Pubdate: Sat, 25 Aug 2012
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Michelle Shephard

TRACKING KHAT FROM KENYA TO CANADA

MAUA, KENYA-James Mithika is a farmer in chocolate brown wingtips.

His plot of land lies not far from Mount Kenya, off a red dirt road 
and a short walk past the goat that bleats like an old man clearing his throat.

Mithika moves cautiously to avoid tromping on the beans his mother 
insisted on planting and then shows us his prized two-acre field of 
moss-covered and gnarly trees, some more than 100 years old.

"The best miraa in the world," Mithika proclaims.

Miraa trees and bushes, more commonly known as khat, produce the 
tender leaves and branches that are widely consumed throughout 
Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, parts of Kenya and Yemen, where 
afternoon chewing sessions are ingrained in the culture, as 
ubiquitous as coffee and as common a social ritual as a beer after 
work, the seeking of a mild buzz.

Mithika's plantation is in central Kenya, amid the Nyambene Hills, 
not far from the town of Maua, where khat trees thrive in the high 
altitude and volcanic soil that farmers say cannot be reproduced.

This area grows, just as Mithika boasts, the world's most-coveted 
khat. The economy and people of the towns and villages here in Meru 
County depend on the khat trade - a 24/7 business in which everyone 
plays a role. "If someone tells you they're not involved with miraa, 
they're lying," Mithika says.

Everyone seems to be talking khat these days. American 
counterterrorism officials claim the trade finances Somalia's Al 
Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabab. Environmentalists warn that khat fields 
are sucking up the last of Yemen's water reserves. And Hind Aleryani, 
a Yemeni blogger, helped lead a social media campaign that called for 
a khat-free day throughout the country to ignite a debate about its 
rampant use and the impact on agriculture and the economy.

In Canada, the U.S. and most of Europe, khat is illegal. But, despite 
the ban, demand remains high among the East African diaspora - there 
are an estimated 150,000 Somalis living in Canada, mostly in Toronto, 
Ottawa and cities in Alberta. Canada Border Services Agency officials 
confiscate khat shipments almost every day at Toronto's Pearson 
airport. In June and July alone, 1,610 kilograms were seized, with an 
estimated street value of up to $800,000.

Canada's courts seem confused by khat's status.

In April, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a judge's dismissal of 
charges against a young woman who imported khat from Britain.

"It's very difficult to understand why this stuff's against the law," 
Ontario Court Justice Elliott Allen said in the original ruling. "I 
read everything I can get my hands on about it and find it difficult 
to be persuaded of anything other than what I was told by a federal 
Crown attorney when I had my first case, which was: 'We think this is 
almost as dangerous as coffee.'"

Khat is legal in the United Kingdom, where its use has been 
extensively studied, and it is a thriving business. But that may 
change as the controversy there grows - a push to ban it is being 
championed by Conservative MP Mark Lancaster.

News reports often describe khat users as crazed addicts, like scenes 
from the cult film Reefer Madness that warned hyperbolically of the 
dangers of marijuana.

Others counter that khat is harmless and making it illegal draws 
precious resources from policing more potent drugs, such as heroin 
and cocaine, with clear ties to organized crime and its violence.

So what is khat? What does it do? Where does it come from and how 
does it get to Canada? Is its trade funding the Shabab? Why the debate?

We'll start where the khat trade starts each day, just before dawn at 
farms like Mithika's, where boys and men perch like flocks of birds 
in crooked branches and quickly pluck the day's harvest.

A little more than 48 hours later, those tender branches, now 
wilting, will be stuffed into the cheeks of Toronto chewers, who 
wonder what all the fuss is about.

Patrick Mugambi is up before the sun, climbing out of the bed he 
shares with his wife Agnes and their two small children.

His home is a two-room wood hut with a tin roof. One room is the size 
of the mattress his family shares; the other, just space enough for a 
ratty couch and coffee table. The family eats outside under a canopy 
of banana, mango and avocado trees and beside a cabin that serves as 
the kitchen.

On this July morning, it is about 10 degrees and, as the fog lifts, 
dew blankets his home.

Mugambi, 30, is a khat picker. On a good day, he makes enough to feed 
his family, have a drink and put 150 shillings ($1.80) away for his 
children's high-school education.

When the church bells ring, the birds jolt awake and Mugambi sets off 
along a well-worn trail behind his home. He stops at the local 
canteen, where water is boiling for the morning tea. Other pickers 
sit at a picnic bench in the courtyard trying to wake up and get 
warm. Inside, a fading poster of the Lord's Prayer hangs on the wall.

