Category: Society & Culture

Civil Court may summon High Court Chief Justice and Majlis Speaker as witnesses in JSC negligence case

The Civil Court is considering whether or not to summon High Court Chief Justice Abdul Ghani Mohamed and Majlis Speaker Abdull Shahid to give evidence in the ongoing professional negligence case against the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

The Civil Court may also summon Interim Civil Service Commission Chair, Dr Mohamed Latheef and former Attorney General Husnu Suood in relation to the same matter.

The request to have Chief Justice Ghani summoned to give evidence in court came from the JSC. It wants the court to accept Chief Justice Ghani’s oral testimony in place of the written evidence it was required, but failed, to submit to court today.

The remaining potential witnesses, Speaker of the Majlis Abdulla Shahid, Interim Civil Service Commission Chair, Dr Mohamed Latheef and former Attorney General Husnu Suood may be summoned at the behest of Treasure Island Limited, which is suing the JSC for professional negligence.

Civil Court Judge Mariyam Nihayath had given JSC until today to provide documentary evidence to show that it followed proper procedures in deciding not investigate three complaints made by Treasure Island against former Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy and Judge Ali Naseer.

JSC Legal Representative Andul Faththah told the court today that he could not find the required documents. He asked the court to accept instead the oral testimony of Chief Justice Ghani, then Chair of the JSC.

The Constitution and JSC regulations both require that any decision regarding complaints of misconduct against the judiciary has the support of the majority of its ten members. The JSC is also required to keep a record of the members present and how they voted at the meeting.

Treasure Island has alleged that this procedure was not followed by the JSC in dealing with its complaints. Arbitrary and partial decision-making processes, it alleges, prevents the JSC from performing its constitutional duty to ensure “equal justice for all”.

A letter dated August 2009 and signed by Chief Justice Abdul Ghani, then JSC Chair, said in reply to one of Treasure Island’s complaints that the allegations were beyond the remit of the JSC and required no further investigation.

Judge Nihayath asked the JSC for the agenda and minutes of the meeting at which the decision was taken not to investigate the Treasure Island complaints any further.

JSC Legal Representative Abdul Faththah said today there was no such evidence to give to the court. This did not mean, however, he said, that no procedure was followed at all. “It was a different procedure then.”

The “different procedure” he explained, was one in which the JSC Chair pre-screened all the complaints from “an administrative perspective” to verify whether they were complaints that fit within the remit of the JSC.

“If the complaints were more to do with administration – such as a complaint against a long delay in cases being heard or listed”, Faththah said, “the matter would not be taken any further”.

The “administrative decision” taken by the Chair, he said, “saved time, and allowed members to concentrate on the important matters, and their constitutional duties.”

Chief Justice Ghani’s oral testimony will prove to the court the JSC did have a procedure in place, Faththah said. It would, he also said, negate the allegations that JSC made arbitrary decisions regarding complaints it received.

Judge Nihayath said she will decide at the next hearing on 21 December 2010 whether or not any or all of the potential witnesses would be required by the court.

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Comment: Religious tolerance in Muslim history

This article originally appeared on the website of Idris Tawfiq. Republished with permission.

Religious intolerance has become too much a part of modern life. It is a fact of life, though, that good people, of whatever faith, do not poke fun or try to insult one another’s religion.

On the contrary, we find that real people of faith are keen to get to know each other better and to learn from each other. Goodness, wherever it is to be found, comes from God. Where else would it come from?

We should never feel threatened by goodness. It is only a threat to us when our own faith is weak or lukewarm and it shows up our own shortcomings.

Since the very beginning, Islam has taught respect for the beliefs of others. We see it in the teaching and the practice of Islam right through history. Indeed, it is the sign of a Muslim that he or she respects the religion of others, and their Books and their Prophets. Those who teach otherwise, Muslim or not, are distorting the message of Islam.

Muslims are no more or less perfect than anyone else. They believe, though, that the message they follow is a perfect message and is meant for the whole of mankind. Islam is perfect and it has existed since the beginning of time.

Whilst some Muslims, throughout history, have not always lived up to the beauty of its message, Islam itself has nothing whatever to be ashamed of.

