Trouble in paradise

The Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean is an idyllic holiday destination, especially popular among those in Pakistan rich enough to afford a holiday there. It is a Muslim country, green passports are welcome with visa granted on arrival for 30 days. Clean beaches, sparkling clear seas and discreetly luxurious hotels and guest houses add up to the most welcoming of environments, but there is trouble in this idyll that may feed through into the leisure industry. President Abdulla Yameen has declared a state of emergency, citing threats to the safety of the citizenry and national security — just the latest in an increasingly worrying political instability and an advancing extremism that is giving rise to concerns about the entry of Islamic State (IS) into national politics. Security forces have been given wide-ranging powers of arrests and a planned opposition party protest in the capital Male may not be permitted.

With the vice-president in jail on charges of high treason and attempting to assassinate the president by means of a bomb on a boat he was on, the political future is dark indeed. Street protests are inevitably going to impact the tourist industry which is the country’s principal employer and source of revenue. More than a million tourists visit every year, with the tourism industry being the main source of foreign exchange. The Maldives is reportedly a focus for jihadi recruitment to the many conflicts in the Maghrib and the Levant, and the ability of IS to exploit unstable or weak governments is evident everywhere. This country of 1,192 small coral islands and a population of 340,000 may not seem the most likely place to look for the footprints of IS. On the contrary, it is exactly the kind of political environment in which IS thrives. The fact that there are fighters recruited in the Maldives to the jihadi cause who return to their homeland experienced and battle hardened has to be a cause for concern, and there is little indication that the political crises are capable of early resolution. Trouble in paradise may be contagious.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.

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