Month: June 2010

Maldives marks World Environment Day

Regulations on environment protection will be put in force within the year, Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam pledged in a televised statement on World Environment Day, observed worldwide on June 5 every year.

The regulations will allow the authorities to impose penalties on individuals and companies as well as seek compensation for actions that are harmful to the environment, he explained.

Calling on the public to take greater responsibility for protecting the environment, Aslam said efforts were underway to create an environmental council composed of civil society representatives to offer public input in the implementation of environment policy.

Speaking at a ceremony to conclude an environmental walk in Male’ on Saturday, Aslam urged the public to make walking a habit again.

The Environment Minister said the government decided to discontinue the ban on motor vehicles from 4pm to 12pm on World Environment Day this year to see how many people would abstain voluntarily, reports Voice of Maldives.

A number of government ministers, NGOs and school children participated in the walk, after which a children’s afternoon was organised at the artificial beach area.

Meanwhile, a hundred students chosen from primary schools in the capital left for Baa Atoll for field work in their environmental studies subject.

The ‘Eco-Care Nature Trip’ for the primary school students was jointly organised by Eco-Care Maldives and Soneva Fushi Resort.

An official ceremony to mark the World Environment Day also took place in Raa Atoll Dhuvafaru with Home Minister Mohamed Shihab attending as chief guest.

Over two thousand trees were planted in Dhuvafaru followed by a march across the resettled island to raise awareness on climate change.

According to the Environment Ministry, tree planting programmes are taking place in all islands with police stations, while similar activities were held throughout the country by civil society organisations.

The Youth Association of Dhaal Atoll Ribidhoo placed ten dustbins in public areas to discourage littering and keep the island clean.

Meanwhile, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) launched a pilot project to produce renewable energy from wind turbines in Kaafu Atoll Girifinolhu, a sandbank in front of military training island Girifushi that was expanded into a small island for use by the army as a picnic island.

According to MNDF engineers, two ‘Whisper 2000’ wind turbines, which come with attached solar panels and storing capacity, could generate 2000 watts of electricity with winds of up to 11 miles per hour.

A team comprising of five trained officers and 12 support staff has been formed to oversee the project.

The pilot project began after strategic level discussions prompted by the announcement by President Mohamed Nasheed that the Maldives will become the first carbon neutral country in the world, reads the statement on the MNDF website.

It adds that the army plans to undertake similar projects in other areas with high winds based on the success of the pilot project.

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Absent Gan Imam forces Friday prayer cancellation

Friday prayers could not go ahead in Addu atoll Gan last week after the Imam was not picked up from neighbouring island Feydhoo, reports Haveeru.

A number of people were unable to pray, but some reportedly went to Feydhoo when it became clear the Imam was not coming.

Although an uninhabited island, as a large number of staff at the Gan International Airport, police officers and others work at Gan, Friday prayers are routinely observed at the island’s “Masjid-al-Barakat’ mosque.

Feydhoo Councillor Hawwa Zeenath said the island office stopped sending for the Imam after the Airports Company took over the responsibility.

Zeenath said the Imam eventually went to the mosque in Feydhoo after waiting for a company vehicle to pick him up.

She added that it was unacceptable behaviour from the Imam as he receives a travel allowance.

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Immigration department receives complaints of foreigners selling local produce

The Department of Immigration is receiving complaints from the public of foreigners selling local produce brought to Male’ from the atolls.

Controller of Immigration Ilyas Hussein told Voice of Maldives that owners of stalls at the local market had requested the deportation of illegal migrant workers in the market area.

Ilyas said local businesses have been informed not to employ foreigners without valid work visas.

Meanwhile, the Human Resources Ministry has launched a joint operation with police to identify illegal immigrants in the atolls, reports Haveeru.

Deputy Minister Hussein said the ministry was collecting information from island offices and confiscating passports, which will be sent to the Department of Immigration.

The deportation process will be handled by the department using deposit funds, he said, adding that the ministry received a list of about 30 people last week from Laamu and Seenu atolls.

The Human Resource Ministry estimates that there are 16,000 illegal immigrants in the country.

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Transport Ministry to introduce trial bus service in Male’

The Ministry of Transport will be seeking interested parties this week to provide a trial bus service in the capital to evaluate the workability of public transport for Male’, Voice of Maldives reports.

