Author: JJ Robinson

‘Survival is not negotiable’: youth climate ambassador

The youth climate ambassador to the Maldives is not happy with the Copenhagen accord.

“World leaders should be role models and should have worked harder to reach a legally binding accord,” says 15 year-old Mohamed Axam Maumoon, who returned to the Maldives last week after meeting world leaders at the COP 15, including Danish Prime Minister Lars Loeke Rasmussen.

“I stressed the point about finance,” Axam recalls. “Money should not be considered an important factor when talking about survival, because survival is not negotiable; everyone has a right to live.”

Selected from the international ranks of the youth climate ambassadors, Axam was given the opportunity to ascend the podium and present the Maldives’ case to the world during the early days of the COP15 last week.

“I had given speeches before and I was trying to feel same way as before so I’d be comfortable, blocking out the media and looking at people directly,” he says. “Afterwards, I was thrilled when everyone stood up to clap, and I handed our declaration to the Danish Prime Minister.”

“I hope I moved people in some way by what I had to say about the sad state of the Maldives,” he says. “When people hear these things from children it makes a big difference because it is more emotional – I don’t believe I spoke to enough people.”

Children, he argued at the summit, have “not been considered” in the climate change debate.

“Youth were mentioned once in Kyoto,” he says. “I said: ‘How old are you going to be in 2050? You might not still be here, but it’s your children who are going to suffer because of your actions now.'”

World leaders were unwilling to take political risks regarding the environment, Axam speculates, because the populations they represented were not yet aware enough of the issues at stake.

“Like a CEO accountable to shareholders, a democratically-elected politician has to care what people think of them. But taking risks isn’t fashionable, and people don’t like to sacrifice for the greater good.”

If politicians were accountable to their populace, then one solution was to “create awareness in citizens.”

“When I was interviewing people [in the Maldives] 90% didn’t know what carbon neutrality means,” he says.

“The Maldives has pledged to become carbon neutral in the next 10 years – people need to understand what it means when their energy switches over to wind power.”

As a small nation of only 360,000 people, the Maldives is ideally placed to become “a showcase country” for the rest of the world, Axam argues.

“We can effectively work together in a way we couldn’t if we were four million,” he says.

The youth climate ambassadors can help keep up the momentum, he proposed, by setting up “a chain” of ambassadors across the islands and atolls who could increase people’s awareness of environmental issues and interest in the natural world.

As for his own plans, Axam says he is now reviewing his original plan to become a pilot.

“I was studying physics and science and all of that, but since the issue of climate change has popped into my life I’ve started studying biology and now it’s my favourite subject of all.”

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Copenhagen a victory for the Maldives, says President

The Maldives will benefit from short-term funding for island and developing nations pledged at the The UN’s Climate Change Forum in Copenhagen, President Mohamed Nasheed told a press conference on his return home, even if the accord itself was not as comprehensive as hoped.

Ten per cent of the $30 billion in short-term funding would go towards helping small island nations adapt, he said.

“The talks were a success for the Maldives as funds were pledged for adaptation. We will get the money we need,” Nasheed said, adding that the challenge now was to improve the country’s capacity to undertake such large projects.

“I can say now with confidence that we will provide water, sanitation, electricity and build harbours in all islands. The only question is when can we do it? That depends on how fast we can work,” he said. “God willing, we will not face difficulties with money now.”

In addition, the Maldives’ high profile on the world stage now meant it can go straight to important world leaders, Nasheed said.

“A lot of people were depending on us, so I think if we need something and ask for it, now it will be easier to get it done.”

Nasheed drew praise from many world leaders, including Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, for his sustained negotiations with stubborn countries. Such mediation was necessary, Nasheed explained, due to a “deep mistrust” between developing and developed countries.

Six countries, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Tuvalu opposed the accord.

Nasheed said he talked with the Tuvalu prime minister and the Cuban negotiator and convinced them to sign. “I pleaded with the Nicaraguan president. The Saudis stepped aside when the Americans asked them to…the Venezuelan official refused to speak to me. Just refused to speak at all.”

Others were friendlier. Nasheed was given a lift back to the conference centre by Rudd after a BBC debate, chatted with UK billionaire Richard Branson, and even had to cancel a meeting with former US presidential candidate and environmental advocate Al Gore due to a double-booking. “The World Bank president (Robert Zoellick) called constantly up to the last minute,” Nasheed added.