It is an absolute basic belief of Islam, though, that people of other religions should be free to believe whatever they wish. In the Quran, which Muslims believe to be the word of God, we read:

Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from error: Whoever rejects Satan and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy handle, that never breaks, and Allah heareth and knoweth all things. (Al-Baqarah 2:256)

In another place, Allah says:

Wilt thou (Muhammad) then compel mankind, against their will, to believe?] (Yunus 10:99)

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) lived side by side with Jews and polytheists. In Madinah, he made treaties with both, guaranteeing their freedom of religion and joining with them in a pact to defend the city.

It was not that they were Jews or polytheists that made the Muslims eventually fight them, but because they broke the terms of the treaty and sided with the enemy which was attacking the city.

It is, in fact, one of the hallmarks of the way Prophet Muhammad dealt with others, believers and non-believers, that he would listen very carefully to what they had to say, and he would ask, “Have you finished?” before giving an answer.

He set the bench mark very high by showing Muslims that if they engage in dialogue, they must listen with great respect.

When the second of the four rightly guided Caliphs, Umar ibn Al-Khattab, entered Jerusalem in 638 AD, he entered the city on foot, out of respect for the holiness of the place.

His first action was to clear the rubble and the debris from the area of Al-Aqsa Mosque and to cleanse the whole sight with rose water.

There was no bloodshed. There was no slaughter. Unlike the slaughter of 70,000 men, women and children which accompanied the arrival of the Crusaders in 1099, the Muslims entered the city peacefully, signing a treaty with the Patriarch Sophronius, which guaranteed their rights to worship, their lives and their property.

The Patriarch, no doubt acting upon his lived experience in the city, asked that no Jews be allowed to live in Jerusalem. Salah Al-Din, known as Saladin in the West, lifted this injunction when he retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187.

Those who wished to leave were guaranteed their safety. Those who wished to remain were allowed to do so.

In fact, allowing religious minorities to live within the Muslim state would be a test of how faithful the Muslims were to their high calling as a “mercy to mankind”.

Prophet Muhammad said,

He who unfairly treats a non-Muslim who keeps a peace treaty with Muslims, or undermines his rights or burdens him beyond his capacity, or takes something from him without his consent; then I am his opponent on the Day of Judgment. (Abu Dawud)

There is a period in the history of Islam which is lovingly known to Muslims as the Golden Age of Islam. This was the period of the Muslims in southern Spain, which lasted for centuries.

During this time, Christians and Jews held high office in the royal court. It was only when the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, retook the Muslim cities in the south that mosques and synagogues were burned down and Muslims and Jews were either expelled or forced to convert.
Mehmet II officially recognized Patriarch Gennadius II as leader of the Orthodox peoples throughout the Ottoman Empire following the capture of Constantinople in 1453.

In the same year, he granted to the leader of the Jewish community (the Chief Rabbi) the title “Hahambasha”, or Chief Wise Man. Both actions show the respect for other faiths which was to symbolize the Ottoman rule.

We have only to look at Palestine under the Ottoman Empire, to see that this was the greatest period when the region knew peace. Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together happily in the holy city of Jerusalem.

Finally, a word of hope in our own day from the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. Some weeks after the Israeli attack on Gaza in January 2009, there was a rise in anti-Semitic attacks and hate crimes in many countries.

In Edinburgh, the synagogue of the United Hebrew Congregation was attacked by vandals, allegedly protesting against the war on Gaza. The response from the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, Scotland’s largest umbrella organisation for Muslims, was swift: “We will guard the synagogue for you”, they said, if it proved too difficult for the Jewish community to do so.

What better example can we give of Muslim attitudes to other faiths than that? The Muslims of Scotland were prepared to guard the synagogue of the Jewish community.

Muslims believe that God (Allah) is the Lord of all people on earth. He is not just the God of the Muslims. Because of this, Muslims have a very great responsibility to act with justice and kindness to all those who have not yet come to the fullness of truth, which Muslims believe was revealed in the message of Islam.

Muslims have a responsibility to teach the world about Islam. In the Quran we read:

Thus We have made of you a nation justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger a witness over yourselves. (Al-Baqarah 2:143)

Religious intolerance has no place in our world. Muslims and others should know that it has no place in Islam, either.

