Living
in a Gangsta's Paradise"Violence! Violence! Violence!" the instant those three words left the Dictator's collagen-enhanced lips, they became synonymous with all things that stood for Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom. Violence is all he knows. And he does not hesitate to make use of violence to further his soul 'raison d'etre" in this world i.e. to cling on to his Dictatorship.
When Dictator Gayyoom assumed power in 1978, Male' was a serene and calm island society. Young men and women walked alone on the streets of Male' even in the middle of the night without facing any harassment. People never shut their doors until late in the evening, welcoming all those who walked in. The only murder in the Maldives that people knew of was an incident that took place earlier in Kaashidhoo. The only drugs related stories were about a couple of old men taking "afihun" (opium). Alcohol was something that was only served in the newly established tourist resorts – apart from perhaps an occasional arrest of a certain group of foreign teachers getting drunk in their private time. Elders were respected, people stopped walking when they heard the Azan (call for prayers), and children were treated as children. "Sifain" (security services and the police) were a well-respected and esteemed force. On the whole, the Maldives was a nation with a proud culture and Male' was an island at peace.
Fast-forward thirty years. People are petrified to venture out onto the street in broad daylight for fear of being knifed and mugged. Householders have to install iron bars on their windows and doors to protect their homes. Shattered glass and other "souvenirs" of gang violence lay on the streets of Male' every night. Young girls are gang-raped and the horrific deeds recorded on mobile phones and distributed via the internet. Drugs and substance abuse have affected more than half the youth population. Local gangs of sword wielding youth terrorize whole neighborhoods. Not a single family in Male' has escaped any of this. Yes, the Dictator and his cronies exhaust all their powers and law enforcement personnel to harass and intimidate his political opponents, rather than control and solve this uncontrollable menace in the country. It is a well-known fact that Gayyoom's cronies are directly involved in drug dealing. Hence many of these dealers remain above the law. In fact, drug bosses and gangsters who are used in distributing the substances also play an active role in creating mayhem in the society by acting as the private militia of Dictator Gayyoom. In previous incidents, these thugs and their attacks were almost always connected to a member of Gayyoom's own family. His brothers, nephews, sons, and his in-laws are all part of a criminal fraternity in orchestrating gang violence and terror attempts in the capital Male'. His brother-in-law, Abbas Ibrahim, is not known as Abbas, the Pyromaniac, for nothing after all.
The question is how could a police force who have terrorized those who support democratic reform, brutally arresting reformists, men, women and even children, sometimes in the middle of the night, fail to control this gang-culture and escalating violence in Male'? The answer is fairly straightforward. Call it by any name – it is because Dictator Gayyoom is the Boss, the Don, the Master and Lord of these gangs. Using the likes of misguided youth such as the notorious Chikaa, the Dictator takes particular pleasure in meting out punishment to his opponents. He has sent gangs to disrupt the peaceful protests by the opposition, to try and incite violence. He was behind the attempted murder of Hamdaan Zaki, the son of the MDP Vice-President Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, which left the young man with a permanent nine-inch scar. Sources close to the Dictator say that he personally directed those who went to smash up the property of the former Attorney-General Dr. Hassan Saeed when he resigned from the government. Or take the more recent case of the vandalising of the ADK Hospital. The day that the Dictator felt that the Constitutional Assembly may go along with the proposal of the MP for Dhaalu Atoll, Nashid (ADK), which would in effect means a parliamentary committee would oversee the functions of the government for six months at the end of his current Presidential term, he decided to teach the owner of ADK a lesson. What happened next is not any different to Mugabe sending his gangs of youth into areas where the Zimbabwean people support the opposition. It was total carnage.
As such, not only is there a clear lack of will to clean up Male' so as to speak, but there is a deliberate policy of encouraging these gangs to continue their violent activities. So what if they have a few fights on their own and a few youngsters break some bones? So what if some of them end up on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit never to regain consciousness? So what if some of them are murdered such as the recent killing of the 23 year old Ali Ishar, whose young life was cut short so brutally? These young people are just collateral damage in the Dictator's grand plan of things and can be dismissed with the wink of an eye. They are the proverbial sacrificial lambs whose lives are to be forfeited so that Gayyoom can stay in power.
Now he is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Under the pretext of controlling gang violence, he has now deployed the army (MNDF) on to the streets of Male. This is nothing but martial law through the backdoor. It serves him well. He could easily control the activities of his opponents, harass them, and prevent people from peaceful assembly by using the army, all under the guise of putting an end to gang violence. While any sort of end to the gang violence is heartening, one cannot let it cloud the real reasons why he has let these gangs roam around Male' terrorizing its population in the first place. The deployment of the MNDF, respected by the people in general unlike the disgraced police force, is now the latest "tool" for the Dictator to help stay in power. The MNDF is one of the few institutions that have so far remained outside the political game of the Dictator. Now he has drawn them into it.
All in all, the escalating violence and murder on the streets of Male' is nothing but state sponsored terrorism. Indeed, Gayyoom's control over the violence would make a Mafia Don look like a baby. What's more, as far as the Dictator is concerned he is always right. As Mickey Cohen, the Hollywood gangster of the fifties claimed, "I never killed a guy who didn't deserve it". Fortunately for the rest of the Maldives, the clock has started ticking and the demise of Dictator Gayyoom is drawing closer. What the Dictator fails to realise is that violence begets violence. One day, soon, it may not be Luca Brasi who sleeps with the fishes. It maybe Don Gayyoom himself!
