Category: Society & Culture

LDC graduation will impact aid from donor nations: Swedish Ambassador

Swedish Ambassador accredited to the Maldives, Lars-Olof Lindgren, has acknowledged that the Maldives’ 2011 graduation to the UN’s definition of a middle income country will affect its ability to seek financial development assistance.

Lindgren, who is based at Sweden’s embassy in New Delhi, observed during a brief meeting with local media yesterday that his own government “has very strict of GDP per-capita criteria and has decided to focus its aid elsewhere on least developed countries, particularly in Africa.”

The Maldives this year became one of only three countries to graduate from the UN’s definition of ‘Least Development’, since the introduction of the term. As a consequence, the Maldives loses access to both concessional credit, certain trade concessions, and some of the foreign aid upon which aspects of the country – such as civil society – have historically depended on for both skills and financial support.

A World Bank Economic Update Report released in November 2010 showed a per capita Gross Net Income (GNI) for the country of US$4090 for 2010, up from US$3690 in 2009.

“In one sense this graduation not been positive in this respect,” Lindgren said. “At the same time, certainly I think we have to look at other aspects of the Maldives – the fact the country taking first steps as a democratic country, steps towards getting the party system to work – that is one reason why the international community should support this – support not only government, but the whole society.”

There was also potential for countries such as Sweden with experience in high-tech renewable technology to work together with the Maldives on tackling climate change, Lindgren added.

Swedish involvement in the Maldives so far had been “not very impressive”, he admitted, “although Swedish companies do have investments in the country in things like logistics and domestic transport.”

“But I think we could do a lot more together on the environment, particularly with regards to renewable energy and energy efficiency. We have a lot of experience high technology, and a long tradition of doing these things with results. For example, we have done a lot to keep our homes warm using insulation – in the Maldives it is a matter of keeping the cold inside. There’s a lot to be gained by doing it efficiently.”

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Finance Minister walks out of negotiations with “politically influenced” youth

Finance Minister Ahmed Inaz yesterda  walked out of a meeting with several young people claiming to represent the ‘concerned youth’ behind the recent week of violent protests in the capital Male’.

Governor of Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) Fazeel Najeeb also attended the meeting.

The faction of the opposition party loyal to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom have maintained that the protests over rising commodity prices were “youth-led”.

‘’I waited in the meeting until we could address the real issues, but they kept on criticising the government policy and some of the government projects,’’ Inaz told Minivan News. ‘’I did not want to have a heated political debate – we went there to negotiate with the youth regarding the dollar issues, not for a political debate.’’

Inaz claimed that the youth delegation included leader of the opposition-allied People’s Alliance (PA) sports wing, and two others he claimed were ‘’new political figures’’ created by senior party officials.

Inaz explained that government needs to find ways to increase its revenue.

‘’Currently 75 percent of the government’s revenue is spent on salaries. The government did try to decrease the salaries but other state institutions did not support the decision,’’ he said. ‘’There are other necessary things to do such as providing electricity, fix sewerage systems and supply water to those in need.’’

Spokesperson from the youth delegation, Mohamed Ahsan, said the delegation was unable to clarify information from the Finance Ministry as the minister left the meeting.

‘’However, the MMA officials were very cooperative,” he said. “We found out that the government have not been implementing the MMA’s suggestions to its full extent,’’ said Ahsan. ‘’The MMA clarified almost all the information we required.’’

He also said the finance minister “took it politically” because a PA member was present at the meeting.

‘’We have decided to recommence the protests, but due to exams we have temporarily delayed it,’’ he said. ‘’Once the examinations are over we will restart the protests.’’

A first round of negotiations held last week were described as “very upsetting” by the opposition’s Gayoom faction after the delegation accused President’s Office represenative Shauna Aminath of stating that the “political solution” to the country’s economic woes was the arrest for the former President.

Shauna did not comment on whether she had suggested Gayoom be arrested, and said the government was unable to officially respond to the delegation because it was unclear who they officially represented.

“We met with four people who claimed to represent youth,” she said. “They presented a piece of paper they said was a youth proposal, but there was almost no discussion of what was on it.

