Category: Society & Culture

Comment: Law as an instrument of political power – CoNI and the coup, part two

This article originally appeared on DhivehiSitee. Republished with permission.

Using the law as an instrument of political power is not a new thing for governments, be they ‘established democracies’ or not.  A prime example is how the Bush administration (ab)used the United States Constitution to circumvent international law on acts of war, to justify Guantanamo Bay, torture, extraordinary rendition and to deny justice and human rights to suspected terrorists in the War on Terror.

The government of Dr Waheed – which, incidentally, is enjoying the full backing of the current US administration – too, has proven itself to be a dab hand at (ab)using the law as an instrument of political power. The CoNI Report, which found there was no coup, mutiny or duress involved in the transfer of power on 7 February 2012, is a case in point.

The first part of this series looked at how CoNI approached the investigation with a foregone conclusion: there was no coup. As discussed, CoNI then began a process of putting together all evidence that supported this conclusion while systematically excluding, or discarding as irrelevant, any evidence that refuted or cast doubt over the said predetermined conclusion.

CoNI approached laws relating to the transfer of power on 7 February in the same manner as it did the facts surrounding it. Laws were picked and chosen as applicable only if they supported CoNI’s foregone conclusion: the change of government was Constitutional. Any part of the Constitution or existing laws that could be applied to refute the said conclusion or challenge its validity were ignored, glossed-over, deliberately misquoted, or dismissed as mere ‘protocol’.

Take, for instance, the following statement:

With regard to the idea that there was a ‘coup d’état’, nothing in the Maldives changed in constitutional terms – indeed, the Constitution was precisely followed as prescribed.

Yes, the Constitution remains unchanged. But that does not automatically mean that the transfer of power ‘precisely followed’ the Constitution ‘as prescribed’. This is a conclusion that can only be deemed legal by abusing law and making a mockery of the principles of the rule of law.

CoNI’s use of the law as an instrument of political power is most blatantly evident in the sections of the Report dealing with (a) presidential succession and (b) resignation and succession. It discusses as relevant to this issue six Articles of the Constitution: 108, 100, 112 (b),  112(d), 121, and 123 (b). Each of them appears to have been selected precisely to prove a particular point, which when taken together, supports the CoNI conclusion that the transfer of power was constitutional.

Article 108 is deemed relevant in this section, for instance, solely to remind the people that sometime ago, in 2008, when they voted for Nasheed, they also voted for Waheed as his running mate. As noted by the Legal Review of the Report by a team of Sri Lankan lawyers, it is an inherently limited argument that

[…] purports to construe the change of power or justify the change of power in terms of what had transpired 3 years ago rather than what had transpired in the present.

Regardless, CoNI uses it to demonstrate that, by law, it matters little that they voted for him not as their leader but as the leader’s deputy. Only when considered separately from the fact that thousands of people now suspect the very same deputy of having caused their leader’s downfall—and when taken in isolation from the various other aspects discussed below—does Article 108 allow Waheed to become someone that can even remotely be regarded as an ‘elected’ president.

Article 100–which deals with the legal means of removing a President from office–is mentioned in the Report, but is not discussed as deserving of note. Given the predetermined conclusion of CoNI, that there was no duress involved in the President’s resignation, the Article of the Constitution is indeed irrelevant.

Articles 112 (b) and (d) deal with eventualities requiring the Vice President’s succession to office of the President.

Article 121(a), which deals with details of a President’s resignation letter, meanwhile, helps establish that because Nasheed wrote the letter in his handwriting, it must be valid and legal. Once President’s Nasheed’s claims that he wrote the letter under duress are dismissed as ‘baseless allegations’ (having excluded any evidence to the contrary), then Article 121 makes perfect sense.

The letter is in Nasheed’s handwriting (written under what circumstances matters not) and it was delivered to the leader of the Majlis (how and by whom did not matter). When looked at in this sort of fantastical isolation, Article 121 can, indeed, be interpreted as validating the document as legal.

Article 114, meanwhile, is cited almost in full:

An incoming President or Vice President shall assume office upon taking and subscribing, before the Chief Justice or his designate, at a sitting of the People’s Majlis, the relevant oath of office set out in Schedule 1 of this Constitution.

Interestingly, although cited in the CoNI Report as the law relevant to ‘resignation and succession’, the Report pays scant subsequent attention to it. In fact, much like the JSC’s dismissal of Article 285 of the Constitution as ‘symbolic’, the CoNI Report dismisses the stipulations of Article 114 as mere ‘protocol’.

The Presidential oath, as stated in the Constitution, requires the incoming President to say his own name in the oath. ‘I, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik…’ Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz Hussein, who administered the oath,  did not include Waheed’s name in its composition. Similar problems affected US President Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony in January 2009. The remedy then was for Obama to re-take the oath exactly as prescribed in the Constitution. The current Maldivian government, and the CoNI Report, in contrast, chose to ignore the glaring omission in Waheed’s oath, as if it mattered little.

At a stretch, this is a matter that can be dismissed as a breach of protocol.

But the same cannot be said for the requirement in Article 114 that the new President must take the oath of office at a sitting of the People’s Majlis.  President Waheed took the oath office at a ceremony held in the privacy of a room in the Majlis premises, with only his wife, the Chief Justice, Speaker Abdulla Shahid and a few administrative staff as audience and witnesses. This is not simply a bungled oath.

Neither is it, as the CoNI Report claims, a ‘possible non-compliance’ of ‘protocols which had been created for general office management.’

Precisely where the presidential oath is taken is not simply a matter of housekeeping, nor merely a matter of deciding on which venue is free or most conveniently accessible for the occasion. If the Constitution were to be ‘followed precisely as prescribed’, and if Waheed has been properly sworn in as the President of the Maldives, it would have been done at a sitting of the people’s Majlis.

Is Waheed a caretaker president?

Something starts to smell really rotten when it comes to issues surrounding this question. First, the Report glosses over the fact that the oath administered to Dr Waheed to enable his accession to the presidency was one meant for a caretaker president.

Take the fact, for example, that although it is Article 114 that CoNI cites in reference to Dr Waheed’s oath, in reality the oath administered to Waheed is the one stipulated in Article 126:

Any person temporarily discharging the duties of the office of the President or Vice President shall take and subscribe before the Chief Justice or his designate, the relevant oath of office set out in Schedule 1 of this Constitution.

This is an oath which is not required to be taken in front of the Majlis, for it is not meant for a President proper. And, although the CoNI report makes no mention whatsoever to Article 126, this is the oath that is administered to Waheed. That is what Speaker Shahid says before the oath is administered. Watch the video:

Having stated that Nasheed has resigned under Article 121(a) of the Constitution, this is what Speaker Shaid says (at 1:11):

I, therefore, request of the Vice President, Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, to take the oath as stipulated in Article 126 of the Constitution enabling him to carry out the responsibilities of the President.

Article 126. Not Article 114.

To cite Article 114 to justify an action taken under Article 126, as the CoNI Report did, is to deliberately mislead the public into believing that we have a President proper rather than a Vice President temporarily assigned the responsibility of carrying out the duties of the President—until such time as there could be a president proper.

This deliberate deceiving of the pubic is further shored up by blatant disinformation, or to put it less kindly, by a blatant lie.

Below is a screen shot of an extract from page 22 of the CoNI Report. Note the highlighted section, and what it states as the contents of Article 123(b) of the Constitution.

CoNI misleads

This is not factual information.

What Article 123(b) says in reality is this:

The ‘subsequent election, permanent incapacity or death’ which the CoNI Report falsely states as contained in Article 123 (b) of the Constitution, in reality, appears in Article 124 (b) in relation to the permanent incapacity of both the President and the Vice President together. It is, therefore, not relevant to the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power on 7 February 2012.

Note that even then, the person who assumes the office of the President does so in a temporary capacity.

