SAARC summits and the high level meetings leading up to them are long-drawn out affairs. Three consecutive two-day meetings of the heads of SAARC divisions in the foreign ministries, of the foreign secretaries, and of the foreign ministers of the seven countries, precede the three-day summit itself, during which the leaders take the middle day off for a "retreat". However, no one was complaining at the ninth summit held in the Maldives 6-14 May. All the delegates were put up on one of the coral island resorts near the capital island of Male, in villas fronting white sand beaches and turquoise lagoons.
Transportation was by speed-boat, between Hulele´s atoll runway, Kurumba island resort, where the leaders stayed, Bandos where the officials were put up and where the pre-summit conferences were held, and Male, for the inaugural and closing sessions of the summit. The retreat was to be held on a fifth island, at Full Moon Beach Resort, but rain and choppy seas kept the leaders confined to Kurumba.
Not such a bad place to be confined in. In a dramatic demonstration of the importance attached to tourism in the Maldives, the king, presidents and prime ministers attending the summit had to share the facilities at Kurumba with sunbathing tourists and scuba-divers. There was something surreal about the phalanxes of leaders and their entourages charging around the coral walkways for their one-on-one bilateral (seven times six are a lot) meetings. "You have to be careful not to get run over by a head of state here," said a snorkeller with fins and mask stepping niftily aside on his way back to his cabana.
It was about as far away as one could get from South Asia without actually leaving it, and a useful reminder of the advantages of globalisation beckoning the region. One wondered, though, whether the more usual South Asian mix of status consciousness and protocol would have made this possible anywhere else. Not that security was neglected. But it was unobtrusive, and made easier by the archipelagic nature of the country.