The canteen opens at 6 and closes at midnight so owner William 
Gitonga doesn't sleep much. By the time Mugambi arrives, Gitonga is 
tossing squares of dough into a vat of boiling oil to make batch 
after batch of mandazi, a doughnut-like fried pastry.

There are two boys who are just 12 years old. Shandrack Nkunja says 
his father died and his mother's illness has forced him to support 
his two sisters, so he moved in with a cousin and began picking about 
a year ago. His friend, Kevin Mutugi, no longer lives at home either, 
saying his father kicked him out.

Kevin is sipping tea, huddled over the steaming cup, wearing ripped 
jeans and a tattered pink-and-purple windbreaker while children his 
age pass wearing their blue-and-white uniforms and Disney knapsacks. 
"I'd like to be in school, yes," Kevin says quietly, but he admits he 
likes money and chews khat himself.

Once at the field, the pickers quickly climb the trees, their hands a 
blur as they snap off the tender reddish branches. The more they 
pick, the more they can make since they're paid for the weight of 
their haul. Within an hour, the 25 pickers have harvested almost two 
acres of trees.

The Catha edulis plant, contains 40 organic compounds or alkaloids. 
Cathinone and, to a lesser degree, cathine are what affect the 
nervous system, increasing blood pressure and heart rate, eliciting 
feelings of euphoria. Chemically and behaviourally, cathinone is 
similar to an amphetamine but less powerful. And the moment the plant 
is picked, cathinone starts to break down. Rapidly.

The shipment, which will fetch as much as $110 a bundle in Toronto, 
has to move fast or it will become worthless.

The town of Maua, population 40,000, is consumed by the khat trade. 
It has only a few streets and none are officially named. One, known 
as "bank street," is lined with half a dozen bank branches and ATMs 
that are patrolled by armed guards. Although Maua is not a rich town, 
money moves through here. Another street is lined with small shops - 
Good Hope Grocery, Trinity Salon, Third World Wines and Spirits, 
Small But Fit Butchery, the Blessings Store. Men sell newspapers on 
the corner. Some businesses never close.

Janet Kagendo sits in a shop used to process khat, her legs 
outstretched, the floor a carpet of discarded khat leaves. She is a 
sorter, a job she has had for five years, since she was 19. The 
pickers' harvest starts to arrive here by 8 a.m.

There are about a dozen women in the shop, two of them breastfeeding 
as they work.

For the next hour, Kagendo and the others will discard the larger, 
bitter-tasting leaves and bundle the remaining stems together. Out on 
the street and in other shops around town, about 100 more sorters do 
the same task. All these bundles are wrapped in massive banana leaves 
to keep the khat fresh.

Sorting is good money, Kagendo says. When added to what she makes 
each afternoon selling bananas and oranges roadside, it's enough for 
shelter and food for herself and 5-year-old son.

Their gleaming white teeth provide the clue that most Maua women stay 
away from khat, unlike the town's men, whose teeth bear the telltale 
brown stains of regular consumers.

The next team of workers takes the sorted bundles - known as "kilos" 
although that's more a guess than a weight - into large, white burlap 
sacks, marking each with the name of the export company that will 
pick it up once it reaches Nairobi that afternoon.

Walking along the main road watching all of this is Abdi Kadir 
Mohammed. He is a khat distributor.

Mohammed, 54, was born in northeast Kenya, in the town of Mandera. 
Unlike most in Maua, who are of Meru descent, Mohammed's heritage is 
Somali, although he balks at the suggestion he is anything but Kenyan 
and quickly tells me he has never stepped across the border.

He has four wives, 15 children and moved here two decades ago. As an 
outsider, it took him years to establish himself but eventually he 
gained respect as an honest distributor. He lives in a small concrete 
house off the main road with one of his wives and his younger 
children, including his 9-year-old daughter Kali, who is confined to 
a bed, only able to rock and hum after a brain injury left her unable 
to walk or talk.

Like many here, Mohammed is also a khat consumer, although he only 
chews after the trucks leave for Nairobi.

To get those Toyota pickups ready, another crew of specialists, known 
as the ropers, suddenly emerge once the sacks are packed. Everyone 
constantly looks at their watches. It is now close to 10 a.m. With 
clerks carefully recording the number of bags loaded on to each 
truck, the ropers expertly secure the two-metre teetering loads.

Zachary Mrefu, a last name that translates from Swahili to "tall 
man," stands calmly nearby smoking a cigarette. Wearing khaki cargos 
and a grim expression, the muscular 32-year-old could pass as a 
Special Forces commando and his job is likely just as dangerous.