If the Constitution were precisely followed as prescribed, as the discussions above show, Waheed is a caretaker president; someone who is temporarily in charge of carrying out the duties of the President until a President proper – that is, a president elected by the people of the Maldives – is sworn in under Article 114.

Even though CoNI and the current Coalition Government, which set CoNI up and also administered the caretaker oath to Dr Waheed, knows this full well, it has chosen to selectively apply parts of the Constitution – and at times deliberately lie – to force the public as a whole to accept him as the ‘elected’ (recall the use of Article 108) President of the Republic of Maldives. Something which he is not.

Why?

Because it is the only ‘legal’ way in which the current government can withhold from the Maldivian people their right to a free and fair election – which must be held as soon as possible – so the caretaker president can be replaced by the President proper, be it Waheed, Nasheed or someone else.

Getting around the mutiny

A group of police and military personnel refused to obey the orders of their Commander in Chief on 6th and 7th February 2012. This is documented in CoNI’s own Timeline, which it describes in the Report as the most solid foundation for its conclusion that there was no coup. Therefore, even for an institution that proved so adapt at twisting the law to suit its facts, there was no getting around the fact that the armed forces—for whatever reason—disobeyed their leader. This was a mutiny:

mutiny |ˈmyoōtn-ē|

noun ( pl. -nies)

an open rebellion against the proper authorities, esp. by soldiers or sailors against their officers : a mutiny by those manning the weapons could trigger a global war | mutiny at sea.

So how does CoNI absolve the mutinying armed forces of any responsibility in the transfer of power? First it points out that ‘there is no definition of the expression “coup d’etat’ in Maldivian law’, implying that because the Maldivian law has so far failed to define the term, no transfer of power, no matter how illegally affected, cannot be deemed a coup.

Then it notes that there are several statutory provisions that do define rebellion as an offence against the State punishable by law, but promptly dismisses them as inapplicable because, even if there was such a thing as a coup, the open rebellion of the armed forces cannot be deemed a coup because it occurred before the coup.

This position is nothing short of ridiculous: the only thing that can be considered a coup under this definition is the actual act of assumption of power by a new President – the act of swearing in, in this case. Everything that comes before it, leads to it, triggers it, is the catalyst of it, and/or is the direct cause of it, according to this position, is irrelevant and inconsequential.

Yet, this is the position CoNI takes: because the rebellion of the armed forces can neverbe a coup per se even if it directly leads to one, any such mutiny cannot be punished as an offence against the State.

By (ab)using the law in this manner, CoNI is thus able to make a military and policecoup d’etat against the State impossible—even if it occurred in broad daylight and was witnessed, in real time, by the entire nation. In this manner, the police and the armed forces, and the three men who commandeered them and guided them through the rebellion, are all absolved of responsibility and made immune from prosecution for not just their disobedience of authority but also its consequences: the end of a democratically elected government.

Given CoNI’s abuse of rule of law – using the law as its primary instrument – it would be a travesty against the very concept of democracy for its Report to be accepted and endorsed as the definitive truth, and as a legally binding document that settles once and for all the many disputes that surround the transfer of power in the Maldives on 7 February.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Delay of South Asian Games “big blow” for regional sport: National Olympic Committee

Secretary General of the Maldivian National Olympic Committee (NOC) Ahmed Marzook fears that the persistent delaying of the South Asian games will be detrimental for athletes both in the Maldives and throughout the region.

“This is a big blow, and not just for us – it’s about regional sport,” he said. “This is the hope for youth in the region – this is the only thing for youth in the region.”

Marzook’s comments follow India’s decision to delay the hosting of the games for the second time. Originally scheduled for next month, the games had been rescheduled for February 2013 due to this summer Olympic Games.

However, during a teleconference with the Indian Olympic Association last week, Marzook was told that the games could not be held in February, with September 2013 mooted as an alternative.

The NOC has yet to receive official confirmation of the postponement, fuelling concerns that the games may even be pushed back to 2014.

This, explained Marzook, would only exacerbate the budgetary problems that have been caused by the delays.

“In 2014 we will be competing in both the Commonwealth and the Asian games. This will be hard if we have the South Asian Games in the same year – imagine the ticket prices for the delegations,” he said.

The postponement of the South Asian games has already caused the NOC financial problems, with money for training coming from rigid government budgets, and contracts already having been agreed with foreign coaches with February in mind.

Despite the success of the Maldives Olympic team at this year’s London games, the international experience was viewed largely in terms of preparation for the proposed regional games in February.

“The South Asian games are the first steps in terms of international exposure for many athletes,” said Marzook.

Despite regulations which state the eight-nation games must be held every other year, the competition was last held in 2010.

Previous aberrations from the biennial rule came in 2001, when the September 11 attacks caused the postponement of the Islamabad games, and in 2008 when issues surrounding the general elections in Bangladesh resulted in delaying the Dhaka games.

“If India can’t host this, who can,” asked Marzook, who argued that the recent Commonwealth Games in New Delhi meant that all the infrastructure for the event was in place.

Marzook argued that the reason for the delay was infighting between the Indian government and its Olympic association (IOA).

The IOA is currently in the middle of a political storm as, this week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) insisted on sending international observers for the association’s elections.

Suresh Kalmadi has been President of the IOA since 1996 but was suspended after being arrested and jailed for his part in a corruption scandal surrounding the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

When asked about the delay in the games, Cultural Attache’ at the Indian High Commission in Male’, PC Mishra, said that the there were “no specific reasons” for the postponement.

“It is an administrative process,” said Mishra, who described Marzook’s concerns as “a little bit premature – an overreaction.”

Marzook said that Nepal had offered to step in to host the games in February, but that India had blocked the move.

Nepal, which is due to chair the next SAARC summit in before May 2013, was reported earlier this month to have fallen behind in its preparations owing to the political standoff in the country.

Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper said that Nepal was expected to inform other SAARC foreign ministers of the postponement of the 18th summit at a meeting scheduled to be held alongside the United Nations General Assembly, which is currently meeting in New York.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding Maldivian athletes’ next international tournament, Marzook said that training would continue.

He revealed that arrangements were nearly completed for the intensive training of the country’s two top runners in Jamaica.

Azneem Ahmed and Hassan Saaidh – both members of the bronze medal winning 4x100m relay team in Dhaka – will travel to Jamaica after the NOC secured leave from their respective employers – the Police and the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).

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“Country’s education system has failed”: State Education Minister

State Minister of Education Imad Solih has said that the Maldives’ education system “has failed”, and that this failure had led to a majority of the country’s current social issues.

In an interview with local newspaper Haveeru, Solih reiterated the growing need to overhaul the education system to build a better society “where young people should have better things to do than being ‘addled on the streets’”.

Solih said that everyone would accept the fact that the young people “addled on the streets” were once school students, and that the reason they had fallen into such a state was because of lapses in the education system.

“They are a part of the population which we failed to attend to. But those that we currently attend to should be provided with proper education and training. I believe the failure of the education system has to take the blame for the current depletion of ethics and moral values within our society,” Solih said.

He further stated that compared to the government’s annual investment of MVR 2.4 billion (US$ 156 million) on education, the outcome was poor and unacceptable.

The report released by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on last December ranked the Maldives as number one in the Asia Pacific region on education spending as a percentage of GDP.

According to the report, Maldives spends the highest proportion of GDP on public education (8.1 percent) across the Asia/Pacific region, which is four times higher than countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar.

The Ministry of Education’s expenditure in 2011 amounted to Rf1.7 billion (US$110 million).

Despite the expenditure, Solih argued that the countrywide results of O’level and A’level examinations did not reflect the financial input to the education system, and that therefore changes had to be brought to the system, including new plans and targets.

Solih also stated that the failure of the education system should not only remain a concern of the education sector alone, but political leaders, parliamentarians and the general public should also share the concerns.

“I urge everyone to set aside our political differences and to take a minute to think about the current education system,” he called.

