DISPATCH SOMALIA: WHERE KHAT IS KING, BUT NOT MUCH ELSE WORKS

GALKAYO, Somalia, On a dusty street that runs through this town of
80,000 in central Somalia, a cluster of men sit on low stools, lost in
their daily ritual -- chewing the green leaves of a mild narcotic
called khat. Lethargic and stupefied, they seem oblivious to
everything. Only when their cellphones jangle -- a surreal sound in
this otherwise primitive place -- do they snap to life. Soon they've
arranged the money transfers they've been waiting for and lapse back
into their somnolent masticating.

Nothing much works in Somalia -- not water or sanitation, not health
or education. But despite the absence of state structures (or perhaps
because of it), three things function with amazing smoothness: the
commerce of khat, an impressive system of cellphone networks, and the
business of international money transfers.

Welcome to the paradox that is the failed state of Somalia. This
nation of 9 million in the Horn of Africa hasn't had a functioning
government since January 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was
ousted from power by the country's warlords. Over the past 16 years, a
permanent clan conflict has engulfed most of the country. The United
States tried to end the chaos in the 1990s but failed. That
"humanitarian intervention" never lived up to its code name, Operation
Restore Hope. It's better known by its unfortunate final chapter,
Black Hawk Down, the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

A transitional federal government was formed three years ago and sat
in Baidoa, in central-western Somalia. Last December, with external
support, it took on the radical Muslims who had run ("governed" is not
quite the right word) the southern and central portion of the country
for six months. With tacit approval from Washington, which saw the
move as part of the "global war on terror," Ethiopian troops forced
the Union of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu. Since then an urban
guerrilla war -- complete with roadside explosive devices, mortar fire
and suicide bombs -- has been raging in the capital, with no end in
sight.

In the past six months, reports of unrest coming out of the Somali
capital have been almost as dramatic and monotonous as those from the
Iraqi capital, only on a smaller scale. In Mogadishu, a town that
reporters have nicknamed "Baghdad-on-the-Sea," 30 people were killed
last week, including two prominent journalists. Hundreds of thousands
of displaced Somalis have had a compelling reason to flee their
capital: It's awash in mayhem.

Yet somehow, despite the bloodshed, a few things work. The import and
internal distribution of Catha edulis, or khat, from neighboring Kenya
has endured all the "failed state" periods, with the exception of the
months between June and December 2006, when the Union of Islamic
Courts ran the country. The Islamists banned khat, along with alcohol
and cigarettes, sparking protests. Yet it turned out that not only was
it possible for Somali men not to chew khat, but all the locals I
spoke to agreed that it was the first peaceful period in Mogadishu
since 1991. Women mentioned that their husbands had even started
working in the afternoons.

Khat, which is similar to amphetamines in its effects, is a narcotic,
but it's not illegal in Somalia. Far be it from me as a humanitarian
aid worker to praise the khat industry, but I can't help envying the
clockwork precision of its operations. The flights taken by aid
organizations like mine have to adjust their schedules repeatedly in
response to fighting, but the planes that are used to import khat land
with a promptness you can set your watch by. We need armed guards to
escort us on our travels, so we have to rent an extra vehicle to
transport them. We've never gotten our expensive private car on time.
By contrast, the khat's armed escort is always impeccably punctual.

Here is how the khat delivery works. Every day, large cargo flights
land from Kenya: three in Mogadishu, two here in Galkayo and one more
in the south, in the town of Kismayo. As soon as the planes land in
Galkayo, most of the khat is transferred to five vehicles that head
north toward Bossaso -- a town on the Gulf of Aden-- under heavily
armed guard, as befits a precious cargo. The cars -- Toyota Mark Twos
and Toyota Hilux pickups -- are known locally as "missiles" for the
speed with which they travel. The distribution schedule means that
life grinds to a halt at various hours in various places. The
munching starts just after 10 a.m. in Galkayo, around 1 p.m. in
Garowe (180 miles to the north) and at 4 p.m. in Bossaso (360 miles
to the north, over a very bad road).

Only men chew khat, but retail sales (and, in Galkayo, wholesale as
well) are the exclusive task of women. And it's a serious business: a
bunch of twigs to satisfy a man for a day costs the equivalent of $10.
(Per capita income is roughly $130 a year.) If payment is made in
Somali shillings, the banknotes fill a shopping bag.

Khat is a mild drug, but very addictive. The other Somali addiction is
cellphones. They're everywhere. But the communications networks aren't
uniform. Your tribal affiliation determines your area code. In
Galkayo, there are two networks (with no way to call from one to the
other) roughly reflecting the clan division that runs through the town
from the south, where cell numbers start with a 4, to the north, where
they start with a 7.

About 60 miles south of Galkayo, we came across Docol, a village where
the only modern feature is a huge mobile phone tower. The owner of two
cellphones (one 4, one 7) told me excitedly that he was expecting a
third one soon. I tried to envision the advantages this would bring:
Soon many of the 3,000 inhabitants of Docol will be able to call their
cousins in Maine and complain -- in real time, at a relatively low
cost of 45 cents a minute -- about the lack of latrines in Docol.
They'll have the option of sending a text message to friends who
emigrated to Sweden, describing the decline of their camel and goat
herds because there's no functioning watering hole within a
several-hundred-mile radius, or even take a digital picture of the
primitive berked, or pond, with its filthy water.

Somalia may have a global wireless connection, but many of its people
have nowhere to relieve themselves and no water to drink. According to
the World Bank, Somalia has 1.5 more telephones per capita than
Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia, but only one-third as many Somalis have
access to safe water as their neighbors in those countries.

On an expedition to the field to survey water and sanitation needs, I
went to peek into the dry wells in a camp for displaced former
residents of Mogadishu. The women there immediately surrounded me,
shaking their empty jerry cans. I didn't need an interpreter; I knew
what they wanted.

Later, I met with the head of the camp committee, who complained about
the lack of school and health facilities for the displaced. As he
gesticulated toward the camp, I noted that he was holding a cellphone
better than the one I'd just bought to accommodate our many
clan-correct SIM cards.

It struck me as ironic, because I assumed that this man earned his
income in a camp for the displaced. But he set me straight -- most of
his income consists of money transfers from his wife, a refugee in
Nairobi. Remittances from abroad are in fact the main source of income
for countless Somalis, and the transfers work amazingly well. A 2004
World Bank study on Somalia, aptly titled "Anarchy and Invention,"
reports: "The hawala system, a trust-based money transfer system, used
in many Muslim countries, moves US$0.5--1 billion into Somalia every
year."

If Somalis can deliver khat on time, establish a nationwide cellphone
system to coordinate its delivery and set up a functioning
money-transfer system, why can't they bring water to their taps and
build latrines for their people? It would be too easy to blame these
failures on the effects of khat.

Reconstruction and development would require a minimum of unity and
reconciliation. But is that possible among Somalis? More than a month
ago, 1,300 delegates, clan elders and warlords from various parts of
the country came together in Mogadishu. Their reconciliation
mega-conference is still going on, but the main effect so far appears
to have been a sharp increase in violence in the capital and a
resulting exodus on an order not seen since the days of Barre's
dictatorship.

A failed state doesn't fail because of khat-munching
alone.