The cost of the trip was covered by other countries, while the ongoing publicity benefits would be considerable, he added.

“We spend US$1 million on tourism promotion. Even if we had spent billions I’m certain we wouldn’t have got the same degree of coverage as we have over the past two or three weeks across the world on newspapers and TV.”

The accord itself “was a good beginning”, and a far better outcome than failure, he noted.

“If we had been unable to get this, everything would have failed. We were working in an environment of fear that could have caused serious conflicts among nations,” he said. “If no accord had been reached, the status of the UN would have been in jeopardy while some European leaders would have been unable to go back to their people.”

Nasheed said he viewed the final accord as a framework with “many promising features that could become legally binding.”

“A decision will be made on lowering the limit from 2 degrees to 1.5 degrees celsius based on the advice and counsel of the Inter-government Panel on Climate Change in 2015,” he explained.

“The science says the world really has seven years to make a decision. If something is not done in seven years, climate change will go beyond our control or reach a tipping point.”

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Government budgets Rf119m for civil servant redundancies

The positions of 5400 civil servants could be cut in the new year after parliament’s budget review committee revealed that Rf119 million has been earmarked for redundancy packages.

Furthermore, a letter from the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to the speaker of parliament tabled on 7 Dec disclosed that 228 staff have already been dismissed while 387 have been served notice, according to independent MP Mohamed Nasheed.

Abdul Muhsin, vice president of the CSC, said the government had yet to consult with the commission regarding the redundancies for which it had apparently budgeted.

“The moment we heard of this from the parliamentary committee we wrote to the Finance Ministry for more details,” he said. “If the government are making redundancies, they have to work with the independent commission.”

The government is legally obliged to dismiss civil servants through the commission, explained Nasheed, a safeguard to ensure an independent bureaucracy by reducing the government’s control over civil service employment by offering tenure and certainty of employment.

“Under the Civil Servant Act section 47(c) there are seven specific guidelines under which a civil service employee may be dismissed, and none of these grounds have anything to do with redundancy,” he said. “The government currently isn’t empowered to dismiss so many people in the name of downsizing. The concept of redundancy is new to the Maldives – it has never been envisioned in our country.

This meant, he said, that if the government was planning to restructure and streamline the civil service, “then it must be done through legislation, and not administration.”

“Maybe there are reasons to restructure,” he said. “But if I’m a civil servant and I’m to be dismissed, I want to at least have the basic certainty that it is because of the new rules and not because of my political beliefs or which party I’m in.”

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Tepid response to Copenhagen accord, but a win for the Maldives

The Danish Prime Minister has called Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed “the real hero of Copenhagen” following a marathon 30 hour negotiation session, however global response to the final accord is proving underwhelming.

Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen told a press conference that intense pressure from the Maldives reignited the debate when it threatened to stall. When talks broke down, Nasheed appealed to argumentative nations “to leave pride aside and adopt this accord for the sake of our grandchildren.”

The Maldivian president joined world leaders including Barack Obama (US), Gordon Brown (UK), Nicholas Sarkozy (France) and Angela Merkel (Germany) in drawing up the Copenhagen Accord, which was then adopted by more than 150 countries following fiery debate.

The accord recognises that global temperatures should rise no higher than two degrees Celcius above pre-industrial levels, but does not commit developed countries to legally-binding emission reduction targets.

The flavour of the talks revealed that sovergnity and development remain a higher priority than climate change for many large growing economies. China was particularly irritable on the subject: Prime Minister Wen Jiabao stormed out of the conference after disagreements with the US over international monitoring.

“This was our sovereignty and our national interest [at stake],” said the head of China’s delegation, Xie Zhenhua, before sending a low-ranking protocol officer to resume negotiations with Obama.

China’s revised agreement, which was backed by many large developing nations including Brazil and India, commits to a two degree limit but does not force cuts on any country.

Meanwhile Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping caused carnage when he stood up and described the final accord as “a solution based on the same very values that piled six million people into furnaces in Europe”.

The most tangible success was an agreement to deliver US$30 billion in short-term funding to developing countries over a three year period, in an effort to help them adapt to climate change and adopt clean energy technologies.

“Small island developing states” were highlighted in the agreement as potential beneficiaries of this money, which included US$10.6 billion pledged by the European Union, US$11 billion from Japan, and US$3.6 billion from the United States.

It appeared there would also be more to come: the accord promised the developing world an annual US$100 billion by 2020 to aid ‘clean’ development, drawn from public and private sources.