“You simply can’t blame the system” – former Education Minister

Former Education Minister and former Chancellor of the Maldives National University, Dr Musthafa Luthfee had a dissenting view of the remarks made by Solih. He stated that it was very difficult for him to agree to Solih’s remark that the system had failed.

“We built the [education] system over a very long time and it is exactly the same model that is being employed in other countries as well. But I can say that the results we ought to have achieved from this system have not yet been achieved,” he said.

He stated that it was not just the education system that was at fault for the current social issues, and the responsibility of building a better society falls on the shoulders of everyone, including politicians, the government, parents and teachers.

Luthfee stated that before declaring that the system had failed, it was important to understand the challenges it faced.

“For example, our teachers are not as experienced or competent as they should be. In other countries, you can only become a full time teacher with at least a minimum requirement of a bachelor’s degree and a certain amount of experience,” he said.

Luthfee also highlighted that most of the teachers currently working in the Maldives were foreigners instead of locals, and they keep constantly changing which has an impact on the student’s academic performance.

Referring to Solih’s remark on the large investment in education, Luthfee said that in reality the amount spent on “real education” was relatively low.

“It is easy for one to claim that the country invests a lot of money in the education system. But a large number of teachers in the country are from abroad. A hefty amount of money is spent on their salaries, accommodation and transportation. What we really get to spend on ‘real education’ is therefore relatively low,” he explained.

Luthfee was hopeful on the future of the education sector stating that more local trained teachers are replacing foreign teachers and that the local teaching force was gradually on the rise.

“It is a good sign that almost all the primary schools have local teachers now. A lot of local teachers are coming to teach in secondary schools as well. So the number of local teachers is gradually increasing. But there are still local teachers who need to improve their qualifications as well and they are working very hard on it too,” said the former minister.

Luthfee stated that he sees “progress” within the education system expressing confidence in the system, and through hard work, he said, better results could be achieved.

He also highlighted the success of the government of former President Nasheed.

“When we came to the government, the pass rate of O’ level five subjects was 27 percent. Within three years time we made it 37 percent, which is a 10 percent increase,” he said.

He further added that if the trend could be maintained, the figure would further increase. The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) during the 2008 elections pledged to put the figure at 60 percent by the end of its first presidential term.

When Minivan News contacted State Minister Imad Solih he stated that he would get back after a meeting. Minivan News was still expecting his call at time of press.

Correction. An earlier version of this article incorrectly titled Solih as Deputy Minister of Education. This has been corrected to State Minister.

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Bank of Maldives and MTDC at risk of trading penalties over AGM delays: Stock Exchange

The Maldives Stock Exchange (MSE) has warned that the Bank of Maldives (BML) and the Maldives Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) could both face trading restrictions over an ongoing failure to hold their respective annual general meetings (AGMs).

MSE CEO and Managing Director Hassan Manik told Minivan News that both companies had yesterday received final notices to hold their AGMs as soon as possible, after previously failing to hold the meetings no later than five months from the end of the financial year.

Both companies are now said to have agreed to announce dates within the next seven days for when the respective AGMs will be held, according to the MSE.

Manik stressed that under the MSE’s listing guidelines, failure by a company to hold an AGM within the required deadline could see it facing penalties including being suspended from trading securities.

“We have communicated to both companies to hold their AGMs as soon as possible. This is the first time we have gone public with such an announcement, but we want to make sure these companies are providing timely information,” he said. “Both have commented that they will be publicly declaring a date for their meetings within a week.”

According to Manik, while companies listed on the stock exchange regularly were unable to hold their AGMs within the required time period, he maintained that all groups listed were trying to meet the deadline outlined in its listing rules.

However, he claimed that in the case of both the MTDC and BML, it had been “a long-time” since the respective deadlines had passed, adding that both groups’ shareholders should be made aware of their operatons.

A BML spokesperson told Minivan News today that the failure to have held its AGM had been the result of delays in appointing board members  to the company.

“We have kept both the MSE and the Capital Market Development Authority (CMDA) informed about this matter, ” the spokesperson said.  “We are expecting to announce a date for our AG tomorrow.”

A spokesperson for the MTDC was not responding to calls at the time of press.

Local media has reported that the MSE has now set a deadline for both companes to hold their AGMs by October 24 or face action under its listing rules.

CMDA fines

Back in May, the MTDC, BML and the State Trading Organisation (STO) were all fined by the CMDA after they failed to publish quarterly reports and financial statements for their operations within an allotted time period.

The MTDC and the BML were each fined up to Rf30,000 for failing to publish annual financial statements as stipulated under the regulations. The statistics must be published within four months after the end of a financial year.

The companies had requested for deadline extension citing difficulties in producing the report within the given time frame, CMDA said. However the extension was not granted as the reasons provided were not acceptable, the authority claimed at the time.

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Comment: Demand to nationalise airport threatens relationship with India

The sudden and inexplicable way in which an ‘investor-row’ involving the Indian infrastructure group, GMR, is getting a new twist in recent days in Maldives, if unchecked, has the potential to rock bilateral relations.

Coming just days after the successful visit of Indian Defence Minister A K Antony to the atoll-nation, the demands for the ‘nationalisation’ of the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) in Male has left a bad taste. The larger questions however concern the internal political dynamics of Maldives, whose emerging international economic image could impact on the investment-climate when the nation can ill-afford any reversal in FDI inflows.

It was Antony’s second visit to Maldives in three years as Defence Minister, and the only one from another nation holding the post to have visited Maldives in recent history. It was also the first visit by an Indian Minister after the regime-change in Male in February this year.

Going by the joint statement issued on the occasion, the visit and the discussions reportedly were productive for both sides, indicating a greater level of security cooperation between the two South Asian neighbours. Among others, India has promised a new Defence Ministry building, an additional helicopter for the fledgling air arm of the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) and naval personnel to help with the maintenance of the Maldivian fleet.

Minister Antony used the occasion to inaugurate the India-aided military hospital in Male with expert personnel on hand, and also laid the foundation for a police training school.

There is an acknowledged need for greater professionalisation of the Maldivian security forces. It has become necessary in the light of the events of the past years and more, when it became clear that the bifurcation of what once used to be known as the National Security Service (NSS) has not served the purpose. In a fledgling multi-party democracy, the uniformed forces came to be a burden to transition even after electoral changes had effected a quiet political transition three years ago.

The Maldives also wants military hospitals in the atolls, which could then be thrown open for serving the common man in the remote islands. Given the increasing levels of bilateral security cooperation between the two countries, New Delhi will also be posting a Defence Attache at the Indian High Commission in Male. At present, the Indian Defence Attache at Colombo, Sri Lanka, is also in charge of India’s specific security interests in Maldives.

Increasing relevance of sea-lines

The Indian initiatives come in the wake of the bilateral, bi-annual Dhosti-XI Coast Guard exercises that were put in place after the coup bid in 1988, which was aborted after India rushed immediate military help. This year’s edition of the exercises also involved neighbouring Sri Lanka, considering that all three nations face shared threats to peace and tranquillity of their shared Indian Ocean waters. Indications were that extra-territorial nations had shown an interest in these maritime exercises, which were promptly kept out, given the immediacy and relevance of the issues, like ‘Somali piracy’ in the shared neighbourhood.

The realisation in India and Maldives for increased offshore military cooperation flows from the increasing relevance of the Indian Ocean sea-lines to the overall geo-strategic concerns of the global community, starting with ‘energy security’. It has been equally reflected in on-shore policy and decision-making in New Delhi, which used to be reciprocated in more than a full measure in Male over the past decades.

In recent times, however, the non-security centric Indian interests and concerns in Maldives have seen enough ups and downs, threatening to unsettle the process, time and again.