Idris Tawfiq is a British Muslim writer and broadcaster. He visited the Maldives to speak in July on invitation from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

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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First vet in the Maldives seeks national animal health act

Authorities in the Maldives are currently working with international parties including as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to try and prepare a national animal health act in the nation, a recently appointed veterinary expert working in the country has said.

Dr Jeewaranga Dharmawardane, a Sri Lankan veterinarian of some 30 years experience who came to the Maldives two months ago,  told Minivan News that alongside tending to the nation’s beloved and not-so-beloved pets such as cats and birds, he is also helping to oversee new regulation in relation to national standards on keeping animals.

According to Dharmawardane, who now acts as a veterinarian for the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, the draft bill will outline a legal framework for protecting and maintaining animal health that does not currently exist in the Maldives.  The vet claimed that these laws could also form a part of wider overhauls to help the country meet its potential for agricultural production in the country both in terms of livestock as well as producing manure that can aid crop quality.

“In the times to com, imports to the country have to be reduced,“ he said.  “The government hopes to be self sufficient [in terms of supplying its agricultural needs] by between 15 to 20 percent in the next two to three years.”

Dharmawardane said that the ministry is also looking to establish quarantine and monitoring services at Maldivian seaports for animals being bought in and transported around the country.

“It will possibly take a few months to establish this,” he said.

After decades of working in veterinary and research fields within the Sri Lankan civil service, Dharmawardane now works with the Maldivian Agricultural Ministry travelling consulting on animal health either in homes, or at the country’s small number of farms.

So far he said that he had visited “three to four islands” outside of Male’, but would travel where the ministry required him to visit.

The government veterinarian added that he “didn’t see many differences in the type of animals” that were being kept as between Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

“In the last two months Maldivians have contacted me in regards to problems within their pets, as well as concerns for goats and some on poultry,” he said.

“The types of animals have generally been quite conventional, except of course there are no dogs.”

Alongside his own experiences, Dharmawardane added that the ministry also employed a specialist microbiologist to provide laboratory assistance.

Dharmawardane said that he did not have a veterinary practice as of yet to deal with individual concerns on animal health, but worried Maldivian pet owners could contact the Ministry of Agriculture for further assistance or possible consultation on 3322625.

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Israeli flag burnings and ‘sit-together’ marks tale of two protests on International Human Rights Day

Protests erupted across Male’ over the weekend that saw the burning of Israeli flags and calls to “ban all Israeli medical teams” from practicing in the Maldives, alongside a “silent-sit together” against so-called “religious extremism”.

Protesters burned several Israeli flags in Republican Square and demanded the deportation of seven visiting Israeli eye surgeons, who are holding free eye camps in Male’ and the island hospitals.

Protesters gathered near the tsunami monument on International Human Rights Day, claiming that “Jews would not provide any form of assistance, unless there is a hidden agenda”, according to the website of the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives.

The religious NGO has previously called on the government to “shun all medical aid from the Zionist regime”, alleging the Israeli surgeons “have become notorious for illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.”

Religious NGO Jamiyyathusalaf has also called on the government to provide citizens with military training “before Jews take over the country”.

President Mohamed Nasheed today met with the doctors the Israeli ‘Eye from Zion’ NGO and said “a vast majority of Maldivians” appreciated the humanitarian work of the doctors.

The doctors “expressed their appreciation for the warm hospitality they received in the Maldives”, according to a statement from the President’s Office, and “also noted that there was a great demand for their services in the Maldives.”

Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Mohamed Didi, said there had been “no discussions” in the Ministry regarding the anti-Israel protests.

“We are not saying anything for or against the protest action taken this week,” he said.

Didi added that the Foreign Ministry was “more involved in state humanitarian projects and inter-faith charity work than the Islamic Ministry.”

“The major roles of the ministry are to raise Islamic awareness and bring scholars from different countries to visit,” he said.

Coinciding with protests opposing the visit of Israeli doctors, the Islamic Foundation published allegations on its website that only two of the seven visiting surgeons from Eye from Zion had at the time been granted licenses by the Maldives Medical Council (MMC).