State Minister ‘Maizan’ Adam Manik said interested parties will be invited to submit bids, while the service could be continued if the preliminary project is a success.

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National security committee compiles report on Gitmo detainees

Parliament’s national security committee has completed its inquiry into the government’s plans to resettle exonerated inmates from the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp, reports Voice of Maldives.

Mulaku MP Abdullah Yamin, chairman of the committee, said a report based on testimony from senior government officials as well as official documents and correspondence will be presented to the parliament floor.

Some government ministries did not fully cooperate with the committee, Yamin said, while the Foreign Ministry only provided the requested documents after the committee completed its inquiry.

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Counterterrorism seminar begins in Aarah

A ten-day seminar on counter-terrorism conducted by the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) and the US Army entitled ‘National Deliberate Action Planning Seminar on Combating Terrorism’ began at Aarah yesterday.

Over 40 representatives from five state institutions, including Maldives Police Service, Maldives Customs, Maldives Monetary Authority and the Department of Immigration, will participate in the seminar, while lectures will be given by counter-terrorism experts.

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Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll: Br Abdurraheem Green

This is the edited transcript of a sermon by Br Abdurraheem Green entitled ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll’, presented during the Jamiyyathul Salaf-organised event, ‘The Call 2010’.

Today we gonna speak about Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll. Does that sound interesting? I think so.

So maybe you will be thinking how come you are talking about sex and drugs and rock and rock and roll, what sort of thing is that to talk about as a Muslim. I remember once in the UK, while giving this talk and and we were advertising it, and some of the masjids (mosques), they wouldn’t put the poster up. They said “no no no – no sex in the Masjid.”

Alhamdhulillahi (Praise be to Allah), I’ll tell you what today’s topic is not going to be about.

Today’s topic is not going to be about the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) of music – is it halal, is it haram, is it ‘makroom’? It’s not going to be about that.

Sex outside of marriage – is it halal, is it haram – what is the ruling in Islam? Today’s topic is not about that. What is the ruling in Islam on drugs? I’m not going to talk about that.

I will be talking about something much more fundamental, something much more basic than even that. Today’s topic is a little bit in a sense about philosophy. It’s about why, the purpose of life, why are we here, what is the reason for our existence.

And on this world – in fact, we don’t even need to talk about the world, we can just talk about capital Male’.

We can see two competing ideas, right here, because you my brothers and sisters, masha Allah, you have come here or maybe sitting watching this on TV.

I really wish you were here, it’s much more fun if you are here. You will enjoy the atmosphere more. It’s a bit hot here. We do not have AC [air conditioner]. Well, I know some of you are watching this on the islands, Masha Allah. Just I don’t know where… you hear that music? (Pointing to the direction of music outside the carnival stage). Can you hear the music?

Well, you see this is it, brothers and sisters. There are some of us sitting here, finding out something about Allah, about his religion, and there are some other people there, they have a different idea of what life is about. They think life is about something else. And someone has showed them a philosophy. Someone has showed them a religion. A way of thinking.

Because you know, this is the heart of my lecture brothers and sisters. The very idea of religion itself. The very idea of religion. What does it mean in the Quran when Allah says (recites a verse of Quran) verily, certainly, definitely the dheen (religion) with Allah is Islam.

What is this mean? What is this word “Dheen” mean? Does it just mean religion? And what do we understand, when we say this word “religion”? What is that mean to us?

You know half of the challenges we always face, when we talk about anything, is that words have a meaning. But the meaning of certain words can change throughout time and circumstances.

Now for example, if 50 or 60 years ago I went around saying “I’m feeling gay today”, you know, no one… no people would understand one thing if I say that “I’m feeling gay today”. Today people will understand something different –  the language changes, the meaning changes.

When we say the word religion, often especially in the west, this word religion produces an idea that it is connected with an idea in the minds of people. And because the west is a secularised society, because the west, and in fact this is true, most of the world has made a division between religion and life.

Religion and life. Dheen (religion) and Dhunya (world), they think the two things are separate. So when you say religion in the west, people think going to the church once a week, they think of some things people do in their life, so it is very easy for them to think of religion as something separate from their ordinary life.