This has often resulted in the Governments and policy-makers of the two countries having to start clearing the mess already generated before they could start off on something new. This has had the potential to put the clock back on bilateral cooperation. The delays often get attributed to India, particularly the institutionalised democratic decision-making processes inherent to the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy. Oftentimes, the reverse may be true. The current criticism and opposition to the INIA project, coming as it does from most partners in the government of President Mohamed Waheed, is only the latest in the series, but it also has the potential to rock the boat more violently than in the past, for a variety of reasons.

One agreement, multiple crises

All this does not mean that the government, polity and people of Maldives may not have reservations about the ‘INIA agreement’, which essentially is a lease deed with elements of large-scale investments for modernisation, thrown in, for the tourism-driven economy to upgrade the Male airport to international standards.

Some of the issues being flagged two years after the signing of the agreement – and after substantial progress has been made on the ground – are factors the like of which are involved in any private sector investment in any country. It would be more so when those investments are of overseas origin.

Maldivian political parties that were opposed to the airport contract, when signed, are in power at present. If nothing else, their constituencies would expect them to review the policy that they had derided when in the opposition.

In the Indian context, the ‘civilian nuclear deal’ with the US, and the on-going opposition protests against the sanctioning of ‘FDI in retail trade’, can be parallels. If any or many of them are to return to power at a future date, the political opposition in the country would be called upon to revisit their positions on such issues. Either they accept the ground realities as they existed at that time, or revise the government policy on issues of the kind. These are different from other charges of corruption, for these ones do not involve any complaints of fiscal wrong-doing or loss to the government, per se.

Unlike in India, on the airport deal in Maldives, policy issues, allegations of procedural violations, possibilities of other wrong-doing and loss to the government have all been aired already. Some of them, like the charge that the previous government had circumvented constitutional mandates and legal provisions in the process, or had not acted with care on the prioritisation of contractual conditions and obligations all relate to the domestic front. What they may have to deal with the foreign investor, India’s GMR in this case, are something flowing from the former, but are also independent of the same.

The current phase of the protests owe to President Waheed Hassan’s letter to all parties participating in his government for their views on the matter, for the government to put the inherited problem in the backburner to the mutual satisfaction of all stake-holders. At the end of the day, the airport deal is huge and unprecedented in procedural and financial terms for the country. There is also a need to evolve national consensus on issues and procedures in particular if a successor government has to uphold the national commitments made by a predecessor.

It should in context involve the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of predecessor Mohamed Nasheed at some stage, if ‘consensus-building’ has to make sense to the domestic constituencies and means commitment for the investor company from overseas, from whichever part of the world they come from. It was in the absence of such a consensus when the Nasheed government cleared the deal that the entire issue has been raked up all over again by a successor-government. ‘Due diligence’ became a possibly casualty to political expediency, all round.

The result is that the same agreement has come to be played out politically for a second time in as many years. Earlier, when the agreement was ready for signing, it brought together the divided opposition parties on the same firing-line against the government. They cited various violations of laws and procedures. The after-thought of a parliamentary legislation, directing prior legislative clearance for ‘transfer of national assets’ to private parties, led to the government of the day crying foul, and all 13 nominated members of the cabinet quitting in haste.

Today, when all those parties are in government together, the revival of the issue has threatened the government. One of the government partners, namely, the Dhivehi Rayaththunge Party (DRP) has argued that the government would not have the kind of monies required to pay back the contractor if the deal was rescinded. A few others have called for the ‘nationalisation’ of the airport while some have described it more clearly and carefully as ‘taking it back’. In the process, attributing motives to the DRP leadership and the questioning of their ‘nationalism’ have begun threatening the stability of the government.

That the inherent differences within the ruling coalition cannot but come out in the open once the common adversary in President Nasheed and his MDP had been neutralised was known even to a casual observer of coalition politics the world over. It is written into any coalition arrangement. In Maldives, it reflects a perception of lessening political challenge posed by the MDP, among the partners in the ruling alliance. Such perceptions and decisions based on such perceptions can come to trouble the alliance, just as a perception of a ‘social alliance’ that the MDP thought it had at its disposal when in power failed the party when and where it mattered.

Not different from tourism FDI

This is not the first time that Maldives is faced with policy issues pertaining to overseas’ investments. FDI has been at the centre of the resorts-driven tourism industry, which in turn continues to be the backbone of Maldivian economy over the past decades. The country is yet to find a substitute or a supplementary to the same. So dependent has the economy been on tourism that every global meltdown and every tsunami-like natural catastrophe has upset the Maldivian apple-cart, thankfully to revive in good time and through innovative approaches.

Yet, when the tourism economy evolved, the policy involved long-term lease of individual islands/islets for the foreign investor to build his resort, market it mostly to foreigners, and also repatriate his profits in dollars, and without going through the Maldivian banking system. There were no tabs or restrictions other than the payment of ‘bed tax’ on a pro rata basis to the Maldivian government. The policy has paid very rich dividends to the economy of Maldives, changed the face of the country and has inspired individual Maldivians to aspire for more.

The evolution and implementation of the nation’s tourism policy owed mainly to the presence of a strong and single leadership at the helm through those formative years of what should be acclaimed as the modern, Maldivian economic success story. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s three-decade long rule also helped reach out modern education and healthcare across the atolls, but through the state system. The Gayoom regime adopted a combination of divergent economic policies that benefited the nation on the fiscal front and the people on the socio-economic front.

Through the Gayoom initiative, an imaginative mix of overboard globalisation in the South Asian region of the times at the level of revenue-generation and the socialistic pattern of distribution of the nation’s income made wonders. Neighbouring Sri Lanka was the closest (in terms of geography) and immediate (chronologically) neighbour to experiment with market capitalism. Yet, close to 35 years down the line, the results of the combination are mixed at best in Sri Lanka. In Maldives, however, it has been an unqualified success.

Under the Maldivian scheme, tourism industry, structured as a policy and product of the norms of market economy generated funds for the government to take the benefits of education and healthcare to the largest yet dispersed sections of a dis-spirited society. The benefits in terms of national growth and individual’s development have all occurred in front of the present-day generation, and they have relished and cherished them, too. It is the model that could be said to have been applied to the airport modernisation lease contract, too, though on details of procedure and benefits, there could be differences, both of concepts and of consequent opinions.

In a limited way at least, the airport development and long-lease of the existing reconstruction and accompanying reimbursement of the investment should thus be seen as an extension of the previous policy that the Nasheed government had inherited and explored for further exploitation for the medium and long-term benefits of the people at large. On a related issue, of course, the Nasheed government may have departed from the set norms and practices that did rise the hackles then as now. Included in the list was the decision to grant resort licenses in ‘inhabited islands’, interfering with local culture and also the Islamic tenets against sale and consumption of liquor.

‘Nationalism’ and ‘nationalism’

It is in this context a closer look needs to be given to the demands for the ‘nationalisation’ of the airport. For starters, INIA continues to be owned by the Maldivian State and Government, the GMR has been given only a long lease of the same. To demand ‘nationalisation’ would thus be a travesty of the truth, and challenges the nation’s inherent and inalienable right – which anyway has not been alienated. In a nation where the State owns all the land, such a construct could also hit at (though not at all in the legal sense) later claims for a return of the property to the State when due. If nothing else, it could create a mood of resignation, not just of reservation if only over decades, which in turn is at the heart of the current protests, instead.

GMR at no point in time is known to have demanded ownership of the airport, to begin with. It is thus clear that the State cannot nationalise what it already owns, and continues to own. Worse still, given the traditional meaning attaching to a terminology like ‘nationalisation’, street-demands for the same in the context of INIA could sent jitters down the spines of all those who have already invested hugely on the resort-islands, benefitting all stake-holders in the process.

Unless otherwise proscribed, what may apply to other lessees of islands should apply to whichever lessee of the airport islands, be – as long as it is for development against the payment of lease money and on prescribed conditions for a fixed period of time. The reverse should also be true the same way – what is sought to be applicable to the single largest investor in the nation’s history could be applied to lesser mortals without anyone being wiser of any unforeseeable situation when an agreement is signed or a situation is created, later.