“They talked a little about youth unemployment, and the rising price of milk, cooking oil and petrol. They said that young people did not have enough money to pay for coffees or petrol for their motorbikes.”

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Chennai surgeons reconstruct jaw of Maldivian baby using ribs, genetically-engineered protein

Indian surgeons in Chennai have reconstructed the jaw of an 18-month old Maldivian baby after removing a large bone tumour from his face, in the first operation of its kind to be conducted in India.

India’s Deccan Chronicle newspaper reported that the “grotesque” tumour was removed during six hours of “gruelling” surgery at Chennai’s Balaji Dental and Craniofacial Hospital, during which time Mohemmed Salik’s lower jaw was reconstructed using three of his ribs, a titanium plane and “three sheets of an expensive genetically-engineered protein that promotes bone growth.”

Craniofacial surgeon S M Balaji told the Chronicle that the rare condition usually led to an operation when the child reached 15 years of age, “however this baby needed immediate surgery as the tumour threatened to permanently disfigure his face and block his nostrils and ear canals.”

The baby’s father, a businessman based in Dubai, told the newspaper that the rare and life-threatening bone disease had appeared when Mohemmed was eight months old, and quickly grown into a “hard balloon” that had disfigured his face and made it impossible for the infant to eat or talk.

Surgeons were reportedly apprehensive about the proceedure, especially given the patient’s age and small size of his blood vessels.

Dr Balaji explained that surgeons first removed a large part of Mohemmed’s upper jaw and then his entire diseased lower jaw, without making an external incision.

“We then harvested three ribs from the child and prepared it with Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP), that attracts stem cells to the area and promotes natural bone growth. The rib grafts were then implanted in the child’s mouth along with a titanium plate for support,” Dr Balaji told the Chronicle.

The newspaper added that six months after the operation, which took place in November last year, Mohemmed had a strong healthy jaw and would soon be fitted with an array of artificial milk teeth, most of which he lost in the operation, later to be replaced by a new set of permanent teeth.

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MMA’s enforcement of legal tender for all transactions “absurd”, says private sector

The private sector has expressed concern at the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)’s announcement last week that it it intends to enforce the use of rufiya for all transactions conducted in the country.

The move effectively outlaws dollar transactions in the Maldives, with the intention of funneling foreign currency through the local banking system in a bid to combat the country’s dollar shortage.

President Mohamed Nasheed backed the central bank’s move, and the prohibition of the use of any currency other than rufiya for payments including remuneration for work, services, fees or rent.

The ‘grey’ dollar economy has existed in parallel to the local currency, and has insulated businesses such as resorts from the inflation of the rufiya, pegged at 12.85 to the dollar for almost a decade despite the global economic recession, printing of currency and issuing of T-bills.

“This regulation has existed since 1987,” observed Ahmed Adheeb, a local financial expert working in the private sector, adding that the lack of enforcement had protected the private sector from the country’s monstrous deficit and spend-happy state budget.

The MMA’s announcement came at time when “the convertibility of rufiya [into dollars] is in question because of the deficit, and the pumping of rufiya into the system.”

“Is this the right time to enforce this regulation?” Adheeb asked. “We met with the government and told them clearly that that our industry will face a lot of consequences if this happens.”

Local travel agents were one example of businesses that would be affected, Adheeb said.

“They [earn dollars] and contribute a large inflow of dollars into the economy. If they have to pay resorts in rufiya, they will lose their competitive advantage.”

The enforcement would take “the openness and flexibility of out of the economy, when the real issue lies with the state budget,” he said. “This will make business so difficult – it is very dangerous to the economy for the government to start sorting out industry before the state budget. And what of the practicality of it?

“The government needs to address the deficit and cut down its expenditure. State income will increase gradually, but if we keep spending like this we are headed for disaster.”

Minivan News spoke to the manager of one import business, who relies on resort customers paying in dollars to be able to buy stock from overseas.

The MMA’s decision, he claimed, was “absolutely absurd.”