An MMC spokesperson was reported as claiming that certificates produced by the seven-member Eye from Zion medical staff were not carrying official stamps. However, the spokesperson added that all the surgeons would be able to receive licenses to operate upon clarification of their legitimacy by the Israeli government.

Meanwhile,  a group of 30 Maldivians gathered near the artificial beach on Friday, up the road from the anti-Israel protest occurring at the tsunami monument, holding what they called a “silent sit-together” on International Human Rights Day.

Members at the gathering said they were attempting to oppose wider concerns over growing “religious extremism” in the country.

“Displaying a stark contrast to the loud truck and motorcycle cavalcade of religious conservatives who were protesting against Israeli doctors around the same time by announcing anti-Semitic messages through loud speakers, the youth that participated in the sit-down took a decidedly fresh approach towards protest,” a press release from the sit-together’s members claimed.

“The silent sit-together, conspicuous by the absence of any banners, megaphones, or sloganeering, aimed to send the message that youth are against religious extremism and supported Human Rights, Tolerance and Dignity for all humans.”

People participating in the protest said they were trying to start a “grassroots” movement against religious extremism, but did not wish to give their identities.

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Maldives helpline “a great achievement”: Child Helpline International

The Maldives’ Child Helpline represents “a great achievement” for the country after a year of operation, says Amrita Singh, Program Manager Asia Pacific Region for Child Helpline International (CHI).

CHI is an international network of telephone helplines and outreach services for children and young people across 150 countries.  The network has been involved in setting up the Maldives helpline since its inception in 2007. Singh visited the helpline at the Department of Family and Gender last week.

“The quality of the intervention is high, and the follow-up [of cases] is very high,” she noted. “There’s a good average number of calls and a steady stream of cases, and lot of calls seeking information. There’s also been a lot of prank calls, but in the Helpline world that’s a natural way for children to try out the helpline. One of the goals is to convert silent calls to an intervention call.”

Government support and the involvement of a telecom partner (Dhiraagu) from the outset were key factors behind the success of the Maldives’ Child Helpline in its formative year, Singh said. Child Helplines in many other countries are the initiative of civil society NGOs, and often have to fight for government backing.

“Best practice is to partner with a telecommunications company, otherwise a fee has to be paid for each call,” Singh explained. “It works best when there is a partnership model – so it’s not just one body involved but the government, UN agency, NGO and police.”

A successful Helpline served as an entry point for a child into a country’s child protection system, she explained, while the data obtained and collated from similar services worldwide gave children a valuable voice.

The Maldives’ helpline still had the occasional connectivity issue – common in the formative years of a Child Helpline, according to Singh – and “needs to identify [and reach] more children who don’t know about the helpline.”

“There’s a lot of potential for things like SMS and online counselling,” Singh suggested, adding that marketing efforts had to strike a balance between the efficacy and the capacity of the service.

The Maldives Child Helpline has received 2181 calls since it was launched in November 2009, approximately six every day. Of these calls, 72 led to intervention or assistance, while 371 were requests for information. 227 were silent, 470 were pranks, 779 were blank and 212 were listed as unclassified.

Of the calls which led to intervention, approximately half involved physical, sexual or emotional abuse of a child, or neglect, observed Munzir Ismail, consultant at the Department of Family and Gender.

“There were also some runaways. We worked to restore the children to their family and work on improving the relationships,” he said.

Most of the calls had come from Male’, he said, and that the centre’s planned annual capacity of 2,500 was on target to be met.

The blank calls, Munzir noted, involved either connectivity issues or a hesitance on behalf of the child to speak to the helpline operator – “in these cases the operator encourages them to call back when they feel ready, to try and build a relationship with the child.”

The 24 hour toll-free Maldives Child Helpline is available on 1412.

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Maldives disputes allegations of US “climate bribe” to support Copenhagen Accord

The Maldivian government has hit back at allegations of “climate bribery” in international media this week, disputing claims that it pushed for US$50 million assistance from the US government in exchange for uneqivocally backing the Copenhagen Accord.

A leaked US diplomatic cable detailing an exchange between the Maldives Ambassador to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed and US Deputy Climate Change Envoy Jonathan Pershing on February 23, 2010, was described as a “diplomatic dance” by the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

“Ghafoor referred to several projects costing approximately US$50m. Pershing encouraged him to provide concrete examples and costs in order to increase the likelihood of bilateral assistance,” the Guardian quoted from the cable.