It is not unlikely that there may still be a need for the Maldivian Government to revisit the lease-policies as a whole and applying the yardstick to the GMR deal too. Whether such changes could be specific to a particular project or agreement, or can have retrospective effect is a question that needs to be agitated in the context of the individuality or otherwise of individual agreements involved. However, responsibility needs to be restored to the national dialogue and clarity evolved through a consensus process, lest any foreign investor – existing one or a future one – would have doubts of his own on entry-exit terms and timelines.

Product of sweat and toil

All this does not preclude the present-day sentiments attaching to what has since been rechristened as INIA in the living generation of middle-aged Maldivians and above, particularly so those in Male. The airport was a product of their sweat and toil, and literally so. As students and youth in their growing-up years, they had contributed physical labour and whatever a poor nation could afford for the up-gradation of the airport in the mid-Seventies. Both sentimentally and politically, it had contributed in some ways to the Independence of the Maldivian protectorate from the British ‘Protector’. The airport is thus of a sentimental value to many grown-up in the country.

All this should not mean that the ‘sovereignty’ of the Maldivian state and the security of its territory should be reduced to be identified with the airport near-exclusively in parlour discussions, if not national discourses. If the argument is that the INIA is a tool for defending the sovereignty of the nation and its territorial integrity, there are other, smaller airports across the country, including those for the dozens of hovercraft dotting the lower skies, which are all vehicles of economic growth, not military-threat. So has been INIA, barring the one occasion, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) was called upon to defend the airport and the nation through it, from marauding mercenaries in 1988.

Yet in the new millennium for those who made the airport possible in the first place, and their younger generation to confuse ‘nationalism’ with ‘sovereignty’, raising arguments based on such perceptions would not help the nation, after a point. The spirit and phraseology are not inter-changeable, nor can they be inter-mingled in legal and commercial terms, either. Arguments thus based on non-existent linkages could make for good politics, but would not contribute to good policy. They have to be separated and addressed as individual aspects – but addressed they should be.

Despite a further expansion and growth of resort-tourism in the country, the limitations for the future are being systematically exposed. The Maldives does not have answers to the ever-increasing demands on the economy, whose expansionist pace is slowly coming to a grinding halt. With no scope for unlimited advent of manufacturing or even the services sector, as a money-spinner and/or forex-earner, the country would have to look at infrastructure as a source for attracting investments and creating the kind of jobs that the average Maldivian youth will be happy with, and paid for, in full measure.

Reviewing investment policy is one thing, but revisiting an individual contract is another. The two shall not meet – and the nation cannot afford it if the matter is allowed to drag on either. The alternative should be to learn from the mistakes, if any, and apply correctives where possible to the issues on hand – and also in revisiting the policy for the future. That alone would help.

Profitability, vulnerability

It is in this context investments from across the world have to be assessed for their overall profitability for the Maldivian people and economy, and the relative vulnerability that such arrangements could throw the nation into. In the current phase of the expansion of the Maldivian economy and growth, small-time investments in international/regional relevance would not suffice, as used to be the case for the funds requiring for putting up a resort or two. Either foreign governments or international agencies will have to put in the money, which will be in the form of repayable credit, even if at a low rate of interest and over the long term.

The alternative, which comes without any political or fiscal tag, over the medium and the long-term, is to encourage FDI, particularly in the infrastructure sector, where the foreign investors’ perceived propensity for political mischief over time would be minimal, as against their investments in the stock market, for instance. There are no repayment-tags attaching to such investments, but for the licensed fees, which however have to be negotiated with care and foresight.

Over time, the experiences of other nations have shown that investor-nations have often used their investments and repayments to muscle their political way in the host-nation, through the short, medium and long-terms. In their case, the repayment terms and schedules hang over the nations’ head like the Damocles’ Sword. Against this, overseas-investor has often been seen as a friend and advocate of the host-nation in his native land, in political, economic and security terms. The lessor-nation does not have to repay him with interest, with profligacy and bad-planning in the interim adding to the fiscal and economic vows of Governments as mightier nations have been over the past years.

In its place, a carefully-negotiated lease agreement provides for his recouping his investment-cost with interest over in a calibrated time-period. What may thus be required at the moment is re-negotiation of the INIA agreement on the one hand, and the need for the Maldivian government and legislature to fix certain loopholes that they might have found in their existing policies and procedures, possibly with the view to evolving a consensus approach, which had eluded the nation on this score in the past. Therein may lie the solution now to the Maldivian airport row, too – not elsewhere or otherwise!

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Posted to Paradise: RAF Veterans remember Gan, part two

Part one of this series of recollections of RAF veterans stationed on Gan can be read here.

As I sit with a gin and tonic overlooking the blue lagoon at Equator Village, I try to imagine what Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II must have been thinking when in 1972 she visited what was then one of the most glamorous Royal Air Force base locations in the world – RAF Gan.

Back in the seventies well before the advent of resorts the Maldives was the scene for the ‘real jet set’ – the RAF Far East Air Force pilots who used the former RAF base as a layover location long before the advent of tourism to the region.

Enviably located south of the equator RAF Gan in Addu, was a staging post during the Second World War and continued to be a base for thousands of air force personnel through the cold war. It was handed back to the Maldivian government on March 29, 1976.

During its operational days, famous visitors landed at RAF Gan including the Queen, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. As well as attending to business, they were drawn to the perfect islands fringed by glorious azure blue lagoons and white sands.

They would stay at the Blue Lagoon Transit hotel on the base, and VIP/Officers’ accommodation known as Dhoogas, which has now the opened as a resort in its own right called Gan Island Club, located next door to the Equator Village resort (the former Sergeant’s mess).

Like many of the tourists today who visit the Equator Village resort, even the Queen must have been mesmerised by the perfect islands with lush tropical vegetation fringed with pure white beaches and an infinity view of an azure blue lagoon that is home to beautiful coral gardens teeming with tropical fish and baby reef sharks.

Terry Joint, an officer stationed at the airbase, recalls meeting Princess Anne who was “quite a beauty”. The pair chatted about spearfishing and he described her as charming and friendly: “Princess Anne said would have liked to have come out on a spearfishing trip with us but unfortunately she had to catch a plane back,” he reminisced.

Nowadays the island of Gan is home to two resort developments, the quintessentially English Equator Village resort and the Gan Island club (the officer’s mess).

Equator Village has resisted the urge to conform to the sleek lines of most resort chains, remaining a historic landmark.

Those in search of historical references can still find them among the station grounds. These remain almost unchanged, save a lick of paint from its service days. From the wicker furniture to the uniform blue doors, this three star resort has all the markings of the RAF Marham officers’ mess, with a better view and weather. I should know because I have also stayed there too.

An RAF legacy remains in former buildings and relics, bringing back military tourists – veterans who served here to visit the RAF memorial and reminisce about days gone by. There is a former NAAFI (commissary) and the Astra Cinema. The former RAF vehicle maintenance workshop is now maintained by the State Trading Organisation (STO) for its fleet of trucks.
The resort located near Gan airport, the former airfield, now used for VIP flight, Island Aviation transfers to the resort and international flights from Hong Kong and Gatwick.

In its service days there was a church on the base, which is now of course a mosque as Islam is the only religion allowed to be practiced in the Maldives by law.

Adduan’s grew up around the service personnel and some even became servicemen themselves. One Adduan recalls visiting the base as an 11-year old boy: “I used to visit the church to have tea and coffee with a relative who worked there. That was very unusual because as Muslims we were told we shouldn’t even look what’s was inside!” he recalled. “Upon visiting the resort recently, I was most surprised to see that the place is a mosque. I didn’t know it was facing Mecca.”

Back in the seventies the RAF provided a rich source for jobs in the area and at one time locals and airmen used to live side by side, employed as room boys, chefs, maintenance, and some were even trained to learn a trade. As such Adduans are broadly thankful to the RAF.