But this is not what Dheen means. When we say “Dheen” when we talk about religion, when Allah subhanahu wata’ala talks Dheen, Allah is talking about the way you live your life. And so think about that – when Allah says (recites a verse of Quran) that verily, the way of life, the way you live, that is acceptable for Allah is the way of submitting and surrendering and obeying Allah. This it what it means (repeats the same verse) the way you live your life.

How did you live your life? What is it that you put your faith and your trust in? What is it that you believe is going to make you happy and give you success in life?

It would be very interesting, even here in the Maldives, to go around and do an opinion poll. Let’s take the word ‘’success’’ and ask people, what is your definition.

In fact brothers and sisters, ask yourself now, right now, I want you to ask yourself what is your definition of success. Is your definition of success that you have a good education, you having good job, with a good salary, with a nice house, with a nice motorbike or a nice car, even a beautiful wife, a rich husband?

What is your definition of success? Because for many people in the world that would be the definition of success. They would define success and they say a successful person is one who makes money, who has a nice house, who has a nice car, who has a beautiful partner – this what most people in the world would define as success.

And if that is your definition of success, then you must truly ask yourself, what does it mean to be a Muslim? What is your dheen, because when we talk about sex, drugs and rock and roll, what you are talking about really is about lifestyle.

This is a talk about lifestyle, this is a talk about how you live your life. And there is a whole way of life, the way of life of sex, drugs and rock and roll. It’s attached phrase. It’s attached phrase that describes a way of thinking. A way of living.

And what does it say? There are no gods. There’s no paradise, there’s no day of judgment, there’s no hell fire, there’s no pie-in-the sky waiting for me when I die. If you wanna have fun, if you wanna enjoy yourself, if you want paradise you need to find it right here, right now, on this earth. So you enjoy your life, enjoy your life and live it to the max. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. That’s the message – that’s the message.

It’s the message of the consumer society. The materialistic culture, the idea that in the world and the things in this world, and the pleasures of this world, you will find happiness.

The word they have for it is ‘hedonism’. That’s the idea, that by sex and music and drink and drugs and money and entertainment, this is how you would be happy. This is how you will enjoy your life.

This is the religion of the world today. This is the religion of most people, even most of the people who call themselves Muslims – their true dheen, is this one. The way they truly think of success is the materialistic one. They don’t think of success as being jannah, they don’t think of success as praying five times a day.

The fast in Ramadan, of memorizing the Quran, most people think of success, as a person who is a scholar who has knowledge, who is studying the knowledge of the religion they don’t think of this one in the successful one, no, no, no, no, no.

So this is it. The materialistic society, and we are surrounded everywhere by the preaching of materialistic culture: the hedonism, the sex, drugs, rock and roll society.

We turn on the TV, we sit and we hear it. We open the newspapers and the magazines and we see it and we hear it. We turn on the radio we hear it. It’s everywhere – you walk on the street and you see it. The billboards, the advertisements, 24 hours a day, 365 days in a year, we are being exposed to this message. The message that if you buy this and if you buy that and if you have this and if you have that you will be happy. Your life will be better. You will have more fun.

Look at it – let’s look at some of those advertisements.

I remember back in the United Kingdom. They have an advertisement for an alcoholic drink called Bacardi. Bacardi is a rum, a type of strong alcoholic drink. And the advertisement might have been a picture of an island here in the Maldives.

There was a beautiful, beautiful white beach, palm trees hanging down, blue seas and blue skies and you could see two bikini-clad girls walking down the beach. You will look at that, and say ah… I wanna be there, that’s where I wanna be.

And the advertisement said, this is what the caption was: ‘’a rainy Sunday night in Peckham if you’re drinking Bacardi’’ (NB: Peckham is a borough in South London notable for its high crime rate).

I need to tell you something about British culture. Our weekend is Saturday and Sunday. Well, your weekend is Friday and Saturday, our weekend is Saturday and Sunday. So the worst day in the weekend is Sunday night.

Because Sunday night means the next day I have to go back to work. I have to go back to my boring job, in that boring office with those stupid people.

Most of them hate their work. They just work so that they can make enough money to have fun to buy these things. So you could imagine it’s Sunday night. And the rain… I don’t know, in the Maldives you’ll probably like the rain.

In England we hate the rain. Rain… all we get is rain. That’s why the most tourists come to the Maldives from the UK – the biggest percentage. Because we have so much rain.