Mrefu turns what should be a five-hour drive to Nairobi into a 
three-hour race on 276 kilometres of winding road, forcing any cars 
in his way to swerve on to the highway's shoulders. He also navigates 
dozens of massive speed bumps that scrape the mufflers of smaller 
cars. "The shock absorbers are out," Mrefu explains, saying he often 
reaches a speed of 170 kilometres an hour.

He insists he has never had an accident or caused one during his 
seven years driving.

By 11 a.m., Mrefu and the other drivers are off.

"Khat chewing induces a state of euphoria and elation with feelings 
of increased alertness and arousal," according to the World Health 
Organization.

"This is followed by a stage of vivid discussions, loquacity and an 
excited mood. Thinking is characterized by a flight of ideas but 
without the ability to concentrate. However, at the end of a khat 
session the user may experience depressive mood, irritability, 
anorexia and difficulty to sleep."

Use in Canada and elsewhere outside the Horn of Africa and Yemen is 
almost exclusively within diaspora populations.

As one Somali Canadian recently told me, "Leave a big box of khat at 
the side of the road and most Canadians wouldn't have a clue what to 
do with it."

I was introduced to khat in 2006, on a Djibouti airstrip where I had 
arrived with photographer Peter Power for a story about the sprawling 
U.S. base.

Airport officials told us we needed a letter of introduction from the 
information minister to work as journalists in the country. It was 
the weekend, so we would have to leave our passports at the airport 
until all was sorted. There are few possessions journalists hold 
sacred when on the road, but a passport is one of them.

A Canadian diplomat we reached couldn't help but cautioned we had 
better settle this quickly.

During the early afternoon as we waited for someone's boss to talk 
with someone's boss or some such excuse, the entire airport arrivals 
area suddenly cleared out. A small plane from either Kenya or 
Ethiopia landed and was quickly surrounded by dozens of cars that 
raced onto the tarmac out of nowhere.

Bulging burlap khat sacks were thrown into the cars, which left as 
quickly as they arrived. We would later see these cars delivering 
their cargo to shacks along the road.

Some of that delivery didn't go far. The airport officials emerged, 
eyes reddened, green flakes lodged in chapped lips and now amused by 
our concern and our rusty French.

Djibouti's afternoon khat paralysis had begun. We had no choice but 
to leave and retrieve our passports the next day.

This daily lull, whether it is in Djibouti, Somalia or Yemen, is what 
some anti-khat activists cite as a harmful consequence of its use. 
The Yemeni blogger Hind Aleryani, who lives in Lebanon, is at the 
forefront of a campaign to ban khat's use in Yemen's government and 
public buildings.

I first chewed khat in Sanaa, Yemen's capital, in 2009 at the home of 
Abdulrahman al Hila, the brother of a high-profile Guantanamo 
detainee. We drank sugary tea and water, lounging on cushions and 
chewing the high-priced khat, which they had bought especially for 
me. I had been told it would be an insult to refuse.

For a rookie, chewing is not a pleasant experience. The leaves taste 
bitter and are hard to press into your cheek. Users say khat is an 
acquired taste and the impact increases with use. The few times I 
have chewed since has produced minimal effect - mental alertness, 
lack of appetite and a general good mood.

In February 2011, at the start of Yemen's street protests, I 
interviewed a government official during a chew. Later, still wide 
awake and transcribing the interview, I was impressed with our 
conversation - I seemed more engaged than normal for such a lengthy discussion.

But it was a lot of effort to get there - hours of chewing and 
enduring that dry, bitter taste.

In Maua this summer, I politely declined Mohammed's invitation to 
chew, despite the region's reputation for the world's finest khat.

"You will be excited. You will feel confidence. You will talk a lot," 
he told me.

Perhaps, but wouldn't a few shots of espresso be easier?

My attitude represents the cultural divide. It is hard to understand 
its appeal when not raised in a country where khat holds social, 
cultural and practical importance.

Khat use dates back centuries and is still used by nomads or 
pastoralists who need to stay awake and suppress their appetites 
during long journeys. Somali poets chewed. Ethiopian religious 
scholars used it to stay awake and study the Bible while Muslims used 
khat to help memorize the Qur'an.

Author Kevin Rushby waxed poetically of his khat chewing in his book 
Eating the Flowers of Paradise: One Man's Journey through Ethiopia and Yemen.