Hassan Najmy trained in the photographic department of the RAF and like many Adduans who worked closely with the Royal Air Force and quickly picked up the English language and qualifications.

“We will always be grateful to the RAF who gave us jobs and treated us like their own brothers,” said Hassan. “I spent many happy years with them and learned all I know today.”

Hassan joined the photographic section, not long after the Queen’s visit to the Maldives and RAF Gan in 1972.

“I joined photographic section when I was 18 and learned the trade, I really enjoyed the dark room training and studied for my Cambridge CSE certificate at the RAF Education Centre in Gan,” he said.

“I still remember buying my first Pentax SLR camera from the NAAFI store, a discounted store where you could get anything.”

Hassan was eyewitness to many historic events which make up the Maldives’ military history. As the president of the time’s official photographer, he captured the images of royal visitors to the base and impressed the president so much that he became the presidential palace’s official photographer.

According to the military personnel who served here, the island remains much the same as today as it did back then. Unlike their cousins in the north, Adduans are proud of the British influences.

At Equator Village hens run freely between the tropical foliage and rose gardens and the beach. There is also traditional afternoon tea and scones at 4:00pm, another relic from its service days as the sergeant’s mess. Equator Village feels like a home away from home.

Many industrious Adduans in fact helped to found the tourism industry in the capital of Male region following the RAFs departure. In 1972 the first resort in the Maldives, Kurumba, was founded by Mohamed Umar Maniku, and still runs today under Universal Enterprises.

Some Adduans say that some of the original furniture from the RAF was taken to Kurumba and remains in the resort’s presidential suite. Some original furniture still remaining includes the billiard table and darts board at the Equator resort for guests to enjoy.

Original framed photographs from the time, including of the Queen’s visit, are on display at the next door Gan Island Club, formerly the Dhoogas guest house, and the Blue Lagoon where Prince Charles frequented.

The RAF’s main mission was to install radio transmitters on the island of Hithadhoo to listen in and intercept intelligence from the East during the cold war.

Hithadhoo was first discovered by the Royal Navy and the fleet air arm in the 1940s. In those days supplies were ferried between the islands and nearby Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was known then) by boat.

When it was handed it over to the RAF in the fifties, they established their base on the island of Gan and built a causeway linking all six islands, establishing a precedent in this geographically challenged country consisting of 99 per cent ocean – bases which became known as RAF Gan and RAF Hithadhoo respectively.

The RAF’s presence came to an end as the Cold War ended. In fact some say that RAF Gan’s cards were marked as soon as the “Royal Far East Air Force” (RFEAF) was disbanded in 1971.

The British decamped further south to Diego Garcia and then leased the land to the US, who still have a base there today. RAF Gan was handed back to the Maldivian government on March 29, 1976.

Hassan recalls it was a very sad day when the RAF left Maldives. Many “wept” as they saw off the servicemen who become friends as well as colleagues over the years. That bond remains today through social media pages on Facebook remembering life at Gan.

Hassan has recorded many historic events which make up the Maldives’ military history during his service, including profiling historical figures and royal visitors to the base. Some of his work can be viewed on a page maintained by veterans who served at Gan and Hithadhoo: RAF Gan Remembered.

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Maldives no longer “tolerable” for foreign doctors, expatriate medical officer claims

Expatriate medical professionals working in the Maldives regularly face intimidation, fraud and “substandard” treatment from patients, health authorities, local staff and the country’s courts, a foreign medical officer working in the country has revealed.

The expatriate medical professional, who has worked in several posts across the country since 2009, revealed that along with widespread reneging on contracts and failing to deal with intimidation of expatriate medical staff, health officials had, in certain cases, not even checked whether foreign doctors were registered to practice medicine.

“Earlier there was a system of asking doctors for the registration of their basic medical degree (graduation degree) in their own country so as to register them in Maldives,” he told Minivan News. “This law was so compromised over the last two years that in one atoll alone, four unregistered doctors are to my knowledge still practising their absent skills here. Frankly speaking, they can kill anybody just by their lack of knowledge, but some get caught on occasion.”

Medical authorities have claimed they were aware of a number of concerns regarding doctor registration, a situation currently being reviewed in conjunction with the Maldives Medical Council. However, the Ministry of Health and Family denied that a fall in the number of doctors coming from India to practice in the Maldives was related to alleged treatment by authorities and patients on islands – instead noting improved pay rates currently offered in their home country.

However, raising concerns over a “deterioration” in the quality of healthcare being provided in some atolls during the last two years, the expatriate medical officer – who asked not to be identified – also detailed a number of issues over the treatment of foreign workers in the country.

According to the whistle-blower, there were growing concerns among skilled expatriates working in medicine and education in the Maldives that was losing the country its reputation as a “tolerable working place”.

Fewer doctors from India were coming to the Maldives year-on-year, the source observed, in part to what he called “public intolerance” of an imported non-Muslim work force.

“The overall behaviour of the Maldives Ministry of Health and Family and government has been negative. [There is also] an lack of availability of US dollars and the Bank of Maldives (BML) has banned issuing international ATM cards to expatriates,” he said. “Meanwhile, there has been an increase in the exchange rate of the US dollar, but no increase in the salary structure in Maldivian rufiya (MVR), meaning salaries are less than before. There are also instances in which the lawlessness of this country has led to the lack of punishment of Maldivian nationals even for heinous crimes like rape if the victim is an expatriate.”

“Violence”

Taking the example of Gaafu Alif (GA) Atoll, where the medical professional has had experience of working, he alleged “constant fear” and intimidation were regularly experienced by foreign healthcare professionals.

“Increasing instances of violence against expatriates is being reported from everywhere in Maldives,” he said.

On the island of GA Villingili, the medical professional claimed that one paediatrician from Pakistan working on the island was physically assaulted after failing to provide a referral letter demanded by some of his patients.

“I myself was on duty, so we had to make the legal documents for him. Afterwards nothing happened and [the doctor] left after just two days without the intention of continuing their contract. [The doctor] is still working in the Maldives, but somewhere else now,” he said.

“[Another doctor] from Uzebikstan also left GA Atoll because some local teenagers beat her two children. The matter became worse when she and her husband reacted with anger towards these boys. People were singing ‘We will kill you…’ on the roads whenever they came out. Ultimately [the doctor] requested for a transfer and is now working in Faafu Nilandhoo Atoll.”

The medical officer added that from his own experiences, skilled expatriate workers across the Maldives faced intimidation and sexual harassment on the islands, with cases such as expatriate teachers having to defend themselves in their own homes.

“I myself have heard some patients calling me or my colleagues their servants and threatening to do what he/she tells to, or else,” he said. “Interestingly, local staff never help in these situation a because they think we they will not be affected much because we don’t know Dhivehi. The situation becomes much more painful as many of us understand the language quite well. These are just glimpses only. And only of [GA] Atoll. Imagine what will happen if we collect together all the things which have gone wrong across the Maldives.”

The medical professional claimed there were also concerns about how authorities were treating doctors in the country, particularly in regards to contractual obligations such as agreements on wages and accommodation.

According to the source, a number of doctors had shared concerns about amendments made to their contractual agreements without their consent or knowledge once they arrive in the country – both in terms of salary and housing.

“When a doctor lands in Male’, only then [do authorities] reveal to him or her that actually this offer letter is an old one and now the salary structure is a little different. It is always like that. So many times they have done it that now people know about it unofficially and openly and make fun of it,” he claimed.

“Authorities write in their offer letter about free residence while working here. It is mentioned in this form of providing free residence or as much rufiya through a housing allowance, plus their people will help you find a place. They don’t, of course,” he said.

The medical officer claimed that he was personally provided with a housing allowance of MVR 3,000 ruifiya (US$195), assistance in finding accommodation had not been given.