“They can do what they like – but does this mean resorts must pay in rufiya? At a time when there’s no currency stability? Will resorts have to post rufiya prices in tourist brochures? If the objective is to drive foreign investment out of the Maldives with a raft of new taxes and a confused and bizarre monetary policy, then they’re being quite successful,” he said.

Another manager of a commodity import business Minivan News spoke to bluntly stated that she would be unable to comply with the regulation “because we trade in dollars.”

She added that  her business, which banks locally and was sorely hit by the dollar shortage and the reluctance of banks to convert local currency, had improved following the government’s decision implement a managed float of the rufiya.

“We found resorts were more willing to pay in dollars once we set our rate at Rf15.42,” she explained. “But unless the banks are going to exchange rufiya to dollars consistently and at a sensible rate, this is going to cause absolute uproar. And how on earth are they going to police things like payment of rent?”

Economic Development Minister Mahmoud Razee told Minivan News that the government was “trying to make sure that foreign currency goes through the banking system, by enforcing the legal tender.”

“The reason we are doing this is so importers can go to the bank and request dollars from the banking system,” he said. “This will not stop people having a dollar account, it will just stop transactions not in the legal tender.”

Every restaurant at tourist resorts would be obliged to change its menu to rufiya prices, he acknowledged, “but almost every resort and hotel already has a money changer.”

“The MMA will be able to take action if there is a transaction that does not take place in legal tender, and take [the parties] to court,” he said.

The MMA’s announcement came days after the government announced exchange control regulation on the salary of expatriates, legally limiting their ability to transfer money outside the country.

“We don’t want a lot of illegal workers sending foreign currency out of the country, working on the side and taking jobs from locals,” Razee said, explaining that expatriate workers would be obliged to prove they were working in the country legally at the point of transfer, and be restricted in the amount they could send overseas.

“The Ministry of Finance will set a percentage, say 90 percent, of the salary that can be remitted,” he said.

Adheeb was critical of the decision, suggesting that the government had chosen a critical time to impose exchange control.

“We have said it is not going to work as we have a small population and we need foreigners to work here,” he said. “[Issues concerning] non-skilled labour are a problem of regulation, but importing skilled labour gives us a competitive advantage at a time when there are issues converting the rufiya,” he said.

“I question the practicality off this – the banks are currently struggling to deliver services to their existing customers. How will they know if an expat is an illegal expat? This will just create a blackmarket for illegal banking transactions.”

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Gamaadhoo human bones are 800 years old, claims Umar Naseer

The former deputy leader of the main opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has claimed that results of examinations made on human bones discovered inside Gamadhoo Prison show they “are over 800 years old.”

”Those bones were first taken to Thailand for investigation and [investigators] said they were over 800 years old,” said Naseer. ”Later the government sent the bones to America, where they also said the same.”

Umar said the investigation into the identity of the bones was now closed, ”but the government will never say that because they want to use it for political purposes.”

”This news is confirmed to be true, we have allies inside police as well as in Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF),” said Naseer, himself a former policeman.

He said the police and government “cannot deny this and if they did, they should show the report on the examinations.”

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam today said that police had been still unable to determine the age of the human bones found inside Gamadhoo Prison.

”We did send it abroad for forensic investigations,” Shiyam said. ”So far we have not been able to determine the age of those bones.”

He said that investigation was still ongoing and that details of the case that police were able to share had already been given to the media.

On September 2009, inmates in ”Asseyri jail” discovered human bones buried two feet underground while they were digging the area to plant trees.

The same year, the President’s Office asked police to investigate the discovery and samples of the 14 bone fragments were sent to Thailand for DNA analysis.

In October last year, President Mohamed Nasheed said Human bones discovered in the site of the former Gaamaadhoo prison matched the age and estimated period of death of Abdulla Anees, Vaavu Keyodhoo Bashigasdhosuge, an inmate officially declared missing in the 1980s.

Nasheed that time said that forensic examination has identified the age of the deceased, while a former prison guard, Mohamed Naeem, of Gaaf Dhaal Hoadhendhoo Muraka, has told the police investigation that Anees died in Gaamaadhoo prison.

