The Other Side of Paradise

The following is an excerpt of my latest article on the Maldives, (“Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands”) which appears in Terrorism Monitor.

Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed admitted in October, 2009 that hundreds of Maldivian Muslims had been recruited by Pakistan-based terrorist groups and are presently fighting against government forces in Pakistan. The revelation by Nasheed was substantiated by video footage circulated by al-Qaeda’s media wing in November 2009, which not only proved Maldivians’ participation in the global jihad movement, but also demonstrated the impact of radical Islam on the psyche of Maldivian youth. Ali Jaleel (a.k.a. Musab Sayyid), a Maldivian national who had been fighting alongside pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan, was featured in that video.  Ali Jaleel died during the suicide attack on the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Lahore on May 27, 2009. 

Soon after, another video aimed at jihadi recruitment featured a previously unknown al-Qaeda cell operating in the Maldives. The short video flashed the message, “Your brothers in the Maldives are calling you.” This brief internet footage was perhaps a declaration of sorts for the establishment of the first al-Qaeda cell in the Maldives. The image in the video shows three men sitting together on a beach while another man is standing in the foreground near a coconut tree. Later it was confirmed that the video teaser was posted by the media wing of the lesser-known Ansar al-Mujahideen.

In an earlier incident, Maldivian national Ibrahim Fauzee was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, in May 2002 while living in a suspected al-Qaeda safe house. Fauzee, an Islamic cleric, was held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp until his release and repatriation to the Maldives in March 2005. These and other incidents have sparked concerns about the spread of radical Islam in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

A Paradise for Radicalism
The Maldives, a Sunni Muslim majority island nation, is sometimes described as a paradise for Islamic radicalism. The country witnessed a terrorist strike for the first time in September, 2007, when a bomb explosion in the capital Male wounded 12 foreigners, including British, Japanese and Chinese tourists (The Guardian, September 30, 2007). The blast in Sultan Park was targeted at the thriving tourism industry, which is by and large the economic lifeline of the Maldives. Despite the economic benefits, many radical Islamic groups active in the Maldives have denounced tourism’s influence on the local Islamic culture.

For complete report, “Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands”, Terrorism Monitor, Volume: 8 (6), February 12, 2010. Read Here.

Posted by Animesh Roul on February 13, 2010. Respond »

Maldivians in 26/11: The power of ‘security’?

Earlier this week, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives stated in an interview:

Any terrorist attack through the underbelly of India, that is peninsular India, would have to go through Maldivian waters. We will be the first to see what is happening. For example, if we had this equipment, we would have been much more vigilant about what was going to happen in the Mumbai [ Images ] attacks…that is why it is essential to safeguard Maldives’ territorial waters and defend our coastline.

Well, we have information from the families of terrorists who are still in the Maldives about this.

This is, in and of itself, interesting. For one, President Nasheed is identifying the Maldives as a potential terror entrepot to India. Second, he says Maldivians are being recruited into Al Qaeda. Third, by stating that “the identity of all the dead terrorists in the Mumbai attacks has not been broken down into nationalities,” he is pointing to what we don’t know for sure and then adding, “I feel there is a Maldivian connection…” Not the “We know” of security establishments worldwide, but “I feel.”

Presidents don’t draw attention to their countries as places from which terrorists originate; not on the basis of “feeling.” So does he know something that others are overlooking?

Or, is this a “calling attention” motion of some sort? Maldives has been an active campaigner against global warming, but President Nasheed has taken the campaign to a different level by talking about purchasing land for displaced Maldivians and holding underwater cabinet meetings. There is a penchant for the dramatic in these actions that offsets the Maldives’ disadvantages of size and remoteness. Seen in that context, a teaser like this, strategically slipped into an interview with a popular news portal, must be intended to place the Maldives on South Asia’s security agenda.

But there is a broader point here, and one that all of us recognise intuitively. It is, as Ole Waever once wrote, that security is a ‘speech act.’ When you draw anything into the realm of security, it gets the attention it should get anyway. It ratchets up its importance instantly. As scholars, we sceptically debate whether this is what the non-traditional security research agenda is about, at bottom. As activists, we know well that it partly explains the genesis of “human security” reports; they are a way to underscore the urgency of public health, displacement, gender inequity and other humanitarian crises.