"I passed the hours listening to the gentle lubalub of the hookah and 
whispered conversations about dead poets and fine deeds . . . No 
rush, just a silky transition, scarcely noticed, and then the room 
casts loose its moorings. 'Capturing moments of eternity,' someone 
once called the subtle tinkering with time that (khat) effects."

If the khat trucks from Maua are arriving in Eastleigh, a Somali 
neighbourhood near Nairobi's downtown, then it is 2 p.m.

Once again, everything must move fast.

Trucks are quickly unloaded and the khat that will remain in Kenya is 
distributed.

Separate loads are taken down the street to a massive courtyard where 
the graders work, inspecting the khat. Another team comes in to 
package the goods into wooden crates for the night flights from 
Nairobi's international airport to London and Amsterdam (although the 
Netherlands banned khat in January, shipments are still reportedly 
exported to there).

Kenya's roads again become the enemy for khat runners. Daredevil 
driving skills can't help in Nairobi, where the drive from Eastleigh 
to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport can take anywhere from 45 
minutes to four hours depending on traffic and accidents.

The khat should arrive at Heathrow Airport by dawn, move through 
customs, and be ready for consumption in London's kebab shops or 
corner stores about 12 hours after it left Nairobi.

More than 3,000 tonnes of khat are imported into the United Kingdom 
each year, according to a 2011 report by the Home Office. The price 
for a bag on the street in London fluctuates but is rarely more than $10.

Following the money is not easy given so many workers and how much 
money passes through informal banking systems or via money transfers 
that are commonly used within the Somali diasporas.

But tracking the revenue has become the focus of counterterrorism 
agencies since the Shabab emerged in Somalia in late 2006 and reports 
followed that the group was benefiting from the khat trade.

In 2010, the UN Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea noted the 
Shabab "taxed" khat imports from Kenya into areas under their 
control. One of Nairobi's richest khat distributors, Ahmed Duale 
Gelle, known as Heef, owned a private Mogadishu airstrip commonly 
known as "Kilometre 50" or "K50," where much khat was imported. 
Although he told UN investigators that all the revenue from his trade 
went to Somalia's central bank, the UN group estimated that as much 
as $500,000 went to the Shabab in "taxes."

By the end of 2010, the Shabab had taken over the airport and 
expelled Heef and his militia and lost the khat revenue.

Matt Bryden, head of the monitoring group and author of the UN 
report, said in an interview that he could find "no significant 
correlation between Al Shabab and khat."

Ideologically, it doesn't make sense, Bryden notes, since the 
militant Islamic group deems khat use haram, forbidden, like sporting 
events, music or drinking alcohol.

"You're not going to have a committed ideologue importing khat.

"Al Shabab generally disapproves of khat use and has banned it in 
some cases," he said. "The revenues accruing from khat have been 
marginal compared to other sources."

Taxing goods moving through its territory is a common means of 
extortion for the Shabab and there are more lucrative imports they 
control, such as charcoal. This year's UN report states that as many 
as 10 million charcoal sacks were exported from southern Somalia in 
2011, generating revenues for the Shabab of more than $25 million.

Outside of the Horn of Africa, in the Somali diasporas where the 
Shabab has managed to generate support and lure Western recruits, 
there is also little proof of a connection.

"At the end of the day, we've found no evidence to link it to 
terrorism," says RCMP Inspector Dean Dickson, who is in charge of the 
Border Integrity Unit at the Toronto airport. .

"We've yet to determine that from a Canadian perspective."

The most recent headline-grabbing case was in Britain, following May 
1 raids. Reports stated that 500 officers spread across London, 
Coventry and Cardiff, raided homes and arrested seven on suspicion of 
financing the Shabab through the khat trade.

But details of a terrorism connection in the joint U.K.-U.S. case 
remain sketchy and the group was eventually charged with conspiracy 
over alleged "misdescription of parcels for export."

The case remains before the courts.

After 10:30 p.m. in Rexdale, in north Toronto, the Benadir Mall 
parking lot fills and men lean on their cars and lounge on plastic 
lawn chairs or curbside. It looks like a Somali tailgate party, but 
instead of football, hibachis and beer, there is khat.

The khat is good quality on this summer night, so it was likely 
picked 48 hours earlier in the Nyambene Hills.

A bag that cost a couple of dollars in Maua goes for $110 in Toronto.

No one says how this shipment got here, but the smugglers' route is 
well known. The khat is legally bought in London and then concealed 
in duffle bags, suitcases or, as one recent case revealed, in a bulky 
body pack that a smuggler wore during the seven-hour flight from 
Heathrow to Toronto's Pearson Airport.