President Nasheed spent three years in Gaamaadhoo prison for dissident journalism in opposition to the rule of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

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Uncertainty hinders investigation of Russian man’s sex assault claims

Police are investigating complaints that a 29-year old Russian national visiting the Maldives faced threats of sexual assault from an unidentified man he met online after coming to Male’ to work for him, despite claiming to have very limited details on the suspected attacker.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said that the claims made last week by the Russian national presented an unprecedented case in the country and that investigators still needed additional details on the exact nature of complaints made regarding the expatriate’s allegations.

“The alleged victim came to police to complain about an individual he said had invited him to Male’ for a job after befriending each other online. After saying he would find him job, it was claimed that the person attempted to sexually abuse the alleged victim,” he said. “He didn’t have much detail about the alleged assault attempt, but we have noticed that the Russian national has been speaking to local media outlets about this.”

Shiyam added that police were hoping to question the suspect as part of its investigations, but were not at present looking to make arrests as the case is claimed to still miss vital details about what exactly had happened.

“At the moment we are just working on reports, but the alleged victim does not know anything about the individual who invited him out,” he said. “We are not sure from our interview if the suspect is a local businessman or even a Maldivian national. However, the case could be serious and we are treating the investigation as such.”

Shiyam claimed that the police were themselves hoping to speak to the Russian national further regarding the alleged incident in order to try and clarify who the alleged attacker could be.

The Russian Embassy based in Sri Lanka, which overseas administrative affairs for its nationals coming to the Maldives, was unavailable to respond to Minivan News at the time of press regarding the investigation.

Resort case

Aside from the Russian national case, Shiyam said that police had concluded an investigation into an unrelated sexual assault case alleged to have occurred at the Shangri-La Vilingilli resort in Addu Atoll. Police today said they had since ended their investigations into the allegations without making arrests.

A female member of staff at the resort complained to police last week that she believed she may have been sexually assaulted by a fellow colleague after being taken back to her room having felt unwell upon consuming a drink.

After having conducted medical checks at a local hospital and investigations at the resort, Shiyam said that no charges had been pressed against the suspect.

“The alleged victim was unsure exactly what has happened herself and no arrests had been made as part of the investigation,” he said.

Shiyam said last week that the alleged victim, who worked at a bar on the resort, had reported feeling unwell after drinking an alcoholic drink and was helped to her room by another member of staff.

According to police, upon being returned to her room, the alleged victim claimed that she had not been unaware of any assault upon herself.

However, Shiyam said that other sources had later come forward to claim that some sexual activity was believed to have occurred in the room involving the alleged victim.

In addressing current police procedure regarding suspected cases of sexual assault, Shiyam claimed that police were trained to investigate in various ways; including taking alleged victims to hospital for medical examinations to identify any possible signs of rape.

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Comment: Politics plays king of the hill while world burns around the players

This article originally appeared on Patch.com, a US-based community news portal. Republished with permission.

When I stepped off the dhoni, or water taxi, onto the streets of Male, I was deafened by the unexpected silence.

Any other night in the capital city in the Republic of the Maldives, taxis and little gas scooters would be zipping down the main road, darting between pedestrians and disappearing down narrow streets toward the center of the island.

The island of Male is only two square miles and there are more than 100,000 permanent residents living in high, cramped apartments. Considering those numbers, there should have been Maldivians everywhere.

But there were no taxis, no scooters, and the only pedestrians were those who arrived with me on the dhoni. Everyone was in the town center for anti-government rallies organized by the youth in the capital.

I live in Imperial Beach [in the US] and am a regular contributor to Imperial Beach Patch, but for the last month I’ve been teaching English in the Maldives.

This is an account of a walk through anti-government protests I witnessed in Male’ last week.

Throngs of young dissenters, backed by the former ruling party the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (the Maldivian People’s Party, or DRP), had massed in the center of the island calling for President Mohamed Nasheed to step down.

The crimes protestors accused him of were numerous, from allowing ‘Western’ influence to permeate the traditional Islamic culture to allowing the rufiya, the Maldivian currency, to devalue.