However even upon finding accommodation, a former expatriate paediatrician from South Asia, who was living and working in GA atoll, was alleged to have been evicted from a property on one island by its owners with less than 24 hours notice after they found a tenant willing to pay better rent for the accommodation. The doctor left the island he was assigned after a month and a half due to being unable to find accommodation.

The medical officer added that authorities were ultimately failing to support skilled expatriate workers in favour of local staff who often had no medical or management training.

“It is an everyday story in this hospital and everywhere else in Maldives. Even at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hosptial (IGMH) [in Male’],” he claimed. “Far lower qualified local staff are working with a salary on par with far better qualified expatriate staff, and doing nothing on duty. It frustrates expatriates every single minute. It is not justifiable but local administration support it.”

The expatriate healthcare worker pointed to his own experiences in an atoll hospital, where he claimed trained nurses were having to clean the nappies of elderly patients due to the refusal of local sanitation staff – known as sweepers – to do so.

“This work is for local sweepers, but they often refuse to do it, forcing the staff nurses through equally arrogant management to perform the actions,” he claimed. “They don’t understand that a staff nurse, who has to administer injections and medicines to patients, will get their dress soiled by the excrement if they clean the stool of these patients, and in turn some patient only is going to receive it in returb as a hospital born infection.”

Healthcare provision

Beyond the treatment of expatriate health professionals, the medical officer highlighted a number of concerns about the operations of the nation’s hospitals, such as the impact of the launch earlier this year of the Aasandha universal health scheme.

The medical officer claimed that Aasandha had in fact led to a growing trend of pharmacies bringing in low cost “garbage” medicine to the country, on the grounds that the Aasandha budget was insufficient to acquire medicines from what the medical officer called “standard companies”.

“This in turn is is playing with the health of people by bringing introducing antibiotic resistance or uncompensated chronic diseases due to irregular and uncontrolled dosing of drugs,” he said.

“With the pricing of drugs, we write the number of tablets to be 12. The pharmacy gives seven or eight. Patients don’t know about these things. And as a result they come back to us with partial recovery and antibiotic resistance.”

The medical officer said that in order to try and overcome the limitation, doctors were having to recommend larger prescriptions to ensure a sufficient number of tablets were provided by the pharmacy, before asking patients to return to them to amend the amount they should be taking.

“This way the patient gets the needed amount of medicine, the dosing of which I correct myself after calling him/her back to me with the medicines. This practice is risky but at least I succeeded in managing my patients successfully,” he said.

According to the medical officer another key problem with Aasandha was the lack of public understanding concerning the scheme and entitlements of the public.

“They become very angry when we tell them that this or that medical condition is not covered by Aasandha. A lot of times they force the management to force us to fabricate a medical condition just to get Aasandha approval,” he revealed.

Soon after the scheme had been launched in January this year, Health Minister Dr Ahmed Jamsheed – then Chief Operating Officer at Male’s ADK hospital – said limited information on Aasandha’s financial structure had led the public to exaggerate their medical needs. He urged for a greater sense of public responsibility to prevent overwhelming the country’s health service.

However, calls to limit Aassandha have so far proved divisive in parliament and the present coalition government. Ahmed Thasmeen Ali, head of the government-aligned Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), has previously been an outspoken critic of limiting the provision of universal healthcare at private premises.

The medical officer added that national healthcare provision had also been affected by the launch during the previous government of seven provincial health corporations designed to try and decentralise health care and budgets.

According to the expatriate medical officer, the establishment of the corporations was seen as an attempt by the former government to ensure the work of the Health Ministry was being controlled by government rather than opposition supporters already working within healthcare.

“Splitting the [work] of the Health Ministry into corporations was not a bad idea although it was more motivated by ability to acquire financial control rather than anything else,” he claimed. “The local governance had one thing positive; we could at least address our problems with our employers easily. They were accessible. Although they seldom made any difference, at least there was no frustration that I could not even talk to the authorities. Nowadays, no one can talk to the Mnistry of Health people as most of the time either they simply don’t pick the phone or you cannot connect to them.”

The medical officer said a growing sense of frustration and the shared of experiences of expatriates and healthcare professionals from across the South Asia region had seen the Maldives’ reputation as place to practice medicine tarnished in recent years.

“All these stories do reach [places like] India and I don’t feel that people will tolerate this much more. That’s why there is a constant decline in the number of people coming from somewhere like India to work here in whatever form,” he observed.

Indian High Commission concerned

Earlier this year, Indian High Commissioner Dynaneshwar Mulay raised concerns over the treatment of expatriates from across the South Asia region – particularly by the country’s police and judiciary.

Mulay claimed that alongside concerns about the treatment of some Indian expatriates in relation to the law, there were significant issues relating to “basic human rights” that needed to be addressed concerning immigrant workers from countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Addressing the claims, Zaufishaan Abdulla Kamaludeen, Director of Human Resources for the Health Services Corporations, which is currently run under the Ministry of Health, said that while expatriate doctors had traditionally been sourced from India, it had become increasingly difficult to bring them to the Maldives.

Kamaludeen stressed that this change appeared mainly to be a result of more competitive rates of pay for medical staff in India compared to the Maldives

“There have been spikes in the salary packages being offered to doctors from India. This is maybe a reason why since about March 2012, when I joined the Health Ministry, we have been having difficulty getting Indian doctors to work here,” she claimed. “We have been getting many applications from doctors from Pakistan,” she added, stressing that medical personnel were also being sourced from countries like Myanmar to cover demand in the country.

Kamaludeen added that it was traditionally difficult to place expatriate doctors on islands in the country’s outer atolls, a situation he claimed was complicated by the tendency of healthcare professionals to network about their experiences.

However, she denied that the difficulties and complaints recevied staff were a result of intimidation or the attitudes of local staff and patients to foreign workers. Kamaludeen claimed that requests for transfers for most often related to “personal issues”.

“Mainly we get requests for transfer from islands relating to personal problems. These vary on a number of issues such as the availability of vegetarian food,” she claimed. “We also get requests from doctors wishing to work close with other doctors, so they don’t feel isolated on arrival.”

Kamaludeen added that another challenge with placing doctors had come from the set up of certain health corporations to pay skilled medical staff more than if they worked in another region.

“Doctors at times would demand to work for the corporations offering the highest pay,” she said. “Right now, a board has been established to try and harmonise salaries for staff working in different atolls.”

Addressing allegations that there had been issues with the registration of some expatriate medical staff to practice in the Maldives, Kamaludeen said that the ministry had been made aware of instances of doctors working with improper registration.

However, she said that in such cases the Maldives Medical Council had been immediately informed and a review was presently taking place on the issue.

Kamaudeen claimed the issue appeared to have arisen over a lack of awareness of the type of licensing required to practice n the Maldives.

“We have understood this to the result of a lack of information being provided from recruitment groups and agencies,” she said.

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RAF veterans remember their days on Gan: Part 1

A group of Royal Air Force (RAF) veterans remember their time on the beautiful Maldivian island of Gan in the Addu Atoll as the best days of their lives.

Living thousands of miles from home, the servicemen of Coral Command who lived and worked on the atoll of Addu in RAF Gan and nearby Hithadhoo, where the RAF were fitting radio transmitters in the seventies, made their own fun long before the resorts were created.

In true forces style the squadrons based here, mainly Brits and the Indian Air Force, with a couple of Americans, created a night life scene which was enjoyed by many, including some liberal locals. Sadly, all this ended when the forces pulled out.

The RAF needed to travel back and forth between the islands for work and entertainment. They built a causeway linking six islands to help them to get there easily but before that they had to travel by boat.

Nowadays there is little entertainment, save the bar at the Equator Village resort in Gan on the other side of the island, and the sleepy hamlet of Hithadhoo is a very different place now – but it didn’t used to be, as one former airman reveals.

Richard Houlston, now 63, remembers the recreational activities which were available in the seventies in Hithadhoo after hours. Long before the resorts, Hithadhoo can proudly boast the establishment of the first entertainment in the Maldives.