“The world stood at the abyss last night but this morning we took a step back,” President Nasheed said, following yesterday’s negotiations.

“The Copenhagen Accord is a long way from perfect. But it is a step in the right direction. We did our best to accommodate all parties, we tried to bridge the wide gulf between different countries, and in the end we were able to reach a compromise,” he said.

However the two degree temperature limit fell short of his expectations: “To save our country from climate change, we need an agreement that limits temperature rises to 1.5 degrees and reduces atmospheric carbon concentrations to 350 parts per million,” Nasheed said.

“While this accord does not deliver these targets there is room within the agreement to migrate toward 1.5 degrees and 350 parts per million, pending scientific assessments.”

Response

Media response to the accord was rather tepid, while some campaigners have called it “a disaster.”

In the UK, the Guardian described the final two page agreement as “vaguely worded, short on detail and not legally binding,” while the Times blasted it as “lukewarm” and “meaningless”.

Al Jazeera reported that the deal had left “only bitterness and anger at the deal done between the US and the world’s emerging economies”, while the Wall Street Journal observed that the final wording of the accord and a lack of formal approval “means countries are left with the choice of associating with the agreement or not.”

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‘Truth and Reconciliation’ Commission proposed for the Maldives

A South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been put forward as a means of mending political and social divides in the Maldives, following President Mohamed Nasheed’s radio address last week calling for the investigation of past injustices.

“I am saying this as a person who has seen these things very closely. Many people have died. Many people were killed. The lives of many were ruined. Many people’s lives were destroyed to the point where they had no future,” Nasheed said, calling on the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) to look to the past and become “a commission that properly works for human rights in this country.”

In an interview today with Minivan News, President of HRCM Ahmed Saleem said while he agreed “that while the violations of the past need to be looked into, I also think that right now the country is divided and facing problems of politics and religion. I’m very concerned – we’re a small country of 300,000 people and we can’t afford to have such divisions,” he said.

An investigation spanning the time of the former government risked “setting a precedent for a witch-hunt whenever there is a change of government.”

“Personally, I don’t think the president wants to dig into the past,” Saleem said. “But he is under a lot of pressure from others in his government who suffered greatly under the former regime. He is a politician and he is doing what he has to do.”

An alternative to HRCM’s involvement, he suggested, was to create a separate commission “to look into the past with the intention to unify, rather than punish.”

Such a commission would not undermine HRCM “because our mandate states that we must send matters to the courts, and we [rarely] investigate anything that occurred before 2000. We try to mediate and find solutions.”

In contrast, the new commission would “allow those who were abused to ask for forgiveness, and those who were abused to forgive,” he said.

“It would need the approval of the People’s Majlis and the major political parties; such a set up would need the power to convict, the power to forgive, and also a lot of money, because the process would have to last at least two years.”

While the South African TRC had the power to convict following the abolition of apartheid, in practice many perpetrators of human rights abuses were given civil and criminal amnesty in exchange in return for truthful testimony. The project was widely considered successful and a key component of South Africa’s transition to a free democracy.

A similar commission in the Maldives would have to be agreed upon by major parties and protected from becoming a political weapon, Saleem suggested, questioning the wisdom of limiting the mandate of such a commission to 30 years.

“We need a strong opposition to keep the government accountable,” he said. “It’s very important for the president, the government and the Majilis to unite the country, and the opposition [DRP] will not agree to any investigation of less than 30 years.”

This would place Ibrahim Nasir’s government within the mandate of the TRC, including his brutal 1962 suppression of the United Suvadive Republic and destruction of Havaru Thinadhoo.

“The mandate must be to learn from past mistakes so as to avoid them in the future, and in the process unite the country and strengthen democracy,” Saleem proposed. “Democracy alone will not unite the country.”

Departure from promise

Shortly after his election, President Mohamed Nasheed famously asked Maldivians “to follow my example and leave Gayoom to grow old here”, a reconcillatory statement many interpreted as a mark of the new president’s forward-looking approach to governing the country. In this sense, Nasheed’s request last week that HRCM to investigate the previous government’s alleged human rights abuses appeared to reflect a change of heart.

“What he said was that he was not going to go after Gayoom,” speculated Shahindha Ismail, of the Police Integrity Commission and former head of the Maldivian Detainee Network.

“If we were to get technical, it could mean he was not going to file a case against him individually,” she said, suggesting Nasheed’s comment was not a reference to institutions with a mandate to investigate human rights abuses like HRCM.