In response to growing criticism – including several questions on the subject directed at President Mohamed Nasheed during his appearance on BBC Hardtalk, the Maldivian government today released several diplomatic documents it claimed “show that the country pledged its support to the Copenhagen Accord unilaterally and without reservations on 19 December 2009, just hours after the climate change negotiations concluded in the Danish capital.”

In a letter dated December 19, 2009, Dr Shaheed writes to the Executive Secretary for the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) to “confirm that the Maldives supports and associates itself with the Copenhagen Accord of 18 December 2009.”

In a second letter, dated January 29, 2010, Dr Shaheed again writes to the Executive Secretary stating that “the Maldives’ submission of its mitigation actions is voluntary and unconditional. However we do wish to state, on the record, that the Maldives will be seeking international support for implementation, and that, at such a tie as we do, we are happy for our request to be recorded in the registry and for our mitigation actions to be internationally measured, reported and verified.”

In a statement released yesterday, Dr Shaheed dismissed as “smear” allegations “by some parties” that the Maldives had said it would only sign the Copenhagen Accord in exchange for US$50 million in assistance, and that the release of the letters was “in the interests of full disclosure” to prove that the Maldives supported the Copenhagen Accord on its own merits.

“In fact the Maldives was actively lobbying other parties, including the US, to associate with the Accord. Not the other way around,” Dr Shaheed said. “President Nasheed spent many hours late at night in the final Heads of State meeting which negotiated the Copenhagen Accord, working with other leaders to try to avoid a total collapse of the negotiations and to ensure that the interests of small island and vulnerable countries were protected.

“Having been so intimately involved in negotiating the document, it was natural that the Maldives signed up to the Accord immediately after the Copenhagen negotiations ended.”

The Maldives had led a “diplomatic offensive” to urge other countries to sign the Accord, Dr Shaheed noted. “To suggest, therefore, that the US somehow paid-off the Maldives to support the Accord defies all logic.”

“Some people are trying to spin this non-story into a scandal in order to undermine the progressive voices of small island states such as the Maldives,” he added.

“We are seeking to play a bridging role between rich and poor nations in the interests of getting a deal that will save our countries from a watery grave. But not everyone supports this effort.”

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Scotland partners with Maldives to assess marine energy potential

Scotland and the Maldives have announced a partnership to assess the island nation’s potential to develop wave, tidal and ocean thermal sources of renewable energy.

Marine energy remains relatively unexploited compared to the present adoption of wind and solar, but has significant advantages over the latter two in that ocean water movements are massive, predictable and consistent. The geological structure of the Maldives’ atolls and the country’s strong currents make it a natural candidate for the technology.

However large installations can impact currents and the ecosystems in which they are placed, are expensive and technologically nascent, and limited to certain sites.

Wave energy harnesses the kinetic energy of moving water to power an underwater turbine, feeding energy into a generator, and are generally used for small-scale applications.

Tidal energy, in contrast, traps water in a reservoir at high tide and then drains it through a turbine much like a hydroelectric dam. This requires a large difference between high and low tides and is location-specific, but can be deployed on a large-scale – one such plant in France powers 240,000 homes.

Ocean thermal energy generation meanwhile exploits the temperature differences between different ocean depths (surface temperatures are warmer due to the sun) to generate energy, but is comparatively expensive and requires advanced engineering.

Scotland is regarded as a world leader in both potential for and adoption of both wave and tidal power generation technology, with 10 agreements signed this year to produce a potential 1.2GW – enough power for 700,000 homes.

Under the agreement signed with the Maldives, Scotland’s Robert Gordon University will conduct an assessment of the wave, tidal and ocean thermal potential of the Maldives

The £48,000 (US$76,000) study will report in 2011 and lead to a joint exploitation of the resources by the two countries, supported by the European Union’s Support to Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Maldives Fund, administered by the World Bank.

Maldives Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam said that as an island nation spread over a thousand kilometres of ocean, “I believe marine renewables hold enormous potential to make the Maldives an international energy leader in the zero-carbon economy of the future.