Weekends were filled with diving and crab fishing, dhoni racing, pranks and skinny dipping in the pristine lagoon. After work hours Coral Command would spend hours drinking at “Siggies bar”, known affectionately as ‘Fairly Blato’, for obvious reasons.

On special occasions, some of the lads would head to the legendary Bushy disco – the first outdoor rave on a jungle-cropped island close to Hithadhoo.

“There were around 25 of us on the site when I arrived, this gradually increased to about 50 over the next few months when Skynet came (Satellite Communications),” remembers Richard.

“We had a big 2000 litre water tank in case of fire but we filled it full of fish from the lagoon, including three 4ft sharks, six puffer fish and a large titan trigger who ruled the pool. This had to be emptied, cleaned out and re-filled every week on a Tuesday afternoon to keep it going.

It was very entertaining to watch the catching of a four foot long shark by the tail,” Richard recalls.

Many hours were enjoyed placing a pole across this tank for people to walk across (which gives a whole new meaning to Shark Infested Custard, for those with a service background).

“No one ever did manage to make it across. If they looked as if they were doing well the pole was rolled first one way then the other! With three 4ft sharks in there, no one stayed in long,” he laughed.

On weekends and evenings many pranks were played by the men on their fellow comrades. These practical jokes helped to keep camaraderie and spirits high and playful by nature Richard was one of the main pranksters.

“John Scott and I used to go and catch 20 sand crabs and a large land crab every evening after tea and sometimes at night when everyone was in the bar Scotty and I would catch frogs and put them in peoples beds. We’d put the land crabs in washing boxes or down the loo,” he said.

“It was quite startling when you are about to seat yourself down to have a number two and a huge pair of pincers suddenly appears – that would make your eyes water.”

Firm and long lasting friendships were made during the time on Addu, which is evident in the hundreds of messages posted on the Then and Now website.

These lasting friendships enabled the RAF Gan memorial visit a couple of years back, where more than 50 former airmen and officers stepped back onto the atoll and met again for the first time in almost 40 years.

Many shared tales of times gone by and made new friends too. At the time men were not allowed to socialise with local women so with little social interaction, apart from with each other, the men filled their days with activities such as snorkelling, and diving.

There were dhoni competitions where men would row for entertainment and many other games too.

“As you are probably well aware the main problem with Gan was the lack of women. For 12 months with no female companionship, it was very difficult for servicemen – almost unbearable,” Richard explained. “Of course, we were not allowed to meet the Maldivian women, probably just as well, as I think I might still have been out there… or washed up on some beach.”

He left the air force to get married and remains happily so, with two children and recently the addition of a new grandchild.

There were some characters on the base. Richard fondly recalls the madcap adventures and avoidance tactics of a particular infamous squadron leader called Buckle.

“At the time we had Squadron Leader Buckle based on Gan but in charge of us on Hithadhoo. He heard a rumour that some airmen on Hithadhoo were sunbathing in the nude. This would of course be upsetting to the Maldivians – well the men anyway – who used to pass through the camp from time to time.

“He made many surprise trips trying to catch the culprits but as they had to have permission to land the boat we always knew in advance,” he laughed.

“It sort of backfired on him when he had a little rhyme composed about him: ‘Bare Bum Buckle was his name’ and ‘Bare Bum Spotting was his game’. I can’t remember the rest, perhaps it just as well). I know we had a flag pole over the bar in the Hermitage with a belt buckle hanging from it – a hangman’s noose.”

The Hithadhoo Diary’ was a cartoon feature for each period and the last six months-worth can be read on the Gan Remembered web site.

While he wouldn’t admit it some of Richard and his colleagues’ pranks even made the gossip sheet, which covered part of the time he was there, he laughs.

Richard and his comrades from Coral Command re-visit Gan as much as they can still have a close connection to Gan and Hithadhoo through Facebook, some say their hearts actually never left the curiously heart-shaped atoll.

Visit the RAF Gan Memorial Website.

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Comment: Constructing the truth – CoNI and the coup, part one

This article originally appeared on DhivehiSitee. Republished with permission.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

– Frederich Nietzsche

When the allegation lacks substance or reality, nothing is required in response.

– Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI)

The idea that an objective truth can exist independent of political power is a myth dating back to Plato. On the contrary, truth and political power are intricately woven together—one cannot exist without the other. Instead of an ‘objective truth’, what becomes accepted as ‘reality’ is based on what those in power are willing to include as ‘true’ and what they exclude as ‘false’ in what they say and do about a given issue. While such power/truth relations are normally hidden from surface observations and casual scrutiny, the Report of the Commission of National Inquiry, Maldives is a document that blatantly demonstrates how ‘truth’ is produced in this manner and how the truth so constructed is used to exercise power and control over society.

It is CoNI’s conclusion that there was “No coup, no duress, no mutiny” in the Maldives on 7 February 2012. To arrive at this ‘truth’, the CoNI Report excludes all information it regards as false and includes only what it deems true according to preconceived notions and beliefs.  “When the allegation lacks substance or reality”, it states, “nothing is required in response.” How CoNI decided what ‘lacks substance or reality’ and, therefore, can be dismissed as not worthy of a response, is not explained. It is an arbitrary measurement, composed and set up by the Commission according to a standard that itself decided on, and which it decided not to make public.

Some statements contained in the report, however, do provide an indication as to the criteria used by CoNI to decide which of the 293 witnesses it interviewed were telling the truth, and which of them were judged as simply repeating ‘hearsay’ or enthusiastically relaying fantasies of a confused mind susceptible to suggestion.

Take, for example, the following statement:

Just as a question has no evidential value unless the person answering accepts or adopts the fact contained in the question, allegations have no evidential value just because someone has articulated them repeatedly.

What does this confused and confusing statement mean? If a question is being asked in order to establish the facts of an event, why then does the question itself contain a fact that the answer must first accept for it to be considered valid? Is CoNI saying that a decision was made from the very beginning to exclude as invalid all the answers that did not first accept ‘the fact’—as stated in CoNI’s findings—that ‘there was no coup’?

How much evidence was excluded on this basis? Is this the grounds on which the evidence of Nasheed’s wife, Laila, for instance, was given no consideration by CoNI? In an investigation of the validity of Nasheed’s claim that he resigned under duress, fearful not just of a public bloodbath but also for the safety of himself and his family, would the evidence of his wife not be essential to verifying his explanation?

It is not just Laila’s evidence that seems to have no place in CoNI’s deliberations. Although one of the appendices to the report provides a list of 49 pieces of documentary evidence submitted by various witnesses, there are only seven such documents it refers to as having ‘comprehensively reviewed by the Commission’.

Of these, what it relied on most was its own Timeline, published on 6 June 2012, over two months before it completed its deliberations. [The English translation of the Timeline published on the CoNI website on its official letterhead was copied verbatim—except for an occasional substitution of a word here and there—from Dhivehi Sitee with neither permission nor acknowledgement, or shame for that matter.]

According to the CoNI Report this Timeline, published prior to interviewing some of the most important witnesses to the events of 7 February, was the truest document of them all. There was nothing anybody could say to challenge its version of events, for it contained CoNI’s ‘truth’.

It must be noted also that despite the many alternative scenarios which have been produced internally and internationally, there has been virtually no challenge of any substance to what was recorded in the Timeline.

Indeed. Not when all evidence that was excluded from the Timeline remained excluded as unworthy of inclusion.

This is an analysis of some of the most blatant exclusions of fact the CoNI Report relied upon to construct a particular ‘truth’ about the events of 7th February 2012. It is part one in a series of in-depth analyses of the CoNI Report which, if accepted in its current form as ‘what really happened’ in the Maldives on that day, renders the 2008 Constitution of the Maldives meaningless and creates the conditions in which the illegal overthrow of a government can be deemed legal.

Azra Naseem holds a doctorate in International Relations.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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