So it’s Sunday night and it’s raining that means it’s miserable, it’s Sunday night and oh… it’s the worst. Tomorrow is Monday, and even worse, it’s in Peckham. Peckham. I really can’t describe to you what a horrible place it is. It’s a really horrible place. We don’t have horrible places like this in the Maldives – Peckham is horrible.

So you can imagine, here’s the advert. You’re on the worst day of the week, the weather is horrible, and you’re living in this dump of a place called Peckham, but… but, if, you are drinking Bacardi, it would seem as if you are in paradise.

That’s the message. You know this is what we are being brainwashed with. Oh… alcohol paradise, I could be in the worst condition, I’ll drink Bacardi.

Look at the adverts for Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola, ‘It’s the real thing’, ‘Coke is life’, ‘Coke is it’. And you see the advertisements: Coca-Cola, the sun is shining, the young girls looks so gorgeous. They’re brown, not brown like you. White brown you know, when white people get brown it’s so sexy.

And there the girls smiling and the boys have six-packs, drinking the Coca-Cola. And looking to that you say, huh… I want some of that. You know the women are looking, saying “Oh I want some of that man, he’s nice.” And we’re looking at the girl and we’re saying “Oh, I want some of that.”

So what do you think? In your mind – you don’t even realize it that in your brain –  that the people who make the advertisement, they know how to manipulate your minds. Because they spend billions of dollars studying how to brainwash you into buy that product.

So you’ll say ‘I want some of that’, and in your brain you connect it with drinking Coca-Cola. So you think if I drink Coca-Cola I will be young and beautiful and have a nice time like them. So what you do, you go out and you buy some Coca-Cola.

You know what Coca-Cola does to you – Coca-Cola doesn’t give you shiny white teeth. It makes you fat, and you get cancer. That’s what Coca-Cola does to you. It doesn’t make you young and happy… no. It’s the opposite.

Whether the ad is for a washing machine, or even washing up liquid, look at them. They are not just trying to sell you a product. They don’t just say, you know this product, this product will wash your clothes and this and that, and it’s gonna be this ingredient, no no no. They want you to feel that if you buy this product your whole life will change. Your whole life will change – because they want us to be consumers. They want us to buy,  buy, buy, spend, spend, spend.

So they make us think that if I have this and if I have that my life will be so much better.

I have my mobile phone here [takes out his mobile phone] my HTC, but you know what, one of the brothers is driving me around, he has the HTC HD2.

That’s the newer model of mine – keep looking at it jealously. He’s got the HTC HD2, how come I only have the HTC HD? I want what he’s got. Now what’s the difference, between my phone and his phone? The screen is a little bit bigger, it has a slightly faster operating system, but there is one really cool feature. HTC HD2 in your hotel, it acts as a wireless router. So I can log in to the internet through my HTC HD2 if only I have it.

Oh I want it… oh yes I do… I’m not happy anymore with this mobile phone. I need the latest. I need the latest gadget. I need… so I’m never happy. I want the latest and I need the next thing.

My life is gonna be different, my life will not be the same if I don’t have the latest phone. This is what they want you to believe. How did I ever live without it? This is what they want you to believe. So what… we will consume and consume and consume… buy this, buy that, have this, have that. The consumer society. The consumer culture.

Now just like every religion, the materialistic religion has its theologies. It has to have some attempt at a rational basis to explain it.

So for the materialistic culture the most important idea is the idea of evolution. Evolution is essential to the whole materialistic philosophy. Evolution says that you and me, and all the human beings and everything in this universe evolved through a series of random events.

There’s no God, we don’t need gods [because] evolution has explained everything. Evolution has explained how we came here, without the need of believing in God. This is the heart of what evolution is saying. This is the heart of their philosophy. You don’t need to resort to God to explain how we came here. You and me and everybody, we are descended from apes.

Actually no, that’s not quite true… they don’t say that. They say that we and apes are descended from a common ancestor. Yeah.. that’s what they say. We come from the same branch of the tree. But basically we human beings are sophisticated monkeys. That’s it, think about it, we are just animals. We are a little bit more complex, a little bit more sophisticated.

Now, how do you make a monkey happy? Very easy. Give monkey banana [makes monkey sounds], give him some fruit, happy monkey.

Number two, keep the monkey safe. Meaning you give the monkey some shelter keep him safe, happy monkey… hoohoo… and of course give man monkey woman monkey, woman monkey man monkey, very happy monkey [makes monkey sounds].