“If the Maldives can demonstrate that low carbon development is not just practical but also profitable, we hope larger countries will follow suit.”

Chairman of the Energy Technology Partnership, Professor Jim McDonald, an alliance of Scottish universities working on the project, he believed that the Maldives “has a significant potential marine energy resource and we look forward to contributing our world-class expertise to this project and delivering real value to both countries from this collaboration.”

Scottish Energy Minister Jim Mather noted that Scotland was at the forefront of developing the technology, as well as possessing a quarter of Europe’s wave [energy generation] potential, and with “significant planned investment in the sector”.

“This study is a most effective way to help the Maldives and let Scotland play its part in the urgent global need to move to a low carbon economy,” Mather said.

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Piracy and the Maldives: special report

The Maldives territorial waters are regarded worldwide as a beautiful and popular setting for desert island holidays, but though the country is about 1,800 miles from the volatile coastlines of Somalia, the island nation is increasingly concerned about becoming the target of potential pirate attacks.

Maritime protection experts and European diplomats linked to coastal security around Somalia have told Minivan News that the Maldives has the potential to become a target for pirate vessels, forced away from African waters as a result of political upheaval and maritime security crackdowns.

Although there is no evidence from Maldivian security officials that national interests have been threatened so far, fears have grown over maritime security and possible acts of piracy in Maldivian waters.

In light of these security concerns, the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) has said it is working alongside the Indian Navy as part of an ongoing collaboration to patrol the country’s territorial waters in attempts to prevent “terrorist acts” such as piracy that it has claimed are a “central concern” to the nation’s maritime security.

MNDF Major Abdul Raheem said he was concerned by the threat of possible attacks on “cargo ships within Maldivian waters by Somali terrorists”.

Several incidents of Somali nationals arriving in the Maldives in dinghies becoming lost at sea were reported during the 2010.

Two days (November 28) after the taking of the Malaysian vessel Albedo, a dinghy containing seven Somali nationals was brought ashore after it was discovered in Gnaviyani Atoll. The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) discovered a bullet shell during a search of the vessel.

On November 30, a second dinghy containing three Somali nationals was discovered by a Maldivian fishing near Thinadhoo in Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll.

The captain of the fishing boat, Mohamed Hussain, told Minivan News that one of the men had a stab wound in his neck and was seriously injured.

Such incidents have led to allegations that piracy originating in Africa may have reached the Indian Ocean – suspicions that are yet to be proven beyond circumstantial evidence.

Raheem confirmed that the MNDF has yet to uncover any terrorist acts having been conducted by Somali nationals or any other groups linked to piracy in its territorial waters, but added that the authorities remained “on alert”.

As part of joint operations with the coastguard and Indian Navy, Raheem told Minivan News that special patrols are being conducted in the Maldives territorial waters frequently in an attempt to try and preempt acts of piracy or terrorism in a country that is 99 percent sea. “We have not set a date when we will stop these operations, they are still continuing,” he said.

A European diplomat familiar with the EU’s anti-piracy policy around Somalia said that some attacks by Somali pirates had occurred within 300 miles of the Indian coast and that there was a trend for some of these groups to move further away from Africa and deeper into the Indian Ocean.

“We believe that this trend is due to the fact that the pirates are following the vessels – as merchant ships increase their distance from Somalia in order to feel ‘safer’, the pirates follow them resulting in attacks much farther east than ever before,” she said.

As merchant ships have increased their distance from Somalia in search of “safer” transport routes, European defence experts believe that pirates operating from the country have followed in pursuit.

“The pirates will follow the prey,” she explained. “If they can find vessels in or around the Maldives, they will probably attempt to pirate them.”

On a strategic level, the diplomat added that there was “no reason why attacks would not take place in the vicinity of the Maldives”.

Taking the Seychelles as an example – the country is closer to Somalia than the Maldives – she suggested that any pirates contemplating attacking the Maldives would follow a similar pattern.

However, the Seychelles coastguard in collaboration with the European Union Naval Force Somalia (EUNAVFOR), which under the Operation Atalanta military programme has aimed to try and limit the growth and scale of Somali piracy, has recorded some successes.