The price of food and drinking water rose 20 percent over the course of the past two weeks, and whether all this could be blamed on President Nasheed seemed irrelevant.

This was the final straw for many young Maldivians. Enthusiastic calls for his resignation came like it has for other countries that recently experienced climbing food prices and instability around the world.

As I moved toward the city’s center, columns of Maldivian police in full riot gear jogged past, taking positions at major intersections and government buildings.

A long line of officers sat atop a stone wall outside the Grand Friday Mosque, their feet dangling like boys fishing off a pier. Riot shields were propped against cracked coral walls, batons hung from belt loops and tear gas canisters were strapped securely to the men and women of the city’s law enforcement.

Overlapping shields kept new protestors out of the intersection dissenters made their main soapbox. The previous night’s protests ended with the use of batons and fire extinguishers.

As a result, the police came under heavy criticism. To stem further controversy, the police decided they would only use high-pressure hoses to disperse the crowds once the morning light came.

The silence faded as I navigated between tall, colorful apartment buildings toward the city center. In the distance, I could hear chanting, yelling, sirens. With every few feet, the shouts became more intelligible and intense.

Men and women, predominantly young but of all ages, filled the intersection. A small group of men sat atop a flatbed truck flanked by speakers who shouted into megaphones, calling to the crowd in Dhivehi, first with a long stream of propaganda, then with back-and-forth chants. “Down with Nasheed”, and “Allahu Akbar” echoed off surrounding buildings as Maldivians threw their fists into the air with each chant.

Signs depicting the current president dressed as the pope bobbed among the throng, and crumpled paper copies of US dollar bills flew high into the air. Teenagers ran around in masks bearing Nasheed’s image, with blood running down from the vacant eyeholes.

It seemed like the entire island showed up.

A young Maldivian who approached me said they were upset about the spike in food and water prices. I told him I understand that, but asked what the crowd wanted the president to do to solve the problem.

After a moment of silence, the young man said, “We want him to hear us.”

The two-step of propaganda followed by chanting continued for an hour, with an occasional break in the propaganda to take time to sing the Youth Song, a Maldivian song of unity and inspiration. Everyone knew the words, and for a moment the mood shifted from that of a tense protest to that of an outdoor festival.

Shortly after they finished the song a student from my English class recognised me and struck up conversation.

Excitedly, he pointed to a group of men seated on the street. They were dissenting members of parliament, he said, and had been out there since the start of the protests. I was surprised by how vulnerable these politicians made themselves.

Minutes later I was interviewing a tall, steely-eyed parliamentarian, Ahmed Nishan of the DRP.

A circle of protestors formed around us to watch our conversation and attracted the Maldivian national news, who recorded part of our interview.

I asked him several times what his party thought the president could do to fix the problems created by the rising cost of food globally.

Each time I was met with a reiteration of some unrelated talking points.

After asking the same question as many different ways as I knew how, he finally told me his party and the youth didn’t have a solution — they just wanted the president to know how they felt, and are demanding a solution.

Nishan ended our interview by starting a raspy chant, calling once again for President Nasheed to step down from his position, even going so far as to call him a demon.

I rejoined my student following the spontaneous interview. He had received a call from another student, saying he saw me on the television during the interview. I laughed, surprised as he was concerning the events of the evening.

My student and I left the main mass of the protest to have a quick cup of coffee, during which we discussed Maldivian politics and possible solutions to the problems the protestors had with their current government.

Before long, we heard screams from the streets.

Members of the MDP were showing up in columns, out to oppose the DPR youth gathered in the intersection. After a tense standoff between the parties, members of the DPR rushed MDP supporters.

The crowd behind the DRP lurched forward in a great stampede. From the flanks, high feminine screams rang out and men toppled to the ground as others trampled over them. The brawl continued for several minutes, clearing after the retreat of the MDP supporters.

By now it was 2:00am. and the final boat back to my island was leaving in half an hour. I thanked my student for staying with me during the protest, and left the crowd to return to the dhonis.

I thought about all I saw, replaying the night in my head as the dhoni bobbed back toward my island.

