From: patrik@cup.portal.com (Patrick M Crumhorn)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Miraa/Gat in Somalia--news story
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 16:05:39 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

     Here's an interesting story, on more than one level.   Can 
anyone explain just WHAT this "gat" is?????  If it's some sort
of cannabis/hashish derivative, it must be pretty damn good.

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=START=   XMT: 18:01 Wed Oct 14  EXP: 18:00 Thu Oct 15 

SHREWD SOMALI NATIONALS MAKING FORTUNES FROM NARCOTICS TRADE WITH KENYA 

NAIROBI, (OCT. 14) IPS - As 1,000 Somalis die of hunger every day in their
war-torn country and in Kenya, shrewd Somalis are making fortunes from the
narcotics trade going on between the two neighboring countries. 

At the center of the trade is the plant "miraa" or "gat," grown in both Kenya
and Somalia. Before the war broke out in Somalia two years ago, the "miraa"
constituted part of the trade between the two countries, and nobody frowned
upon it. 

But while thousands of people are dying of hunger daily in Somalia and in the
refugee camps in Kenya, concerned people are asking questions about the
lucrative trade. 

Kenyan environmentalist and researcher Robert Watson says "between $50,000 and
$100,000 leave Somalia daily for Kenya to buy and transport the narcotic drug."

"It is remarkable that Somalis continue to conduct this trade while at the same
time are unable to feed their children," says Watson, who has spent a number of
years in Somalia. 

While the narcotic trade goes on, the international community, through the
media, "sees a dramatic up-turn in the fortunes of the warlords brought about
chiefly as a result of impressive numbers of their clan rivals dying of
starvation in front of television cameras," says Watson. 

"It would be naive to think they (warlords) will allow any amelioration of the
situation while it remains so-richly profitable for them," adds Watson. 

"I was disgusted to find that even in the squalor of the Liboi refugee camp (in
northern Kenya) there were comfortable shelters where those who could afford
the 'gat' could go and sit for hours just chewing the drug," a U.N. official
told IPS here. 

"It was quite clear some men were selling off some of their rations just to buy
'gat'," adds the official who declined to be named. 

The information officer of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says
the commission normally does not mind if some of the rations are bartered
within the camp for something else useful a family may need. 

"But it is another matter when valuable food especially meant for the children
is bartered for 'gat'," Panos Mountzis explains. 

The "miraa" finds its way to either country via an intricate network of
communications through check-points in war-ravaged Somalia and dangerous Kenyan
areas rife with acts of banditry. 

"We know about a quarter of the flight traffic we handle here (Nairobi's Wilson
Airport) is headed for Somalia with 'gat', although the pilots give us Kenyan
destinations," an air traffic controller at the airport told IPS. 

In Somalia, the bush airstrip called "Kilo 50" -- so called because it is
located 50 km from Mogadishu, the capital -- is the hub of the "gat" air
traffic. 

On a recent trip to Somalia, the pilot of a chartered World Food Program (WFP)
plane with about 20,000 tons of food had to leave Nairobi at 4 a.m. for "Kilo
50." 

Asked why he has to fly at such hours, the pilot says he wants to get in and
out of the airstrip before the "gat" run started. 

"When 'gat' flights begin to arrive in a place where there are no air traffic
controllers or any other navigation equipment, you do not want to be around
with a plane like this Hercules C-130," the pilot says. 

Flying into "Kilo 50" after 11 a.m. can be dangerous, adds the pilot, because
the "miraa" is already on the streets at the time and "there is no telling what
a 'miraa' addict with a gun can do." 

There have been unpleasant incidents at "Kilo 50" when relief flights were
forced to use the airstrip ahead of the 'miraa' runs. 

Tommy Thomson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says the
airstrip is relatively safe except when the 'miraa' run is on. 

Being 50 km from devastated Mogadishu, the airstrip is full of dens of gunmen
and clusters of ferocious rival clansmen who thrive on looting relief food. 

The ICRC has changed its schedules of relief flights "to get our planes in and
out before mid-day because by then the 'gat' is on the streets and its effects
can be seen," explains Thomson. 



=END=