“Coordinated action can disrupt attacks but there is simply too much money and reward involved to deter attacks significantly,” she said.

From an EU perspective, restricting pirates’ “freedom of manoeuvre” is a major preventative measure, helping to ensure persecution and imprisonment for any individuals caught performing acts of piracy. The adoption of so-called Best Management Practices (BMP) by individual ships could also be adopted by Maldivian vessels wherever possible to further reduce possible attacks through security measures and evasive manoeuvres, according to European officials.

More information on BMP practices can be found here.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/3-toxic-waste-behind-somali-pirates/

Instability on land

The European diplomat said that the current piracy problems emanating from Somalia were the result of instability on land, an area she said EU mandated training missions were being focused to try and better train Somali forces for protection.

Tim Hart, a security analyst specialising in piracy originating from the Horn of Africa for the Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants (MUSC), agreed that despite the implications piracy has on the oceans, its origins and solutions remained a landlocked issue.

“Piracy stems from problems on land and will not be stopped until this is tackled,” he said. “Traditional reasons [for piracy] usually extend from strong maritime communities and lack of law and order on land.”

Hart said that from his experience, Somalia was a nation with a “perfect storm of factors” such as a strong proximity to shipping lanes and proliferation of weapons that had contributed to an “extremely high level” of piracy stemming from the country.

With popular shipping routes moving increasingly eastwards from Somalia due to concerns over the dangers of sailing around the Horn of Africa, Hart claimed historical evidence has shown pirates follow these routes, which may in turn have led to the current concerns being expressed in the Maldives.

“Somali pirates have shown over the last few years that they are prepared to move thousands of miles from the coast to target rich environments,” he said. “The Maldives has a popular route for vessels transiting from the Gulf of Aden to the Far East and also for vessels transiting to the Far East from the Middle East.”

As a business, Hart said piracy has originally stemmed from local Somali groups taxing foreign fisherman illegally working within Somali waters and then hijacking their vessels for ransom.

Early successes led the pirates to become more ambitious in terms of the size of vessels they were targeting, Hart added, with the result that by 2008, the numbers of Somali people turning to piracy for survival or profit “exploded”.

This growth in numbers also saw a correspondingly large area being affected by the country’s piracy.

“In 2008 [piracy] was mostly limited within the Gulf of Aden area,” he said. “It moved further into the Indian Ocean in 2009 and in 2010 it has expanded even further east so that in the last 7-14 days, the majority of the attacks have been around 69-70 E – only a few hundred miles from the Maldives.”

As any expanding global business, Hart explained that piracy has become “a huge industry” for Somalia due to being “extremely lucrative.”

“The increase in the number of Somalis involved – represented by an increased amount of groups that operate as well as vessels held at any one time – shows that [piracy] still holds a great attraction for the Somalis,” he explained. “And there is still not a sufficient deterrent to prevent pirate groups from operating.”

Responding to ongoing patrols and the special operations being conducted by Maldives defence forces and the Indian Navy, Hart said that by taking the example of similar military commitments in the Gulf of Aden, such preventative measures had been found to effective in deterring the likelihood of piracy.

Nonetheless, with an apparent expansion into the Indian Ocean and other maritime areas, anti-piracy resources were being stretched to their limits.

“A comparison that is often made [to preventing piracy] is that it is like trying to ‘police the US/Canada border with a scooter’. The area [involved] is larger than the size of mainland Europe. However, when combined with effective onboard measures, pirate effectiveness has decreased in the last 12 months.”

Rob from the rich

While the extraordinary profitability of piracy has led to a surge in the practice – largely driven by the willingness of shipping companies (and their insurers) to pay the ransoms and get on with business, the root cause of the problem is perhaps more socioeconomic than mercenary.

Somali pirates, when captured and questioned, claim that the stealing of fish by giant trawlers and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in their territorial waters has left them little choice but to turn to piracy.

Their claims are not without some merit: in 2003-2004, the UK’s Department for International Development estimates that Somalia – one of the poorest countries in the world – lost  US$100 million dollars in revenue to the illegal fishing of tuna and shrimp by foreign-owned trawlers.

As for the pirates’ claims that toxic waste was being dumped in the country’s EEZ following the collapse of the government in 1991, evidence emerged in 2004 following the tsunami when the rusting containers washed up on the coast of northern Somalia.