“Now, I think [Nasheed] is plainly not happy with HCRM and the way they’ve been working.”

Shahindha said while she is not sure “we should go back to the time of the kings and dig up all these graves again”, she believes a TRC “would at least acknowledge what people have been through and at give others a chance to take responsbilitity for what they have done – a kind of self-remedy.”

In her experience working for the Police Integrity Commission, Shahindha observed that “many people report an incident in a fit of passion, but when it comes time to carry out the investigation they withdraw their complaints.”

“If I was going to explain [the concept of a TRC] I would describe it as ‘putting it all on the table so you can get on with your life,'” she said, suggesting that simply the process of being listened to might be curative.

But gaining political consensus for the idea would be a challenge, she thought, particuarly since “the DRP will jump to conclusions that this is about undermining their time in government.”

That much proved accurate: when Minivan News raised the idea with Secretary General of the DRP Dr Mohamed Mausoom, he said he suspected the President would use the opportunity to continue “passing all the blame for failure to the former government.”

“There are better things the government should be doing. People elected the them to govern the country, and in a democracy [the MDP] should listen to the people and deliver. Give HRCM enough money to do their job,” he added.

However Shahindha speculated that a TRC “would also likely see senior MDP people appear on the table.”

“It doesn’t have to be a replica [of the South African TRC], but the general concept has been tried and proven. I do think it would be quite effective. However there is likely to be an initial negative reaction from the public. It was the same in South Africa, it took them a while to understand the concept.”

If former police commissioner Adam Zahir, “who is accused of more human rights violations than anyone else in the Maldives”, could sit in open cafes in Male, Shahindha said, “I’m very sure Gayoom could walk down the street without facing any problems. If people come out I don’t think there will be a lot of people running after them. Maldivians might not forgive and forget, but I do think they let go.”

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Coral spawning creates red sea in Addu

Spawning coral have turned patches of ocean pinkish red around Villingili island on Addu atoll, in photos released by the Shangri-La resort’s Eco Centre.

Manager of the Eco Centre Estelle Davies said the phenomenon was very interesting because the coral were spawning in December according to southern hemisphere patterns.

“The only documented coral spawning in the Maldives is during March and April, which I believe is synchronous with northern hemisphere timing,” Estelle explained. “So even though Addu is part of the Maldives, true to its position, it seems to be following the Southern Hemisphere spawning [patterns].”

Estelle said islanders in the area had described similarly coloured water in previous years, but had been unsure what it was.

“You should have heard some of the rumours – people thought it was red paint, or someone killing fish,” she said. “It certainly smelt of living animal, which of course is what coral is.”

Microscope analysis suggested the coral spawn was only one or two species, she said: “I was expecting far more – there’s over 200 species here. I suspect acropora, porites or montipora as the eggs were less than a mm in diameter.”

Coral was often mistaken for a plant when it was really an animal, Estelle explained, that reproduces both sexually and asexually.

“Some species are hermaphrodites and release an egg already fertilised ” she said.

Estelle said she hoped pilots flying through the area would report any red streaks they saw across the ocean.

“I think pilots are the most likely to see evidence of this happening,” she said.

Anyone who spots a similar occurance in the region can contact the Shangri-La’s Eco Centre at [email protected]

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Maldives ‘easiest country in which to pay tax’

The Maldives has been crowned ‘the easiest country in which to pay tax’ for the second year running by the World Bank’s Doing Business in 2010 report, ahead of Qatar and Hong Kong.

The report measures the regulatory environment of most of the world’s economies, scoring them on factors such as the ease of starting a business, obtain construction permits, get credit and enforce contracts.

Overall the Maldives was ranked 87th out of 183 countries in the survey, a fall of 16 places on last year largely attributable to the increased difficulty of starting a new business (37th to 49th in 2010) and employ workers (6th to 41st in 2010).

Gaining credit within the country, trading across borders and closing a business continued to be major impediments to private economic development, the report indicated.

“The regulatory environment for businesses can influence how well firms cope with the economic crisis and are able to seize opportunities when recovery begins,” the report said.

Where business regulation is transparent and efficient, it is easier for firms to reorient themselves and for new firms to start up. Efficient court and bankruptcy procedures help ensure that assets can be reallocated quickly. And strong property rights and investor protections can help establish the basis for trust when investors start investing again.”