What does it mean however, when the President of a country like the Maldives states that its citizens might well be foot-soldiers in one of the world’s most complex security problems? If there are Maldivians involved in South Asia’s many terror attacks, then the Maldives will attract welcome and unwelcome attention. Some positive investment and foreign assistance will flow in, no doubt, but also a great deal more scrutiny and pressure than a small state and fledgling democracy can probably bear. And if it is all based on a “feeling”? What is the cost-benefit analysis of a statement of that? That’s something for all of us, especially for this intelligent President and his advisors to think about.

Posted by Swarna Rajagopalan on October 28, 2009. Respond »

The Maldives: “Wet” Side of Life

The Maldives, the Island nation in the Indian Ocean, known to the world as islands with abundant ‘Sun, Sand and Sea.’ However there is more to the Maldives than just 3 ‘S’. The fear of being submerged due to rise in sea level in future brings the whole country together these days since the present President Mohamed Nasheed made an announcement for new homeland for Maldivians late last year (Nov 2008). The country is planning to purchase lands in India, Sri Lanka, and in the distant Australia, due to the high possibility of inundation in the coming years.

Nasheed said it in clear terms:

We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome. We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.(The Guardian (UK), Nov 10, 2008)

And for this reason, to send a strong message softly to the world community, especially to the so called affluent countries ahead of the December 2009 Climate meeting in Copenhagen, the political elites of Maldives have made a big point this Saturday by convening a ‘submerged’ cabinet meeting under the sea, just to highlight the looming threat of global warming and climate change.

The fear is not at all unfounded and going under water is not a tourism publicity stunt either. Some parts of Maldives are just 1.5 meters above water. And a small rise of the sea level could make things worse for Maldives.

Stefan Rahmstorf, an expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, expects a 1-meter rise in this century and up to 5 meters over the next 300 years. He observes that sea level continues to rise faster than expected with no sign of slowing down. Research presented in March this year at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen shows that the upper range of sea level rise by 2100 could be in the range of about one meter, or possibly more. The UN has also forecasted that the ocean will rise by up to 2 feet by 2100.

This fear is not for Maldives alone. Global cities like Shanghai, London, Miami, New York, Mumbai, Cairo, Amsterdam and Tokyo, all threatened by rising sea levels.

All eyes are now on the forthcoming October 24th global day of action when the whole country will hold underwater political demonstration.

Read what is at stake:

“Maldives makes history in holding first under-sea cabinet meeting”, Miadhu News, Sunday, October 18th, 2009.

“Climate change requires a real movement”, Minivan News, Sept 22, 2009.

Read a nice and balanced scientific analysis on the sea level rise here: Stefan Rahmstorf and Martin Vermeer, “Ups and downs of sea level projections” (Aug 31, 2009).

Posted by Animesh Roul on October 19, 2009. Respond »

No One Is an Island: India and the Maldives

On August 20, 2009, India’s Defence Minister, AK Antony visited the Maldives. The visit was preceded by press reports that India would sign an agreement to draw Maldives into India’s “security grid.” This report was carried in sources across India, Pakistan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Commentaries appeared across the media and the Internet:

Maryam Omidi, Military pact provokes stir, Minivan News, August 16, 2009.
Ibrahim Mohamed, DRP advises caution on Indian media claims, Minivan News, August 17, 2009.
Simon Shareef, On joining India’s security grid, Open Salon, August 25, 2009.

It’s another matter that India’s ‘security grid’ might have been a journalistic fiction to begin with. By the time the Indian minister reached the atoll-nation, denials and clarifications were spilling forth.

What was set up during Antony’s visit was a programme of naval and coastal security cooperation which includes both technology and equipment transfers to the Maldives. The transfers extend the Indian navy’s reach beyond its territorial waters.

President Nasheed meets with Indian defence minister, Dhivehi Observer, August 20, 2009.
Times News Network, Antony to give Maldives shield against terror? Times of India, August 20, 2009.
India gives Maldives defence help, BBC News, August 21, 2009.
Maldives can always count on India as a well-meaning friend, says Antony, Dhivehi Observer, August 23, 2009.

Reflections on a changing India-Maldives relationship inevitably accompanied these reports and the visit.