This side of the piracy debate – that the rise in Somali piracy was fermented by a decade of abuse by the developed world – was reported by Project Censored as the third most under-reported story of 2010.

“There is uranium radioactive (nuclear) waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes—you name it,” United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) spokesman Nick Nuttall told Al Jazeera.

As a result, “hundreds of [Somalis] have fallen ill, suffering from mouth and abdominal bleeding, skin infections and other ailments.”

“What is most alarming here is that nuclear waste is being dumped. Radioactive uranium waste that is potentially killing Somalis and completely destroying the ocean,” he said.

The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, revealed that private companies were paying corrupt government ministers and even militia leaders to dump the waste, but that even this token reciprication had disappeared with the demise of the country’s government.

Following these revelations, the European Green Party released copies of contracts signed by two European companies, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso, with Somali warlords detailing the exchange of 10 million tonnes of toxic waste for US$80 million.

Nuttall notes that disposal of such waste in Europe costs US$1000 a tonne. Somali warlords, in contrast, were willing to accept as little as US$2.50 a tonne.

As a result – and perhaps unsurprisingly – piracy enjoys the widespread support of the Somali population – even across fractious tribal and ethic boundries. Project Censored points to a survey conducted by independent Somalia news site WardherNews, which fond  that 70 percent of the population “strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.”

In an article for the UK’s Independent newspaper, journalist Johann Hari claims “You are being lied to about pirates”.

“Do we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about ‘evil.’

“If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause – our crimes – before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.”

It could be that Maldivians – contending with rising sea levels potentially exacerbated by the industrialisation of the developed world – have more in common with the Somalis washing up on their islands than they may think.

It could be that Somali fishermen are battling their own set of man-made environmental problems – successfully and profitably – with the only means left to them.

“It is said that acts of piracy are actually acts of desperation, and, as in the case of Somalia, what is one man’s pirate is another man’s Coast Guard,” writes Mohamed Abshir Waldo, of Somalia Wardheer News.

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Aircraft collision not a major incident, says Civil Aviation Department

A collision that occurred yesterday between a Maldivian Air Taxi seaplane and another aircraft at Male’ International Airport resulted in no injuries or major damage, the country’s Civil Aviation Department has said, claiming it has no concerns over the safety of the aircraft.

Hussein Jaleel, Deputy Director General for the Civil Aviation Department that oversees airline regulation, said it had been made aware of a collision yesterday, which it downplayed as a minor accident involving the wingtip of an aircraft colliding with another aircraft that was not seen as “a major safety concern.”

“There was a collision yesterday involving a Maldivian Air Taxi aircraft, but it was actually not a serious incident,” Jaleel said. “No person was injured and no damage was recorded to the aircraft that could affect flight operations.”

Local newspaper Haveeru reported that the seaplane collided with the wing of an aircraft taking-off from Hulhule, at 6:30am while it was approaching the water runway.

The official, however, said the number of passengers and the cause of the accident could not be identified yet, as a full report has not been filed so far.

“We receive urgent reports only if it is a serious accident. So it will take some time to receive reports of minor accidents,” the official said.

MAT Ground Operations Manager, Inthikaab Ahmed said he was not aware of any accidents.

A spokesperson for airline operator Maldivian Air Taxi told Minivan News that there had not been any reports of an accident or minor collision in the company’s fleet, a track record they claimed has not changed for some time.

When asked about the Civil Aviation Department claims, the company spokesperson said its management had not been informed of any incidents with its vehicles and it had no idea where the information had came from.

“We [Maldivian Air Taxi] have had no accidents in the last few years, maybe even longer,” said the spokesperson. “There have not been any collisions.”

Regardless of whether the accident reported was a serious or a minor collision, Jaleel said Civil Aviation Department regulations required an investigation into any accident. However he added that “no further reports would be required” in relation to yesterday’s incident.

“We have no issues that the accident was the result of negligence, though if we ever have any serious concerns relating to safety issues then we would of course take action,” he added.

The Civil Aviation Department claimed it therefore remained confident of the effectiveness of safety measures employed by seaplane operators in the Maldives.

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