The World Bank report also revealed that despite possessing a multi-billion dollar tourist industry, the economically-troubled Maldives has the world’s third-lowest total commercial tax rate of 9.1 per cent behind Timor-Leste and Vanuatu.

Two bills on taxation have passed committee stage and are to be put before parliament for a vote, including one on corporate taxation and another on administrative framework structures. Next year’s budget relies heavily on taxation, although the legislation has not yet been passed.

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Maldives welcomes home SAFF finalists

Thousands of Maldivians welcomed home the national football team last night, filling Republican Square to the brim following the team’s narrow defeat to India in the SAFF final held in Bangladesh.

Goal.com reported that despite the Maldivian team’s unlucky defeat, their prowess on the field has made them “the soccer power of South Asia” while “captain Ali Ashfag has been acclaimed as the best player in the region.”

The team were greeted at Male International Airport by officials from the airport and the Football Association, as well as vice president Dr Mohamed Waheed. The group travelled to Republican Square in a brightly coloured boat where they were led through the crowds of spectators to the back of a pick up truck. The team then toured the streets of Male, to the delight of cheering supporters, disembarking at Lonuziyaaraiykolhu to shake hands with assembled fans.

The muted celebrations after Sunday’s defeat in a 3:1 penalty shoot-out were forgotten as thousands thronged the streets, cheering and honking the horns of their motorcycles.

The victorious Indian team had less of a welcome, after their flight home to Mumbai was delayed by more than 12 hours. After two hours sleep at what a senior player described as “a third class hotel”, the team returned to the airport at 5am only to be told the flight would not depart until later that evening.

“We haven’t slept for the last two nights,” said Indian coach Sukhwinder Singh, when he finally arrived back in Mumbai.

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Journalists ask for government subsidies

The Maldives Journalist Association (MJA) has sent a letter to parliament asking for media subsidies to balance the “fragile” state of the country’s media.

The letter urged parliament to provide the subsidies “in a sensible way” to “vitalise” Maldivian journalism, in order for it to continue its “important role” of holding the government accountable.

Several newspapers have closed down while others have reduced staff numbers and salaries, it said, as a direct result of the government moving its advertisements to an in-house gazette.

“Moreover, MJA has been receiving complaints that there are many obstacles to practicing responsible journalism,” the letter read, adding that subsidies were necessary “to protect and preserve independent journalism in the country” and that failing to provide them “would have an adverse effect on this burgeoning democracy”.

President of the MJA and editor of the newspaper Haveeru, Ahmed ‘Hiriga’ Zahir, proposed that media outlets be given subsidies based on circulation, in a similar system to the way political parties are funded.

“A small community [like the Maldivian media] won’t survive unless we are given support,” he said, adding that this money would not compromise the media’s independence if it was allocated by the state rather than the government.

“We have 300,000 people [in the Maldives] and that’s not enough of a market for fully private enterprise,” he argued. On the other hand, “state TV should be privatised to ensure it has a commercial component. Until recently most of the time people relied on the 8pm news on TVM (Television Maldives) to get their information, and now so much of it is biased towards the current government.”

Hiriga said he was also concerned that fully privatising media ownership would consolidate control in the hands of a few wealthy individuals.

There are no provisions in the current budget for media subsidies, although this has yet to be passed by parliament which has stalled the process at committee level, citing various concerns and “confusions”.

Chairman of the budget review committee, MP Ahmed Nazim, told Minivan News last week that there were no subsidies for the Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) included in the budget.

“Can TVM [Television Maldives] and VoM [Voice of Maldives] finance their 2010 operations on their own? Surely not,” he said.

State Finance Minister Mohamed Assad said the government was “not closed to the idea of state-funded media”, but did favour corporatisation of the sector.

“The whole idea of corporatisation is to budget your own operation and not to rely on support,” he said, claiming this made the media less independent “as its income is hidden.”

He said he was concerned at the way parliament was interceding on the budget, and suggested that “we seem to be moving more to a parliamentary rather than presidential system of government.”

“We are proceeding with the budget and have not said otherwise,” he said, adding that there were contingency plans in place “because in the worst case scenario the government still has to operate. Parliament can’t bring the government to a standstill by not passing the budget.”

He dismissed the concerns of the review committee and said parts of the document were “highly technical and misunderstood, [for example] whatever is earned this year will [only] show up as next year’s income,” he said.

“I think Nazim just wanted a break, it was as simple as that.”

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