The thugs came just as the protest here in the capital was about to start. Nearly a dozen men on motorcycles drove into the crowd, forcing some people to jump to safety.
Later, the attackers sprayed gasoline on the marchers who had come out on a recent evening to demand that the former president be freed from prison. Nearby police officers did nothing because, according to independent analysts, diplomats and opposition politicians, the gang members — responsible for a growing number of murders and knife attacks — are in the pay of the Maldivian government.
Even Home Minister Umar Naseer said the growing role of criminal gangs in politics was deeply worrisome.
“I will not say conclusively that the government is involved,” said Mr. Naseer, who was expelled from the governing party after publicly linking it with gangs and drug lords. “But I think the government can take and must take action.”
The Maldives is a country of about 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean whose economy is chiefly dependent on tourism and whose faltering transition to democracy, begun in 2008, appears increasingly at risk. The United States, Canada, India, Britain, and a host of international governmental and human rights organizations have issued statements in recent weeks expressing concerns after what many see as the politically motivated imprisonment of the still-popular former president.
“The United States is extremely concerned about the recent events in the Maldives,” Michael Honigstein, political affairs section chief for the United States Embassy in Sri Lanka, which conducts diplomatic relations with the Maldives, said in a recent interview.
With about 310,000 residents, the Maldives would hardly seem like an international priority. But, for a time, the nation was an internationally recognized democratic success story, and diplomats here say its strategic position astride crucial shipping lanes keeps it high on diplomatic agendas.
Government officials say the growing alarm among foreign diplomats and analysts is overblown.
“This government admits freely that our institutions need to be strengthened, that the work of consolidating democracy is not done, but the only way to do that is to strengthen institutions, not tear them down,” wrote Jeffrey Salim Waheed, deputy permanent representative of the Maldives to the United Nations, in an emailed response to questions.
Five families control most of the country’s economy through ownership of high-end resorts, and the islands’ tiny group of elite is deeply intertwined through kinship networks that stretch back centuries. Political allegiances among these clans seem to shift as often as the tides, giving a soap opera quality to the nation’s politics.
The central character in this spectacle is the former president, Mohamed Nasheed, whose political activism and years in prison catalyzed a democracy movement that eventually allowed him in 2008 to defeat the longtime autocrat Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to become the Maldives’ first democratically elected president.
Mr. Nasheed became internationally famous in 2009 when he held an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the dangers of climate change and was celebrated in a popular documentary, “The Island President.” But his popularity at home suffered when he ordered the military to arrest a judge he accused of acting on behalf of Mr. Gayoom. Mr. Nasheed resigned amid the uproar his action caused.
Mr. Nasheed soon claimed his resignation was coerced and labeled the transfer of power to his vice president a coup, but foreign governments and much of the country’s populace — exhausted by a series of controversies during his administration — accepted the change. In 2013, he appeared poised for a possible comeback, but the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled to cancel results or delay voting in ways that favored Abdulla Yameen, half brother of Mr. Gayoom, who eventually won.
Mr. Nasheed might have faded into history if not for the prosecution of him on terrorism charges that concluded last month in a 13-year prison sentence. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, described the proceeding as “a rushed process that appears to contravene the Maldives’ own laws and practices and international fair trial standards in a number of respects.” Government officials said the terrorism charges were related to the judge’s detention.
Another widely criticized case, this one of Mohamed Nazim, the former defense minister, which led to an 11-year sentence on weapons charges later in the month, has convinced many in the Maldives that Mr. Yameen is behind the prosecutions.
“The president is going after each one of his popular rivals,” said Ahmed Mahloof, a member of Parliament who recently left the governing party in protest.
The man widely suspected of carrying out a campaign of intimidation against opponents of the government by using the courts and gangs is the tourism minister, Ahmed Adeeb. In an hourlong interview, he cheerfully agreed that he had been accused by many of vast corruption, violent reprisals and the murder of a journalist.
Mr. Adeeb, 32, denied all of the myriad accusations leveled at him, saying, for instance, that embezzlement charges stemmed from a misunderstanding.
“But they can never get me angry,” Mr. Adeeb said, chuckling, of his accusers. “Whatever they say, I will answer with a smile.”
He has led political rallies dominated by well-known criminal gangs during which he warned the opposition to cease its protests because “if these young men get angry, it would not be good.” He called the presence of gang members at his rallies part of his youth outreach.
He has also been accused of concocting charges against Mr. Nazim, the former defense minister, by Mr. Nazim’s lawyer. And after Auditor General Ibrahim Niyaz accused Mr. Adeeb of embezzling $6 million, Mr. Niyaz was fired.
“That the tourism minister controls all the gangs is an open secret,” said Eva Abdulla, an opposition member of Parliament. “And it’s not just the money he pays. It’s also that if they go in prison, the tourism minister with one phone call will get them out.”
Mr. Naseer, the government’s home minister, said of Mr. Adeeb, “I don’t endorse some of his actions.” A local newspaper reported that the president took control of the police away from Mr. Naseer after he instructed the police to investigate Mr. Adeeb.
But diplomats who watch the situation closely say Mr. Yameen and his top officials are becoming increasingly autocratic and unpredictable.
“The government’s game plan is to intimidate its opponents, send them to jail and tire them out,” said one top Indian official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Will that work? Will people become restive? Can they also do development? Things are precarious.”
Source: NYTimes