Ahmed Shaheed, Building a Framework for India-Maldives Security Co-operation: An Oceanic Agenda for the Future, Open Society Association, August 22, 2009.
Gamini Weerakoon, Is India eyeing base in the Maldives? The Sunday Leader, August 30, 2009.
Siddharth Srivastava, India drops anchor in the Maldives, Asia Times, September 2, 2009.

***
India looms large in South Asia and it is not difficult to think of reasons why its neighbours feel bound to pay it attention.

Maldives-India defence cooperation have an important history and its closest moment was probably India’s intervention during the attempted coup in 1988. This naval intervention was critical to the survival of the Maldives’ regime then. In subsequent years, India continued to provide defence support to the Maldives but it had the effect of reinforcing the increasingly unpopular and repressive Gayoom regime. Indian support became a sore point with the growing movement for democracy even as the Indian establishment and intelligentsia chose not to notice the ferment across the waters. The regime change and the establishment of a democratic government seem to have effaced some of the bitterness of that moment.

Why do the Maldives matter to India, apart from good neighbourly concern?

The answer lies in the geography of the Maldives. The Indian Ocean is vital to India’s security, given its long coastline and its central location in this area. The Indian state is wary of all and any “outside” influence here, its long opposition to the Diego Garcia base so sustained as to become ritual. Reports of growing Chinese influence and a friendship with Pakistan are bound to interest India.

More important, I would argue, is the structure of the Maldives. Distance from Male to the outlying atolls is great and covers large stretches of open sea, making it hard to monitor movement in these areas. The Sri Lankan Tamil militant group, People’s Liberation Organization for Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), attempted to settle in this area to build themselves a safe haven. This is the group that volunteered their services to stage the 1988 coup. This need not be the last such instance. Following 26/11, coastal defence has become an even greater priority for India and this extends to assuring that its maritime neighbourhood is a friendly and secure one.

There is potential for cooperation between India and the Maldives in other spheres, and indeed these spheres are salient across the region: climate change, democracy and development.

For the Maldives, the most important survival (ergo, security) issue is climate change. Rising sea levels threaten to engulf and consume the low-lying coral reef islands that make up this nation-state. To ex-President Gayoom’s credit, the Maldives took on a pro-active role on the world stage to raise awareness about this issue. It has been an active participant and advocate in several global fora, including the Small Island Developing States Network. In November 2008, one of the first announcements made by the newly elected President Mohammed Nasheed was that his country would create a fund to buy land for an alternative home for the time when his people would become environmental refugees.

Nicholas Schmidle, Wanted: A New Home for My Country, New York Times, May 8 2009.
Jeremy Hance, Maldives president tells world: ‘please, don’t be stupid’ on climate change, mongabay.com, September 1, 2009

India, with its long coastline which is home to several major cities and large densely populated deltaic regions, should pay attention. Acting decisively on climate change and not getting sidetracked by a politics of blame may be one of the most important signs of genuine friendship that India can show to its Indian Ocean neighbours. India should also take a cue from President Nasheed’s concern about housing Maldivians in the wake of environmental disaster and consider rescue plans for its own island territories in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Unlike the high politics/national security concerns of the Foreign Policy debate blogged earlier, global warming is really a survival issue for communities that are already very vulnerable and for the states whose jurisdiction includes them.

Can India also help the Maldives with its resettlement plans? That is also something for Indian civil society and policy-makers to think about.

To briefly refer to the other two spheres mentioned above: India should lend support to democratic consolidation in the Maldives. Indian civil society organizations focused on democracy and governance issues do not really think beyond their borders for the most part, however, and ignorance about the Maldives is quite common, unfortunately. A change in both of these orientations could cement the India-Maldives relationship further. While the government of India does provide development assistance, civil society should pay attention to initiatives like that of the Maldives High Commission in the UK to set up an International Volunteers Programme to recruit teachers and health workers. India does not have a Peace Corps-like organization but it is time for civil society and possibly academic institutions to think about encouraging voluntary work across the region. Indians do work in the Maldives as employees in these and in the tourism sector, but in this particular Indian moment, it should be possible to find people to take time off to volunteer their time and services.

Defence and traditional security are only one dimension of an inter-state relationship, after all. It’s time to invest in the others as well.

Posted by Swarna Rajagopalan on September 9, 2009. Respond »