In the real world, rarely can black and white lines be drawn to separate the good guys from the bad. In Syria and Libya as it was in Tunisia and Egypt, the population is oppressed and the government is corrupt. Those lines aren’t difficult to define.

In this tiny island nation, there were no lines, only vague demands and complaints with no solutions being offered from either of the two major political parties. Rising food costs were fuel to adversarial fire that had been burning for years between the MDP and the DRP.

The fight was more about power and less about solving problems. I wondered if this was the necessary endpoint of adversarial, two-party politics; a game of king of the hill while the world burns around the players.

Graig Graziosi is teaching English in the Maldives.

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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JSC abolishes complaints committee in name of efficiency

The Judicial Services Commission (JSC) has abolished its Complaints Committee citing “efficiency”, with complaints against judges now being forwarded for review by the legal section and Commission head Adam Mohamed.

Last year the JSC received 143 complaints concerning the conduct of judges. By its own statistics none were tabled in the commission, and only five were ever replied to.

Chair of the former complaints commission, the President’s Member of the JSC Aishath Velezinee who was stabbed in the street in January this year, said the complaints committee had been unable to operate as the chair had persistently scheduled meetings “during the same days and hours as the committee meetings, and it came to the point where it was impossible for the committee to meet and work.”

“Several members including Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Afrashim Ali also boycotted the meetings making it difficult for the committee to function,” Velezinee said, claiming that no procedure had been followed in abolishing the committee, and intention was to stop complaints against judges from being investigated.

“The JSC recently adopted house rules, which gives extraordinary powers to the chair. The chair decides whether to table complaints, routinely withholds information from the Commission and responds [to complaints] himself,” she said.

The JSC has failed to table or even acknowledge receipt of a report on the judiciary produced by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), which questioned whether the JSC’s possessed the technical ability and knowledge to investigate complaints and hold the judiciary accountable, as well as its independence.

The opposition-majority parliament has meanwhile yet to back the government’s request that the Maldives join the International Criminal Court (ICC), of which half the world’s nations are members. Velezinee has previously accused certain opposition MPs of manipulating the judiciary through JSC in an attempt to retain control of the legal impunity provided them under the previous government’s Ministry of Justice.

Central to the International Criminal Court’s mandate “is the principle of complementarity, which holds that the Court will only intervene if national legal systems are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,” the ICC’s international NGO coalition said in a statement.

“Perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity must be held accountable. Greater support for the ICC in Asia is needed in order to increase the region’s commitment to the fight against impunity. The Coalition therefore encourages Maldives to assert its commitment to ending the culture of impunity by acceding to the Rome Statute of the ICC.”

Parliament has meanwhile been deliberating on an amendment to the Clemency Act whereby death sentences issued by judges would be acted upon when all appeals failed. The last person be judicially executed in the Maldives was Hakim Didi in 1953, who was executed by firing squad after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder using black magic.

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Suspect in Sheereen murder case sentenced to 10 years on drug charges

A suspect in the murder case of 30 year-old Maryam Sheereen has been to sentenced 10 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of drug offences by the Criminal Court.

The court verdict read that on January 8 2009, police officers arrested Mohamed Najah and found illegal narcotics in his possession during a search of his person.

Najah’s urine also tested positive to benzodiazepine and opiates, the court stated, sentencing him to five years for possession of illegal narcotics and five years for use of illegal narcotics.

Sheereen’s murder case is still pending in the Criminal Court and will soon conclude. If found guilty, Najah will likely face the death penalty.

Heirs of Sheereen were recently summoned to the court to ask if they had any objections to the execution of Najah if he was found guilty, none of whom did.

According to the Penal Code if a person is found guilty of murder, Shariah law must be applied and the murderer must to be sentenced to death if no heir of the victim has an objection.

Evidence including video footage, phone recordings, DNA samples and testimony from both the taxi driver who unwittingly carried a suit case containing Sheereen’s body and a man who lived in the same apartment as the pair has been presented to the court by the prosecution. Sheereen was found dead under a stack of cement bags a construction site in Male’.

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