Some fresh khat arrives in cargo, often concealed in false bottoms of 
flower shipments or other perishable goods that need to move quickly. 
Some comes from Ethiopia, but it is usually dried, which only 
produces minimal effect.

Before reaching the Benadir Mall parking lot, the Kenyan khat had to 
get past Canada Border Service Agency chief Jerry Jesso's team.

"We're actually looking at goods and people as soon as the wheels go 
up on the plane or the boat leaves the shore," says Jesso.

But aside from obvious tips such as flagging passengers who paid cash 
for their flight from London, profiling a khat smuggler is nearly 
impossible. They vary in age and ethnicity, from frequent flyers to 
first-timers, young female British students to senior members of 
Somalia's community.

Consider Tina Maria DeSousa, who was arrested Dec. 28, 2009, and 
whose case was the one that reached the Ontario Court of Appeal. She 
is Canadian, was 28 at the time of her arrest, in college and 
financially supported by her mother. She had no criminal record.

Abdi Nasir Ahmed said he didn't have a criminal record either when he 
was stopped in July 2011 with four duffle bags of khat.

"I was bringing it for my cousin's wedding," the 30-year-old said as 
he stands with friends in the parking lot. His case is still before the courts.

The Benadir Mall gatherings are a little later these days due to 
Ramadan. People don't come until the sun has set and the daily fast is broken.

As many as a 100 chew some nights and the crowd includes students, 
accountants, cab drivers, the rich and the unemployed, ranging in age 
from early 20s to late 60s. All are male.

Police cruisers sometimes roll through but rarely stop. Policing khat 
falls to the CBSA, who seizes shipments at the airport and the RCMP, 
who investigate and lay charges. Arrests by local police for 
consumers are unusual.

Dealers aren't often caught since it's the smugglers who get nabbed first.

Toronto used to have a rich khat kingpin, known on the street as Omar 
"Buur" (Omar Fat), but he died of natural causes in Dubai earlier 
this year and the trade is reportedly now spread out among various 
small-time dealers.

It is a competitive business and it is not uncommon for a dealer to 
call police anonymously to alert authorities about a rival's shipment 
to drive up his own price or for bragging rights.

These stories are shared along with the khat in the mall parking lot. 
There is no better place to debate khat and the diversity of the 
views is surprising.

"Talk to me," says 30-year-old Ali. "I think (khat is) a terrible 
thing and I chew."

While his friends laugh and jostle him, he lays out his case: "It 
wastes a lot of time. Because I don't drink, I do this after work but 
I wish I didn't.

"I don't think it's physically addictive but socially it is. I want 
to be part of the buzz."

Ali says he is glad it is illegal because it cuts down on widespread 
use, making it too expensive for many to afford. He doesn't want a 
younger generation to share his habit.

Others vehemently disagree and call him a hypocrite, saying the price 
is only high because it is illegal.

"I just don't understand why it's legal in the U.K. and not here," 
says a 34-year-old accountant, who doesn't want his name used.

He has been lobbying the Canadian government, arguing the leaves are 
less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. "Everything can be abused," he argues.

He attaches a World Health Organization report recommending against 
khat's international control to his correspondence with Ottawa.

He later emails me the government's response to one of his letters: 
"While the (WHO) report does not recommend scheduling khat under one 
of the United Nations drug conventions, Canada is not bound by these 
recommendations," Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq wrote him in 2010.

"It was a way to criminalize the East African community," he says. 
"We're the only ones who use it."

But, considering it was members of the Somali community who pushed to 
make khat illegal 15 years ago, others disagree.

An opinion piece in the Toronto Star that ran in January 1996 began: 
"A substance called 'khat,' which does not differ much from cocaine 
or heroin in its social consequences, recently has been introduced 
into Canada and distributed freely in the marketplace."

The author, Hassan Hirave, who worked as a translator for the 
Children's Aid Society and Toronto's police, wrote about a visit to a 
home where child abuse was suspected and where he found horrendous 
living conditions and malnourished children. In the fridge, police 
found two garbage bags of khat.

It was an extreme example of khat-dealing parents. But some Somali 
community activists say khat's social impact cannot be overlooked, 
such as the time fathers spend away from home, or the next-day fatigue at work.

As the clock gets closer to midnight, the Toronto chewers continue 
this debate, grinding the high-priced khat.

Halfway around the world, in the Nyambene Hills, Patrick Mugambi and 
the birds are waking to start all over again.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom