic plant that when chewed yields a jittery high
and feelings of invincibility that later melt into a lethargic stupor.

Educated Somali women such as Ali dominate the khat trade, a
profession that is both admired and scorned here, and that offers one
of the few remaining job opportunities in the country's moribund
economy. "If the country was ever normal, I'd quit and return to
teaching," said Ali, 40, who guards her stash with an AK-47 and has a
gold tooth that she says makes her appear "tough." "What else can I do
to survive?" Somalia, a country of more than 8 million ruled by
warlords, has the highest percentage of khat users in the world,
researchers say. Scarred by violence and raised in anarchy, a
generation of young Somalis say King Khat or miracle miraa, as the
drug is known, helps ease the pain. Researchers estimate that 75
percent of adult males use the drug. Every town has khat rooms, where
men lounge for hours listening to blaring music and chewing wads of
green leaves that ooze saliva and stick between their teeth. The
consumption of alcohol and most drugs is socially unacceptable in this
Muslim country, but chewing and dealing khat are considered gray
areas. So Ali, a mother of 10, peddles the narcotic, which she said
enables her to earn money and abide by the philosophy of Somalia's
tight-knit clans: "Above all, provide and protect."

Khat is legal in much of sub-Saharan Africa and enjoyed throughout the
Horn of Africa and in parts of the Middle East, especially in Yemen.
It is illegal in several African countries, the United States and
across Europe. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared khat a
highly addictive drug, and East African leaders have campaigned
against it, saying chronic use leads to high divorce rates, wife
beatings and job loss. In Somalia, opponents call the habit a national
epidemic and say men who use it neglect their families by spending
huge amounts of cash and time on the drug. Khat crops have flourished
in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, where farmers started uprooting
their coffee plants and growing the leafy green plant when the world
coffee market crashed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, Kenya
exports about $250 million of khat annually, beating out tea exports
as one of the county's most lucrative exports, according to the Kenyan
government. Dozens of flights leave Nairobi's two major airports every
day, transporting burlap sacks filled with khat to Somalia in a trade
that is worth about $300,000 a day, according to Kenya's National
Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse.

And like tobacco and alcohol, khat is a big business run by powerful
people. Warlords control the khat trade and use the proceeds to buy
weapons, which allows them to maintain control of their warring
fiefdoms, according to a 2003 report of the United Nations Panel of
Experts on Somalia. "Several major factions and authorities have a
direct stake in the business, either through partnership with khat
importers or by levying charges and taxes at points of entry,"
according to the report.

Khat chewing had long been a urban habit, with most rural farmers
typically too poor to buy it, but humanitarian workers say that men
moving from the farms to towns are starting to pick up the pastime,
borrowing money to support a habit that also suppresses appetite.

"Every meeting we have with the Somali community, khat is identified
as a major problem that's getting worse," said Regine Kopplow, a
project officer in health nutrition with the U.N. Children's Fund in
Somalia. "People don't know what to do. There is drought. There is no
feeling of safety. There is real depression. It ends up hurting their
children, who lose out on school and food." Ali gets her daily supply
of khat from her clan's warlord, one of two who control khat in Wajid,
a dusty town 200 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, that has
drawn thousands of villagers because of the drought. "I just don't see
a better way," she said in a raspy voice recently as she sat in line
with other female sellers under a thatched roof market. As the women
thumbed through stacks of cash, Ali cradled the fresh and leafy
branches packed in wet burlap sacks on her lap, which she wrapped and
unwrapped to show to buyers, as though displaying precious jewels. Her
best khat sells for $15 a bundle. She usually sells 20 bundles a day
and keeps about 20 percent of the profit, a hefty sum in a place where
many people survive on less than $1 a day.

"I feel tortured by this sometimes," she said, rubbing her temples.
"My relatives always tell me to quit, but I can't."

Ali's journey to this sweltering market in Wajid followed from the
events of her country's downfall. She was born in northern Somalia,
but her father, a high-ranking soldier, later moved the family south
to Wajid. She became a teacher and married a fellow educator.

"I liked studying the children, seeing how you could learn different
human behaviors from them," she said. "Some children were happy and
some unhappy. It's actually helped me with this khat work. You have to
always watch people and determine their moods."

When Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, warlords began carving up
the country, schools closed and she was instantly out of work. She and
other women she knew took "any job we could find, and khat was it. And
it seemed better than becoming a fighter or taking food handouts. I
was an educated woman, I couldn't do that."

Her husband plummeted into a depression and couldn't find work, she
said. "The man is a vagabond, totally jobless, ah, what are we women
to do?" she said, slapping her hands together and then giving the
other market women a knowing look. "Men know only fighting and death.
Women of Somalia have to be the breadwinners."

She said she has never chewed khat, takes cash only and tries to be
"as honest as a khat dealer can," meaning she never sells old khat and
tries to keep it from wilting in the sun, she said. But even so,
sometimes her job is as dangerous and unpredictable as the country
around her. In December, armed men looted about $3,000 worth of her
khat, shooting in the air and then by her feet. She thought she would
be killed. She feels sick as she watches more and more rural farmers
move into her town and into squalid encampments, where they have only
low-lying shelters of sticks and rags to give them respite from the
pounding 115-degree heat. Some of the rural women have asked her for
jobs. But she refuses most people. "They keep saying, 'Please give me
a few kilos to sell and let me pay you back when the rains come,' "
she said. "But I have to be careful. Otherwise, this problem will get
out of control."

Amina Saman Mohamed, 37, also a former teacher, works next to Ali in
the khat corner of Wajid market. She stopped teaching in 1992 and
started selling soon after because "I had eight children and the
schools were closed. There was no other choice and not enough money
for food." She and Ali often talk about their dream of returning to
teaching. "This is our main problem in life: that there is never any
real change and we are stuck peddling these leaves," Mohamed said.
"That's the way life is in Somalia."