We gotta really happy monkey. So you give the monkey some food, you give the monkey some shelter, and you give the monkey some sex. And don’t worry, if man monkey doesn’t like woman monkey, man monkey can go with man monkey. And women monkey with women monkey. Because it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s natural right. It’s just your feelings. If you’re homosexual, if you’re gay according to this idea of course that’s just nature. It’s natural, that’s what they claim. So just do it.

As that Nike slogan tells you, just go do it, just do it man, don’t think about it. Just go do it, get out there and have some fun. Fulfill your desires, because you are just an advanced monkey. That’s what they say. So that’s why our governments concentrate on that – most of them live by laws.

Whose laws are they? They are monkey laws. They are sophisticated monkey laws. Laws made by monkeys for other monkeys. That’s it. A bunch of monkeys in parliament making some rules for other monkeys. It’s more of a monkey business. The most of them live by laws of the jungle, really. The law of the jungle because we are just monkeys, right.

So what do they do, the governments, they concentrate on more and more people who have the chance to vote. What do they vote for? What do they look for in their governments masha’Allah, is he a pious person, does he fear Allah, does he want to judge by the book of Allah? Does he implement Islam?

We look at: ‘Is this man gonna make me richer, is he gonna make my economy stronger, is he gonna give me more health care, is he gonna make things cheaper for us? Are we gonna have s more comfortable life?

That’s what we look for, and with most democratic governments, the ones who get into power get into power because they can persuade the people that they are gonna make you richer.

Bill Clinton.  You know how he won? He won his election with one phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

That’s it. It’s economy. It’s all about money. It’s all about wealth. I mean these people say they are Christians. Our politicians, they claim these things but how many of them stand up and say, how many times you hear Bush or Blair or anyone of those so called Christian leaders of so called Christian countries say you know how to be happy? If you wanna be happy believe in Jesus. Is that what they say. Vote for me because of Jesus. I’m gonna bring Jesus into your life. Is that what they say, no they don’t say that.

They say vote for me because I’ll make you more money. I’ll make you more happy. With materialistic things, we will improve your economy. We will give you health care, we will improve your social security.

The same with our Muslim leaders. The same things. That’s what they are claiming. They don’t say: “My brothers and sisters, you know what, I’m afraid our economy will go down, we know we will not have so much money but you know what, we will live by the lord of Allah.”

Who says that? We are Muslim by name, but we don’t know what Dheen means. Because we just want the money.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe we are just sophisticated monkeys. We just like the banana, the shelter and the sex. Huh… that’s how we keep us happy.

No brothers, no sisters.

So this is the philosophy, evolution. So we brought the philosophy of evolution. No we’ve got just like a religion has to have Ibadha, muslims we have salat, we have zakat, we have Ramadan, sure the materialistic culture have it.

That’s what it is, music. Music is the worship of materialistic culture, the Quran of Shaithan [satan]. That is why the shaithan calls the people to his guidance, to his materialism with music. That’s what it’s all about.

Yeah… and you see that, you listen to that, you see how they behave [very loud music sounds coming from outside of the carnival stage]. It’s very strange, why they need to fill their lives with this music. Think about it. What’s it all for, why do they need this music? Because their lives are so empty.

They have nothing in their lives. They have no understanding, they have no guidance, they have no comprehension, so they need to fill their emptiness with this noise.

It’s a substitute. That’s what it is. There’s no understanding, music, and you see them dancing. Dancing the music [makes drumming sound] like that – hours and hours of dancing dancing dancing. For hours and hours and hours.

I remember watching a documentary, when they went and filmed these people… they will put up these big speakers and they would start the music. They were dancing dancing dancing and there was this one guy, it was 7:00am in the morning, 7:00am in the morning, and these guys have been dancing all night.

I remember back in the days when I used to do that stuff. We used to go to discos. And you are to finish at like 3:00am or 4:00am in the morning. But these guys were still going on at 7:00am in the morning.

Subhanallahi (Glory be to Allah). The cameramen was interviewing this guy and was asking “Why do you come here, why do you dance, what’s it all for?”

You what he says? “Because I have this boring job, I have this boring life, but I come here and I dance and I dance and I dance till I forget myself. Until I forget myself.”

That’s what it’s all about: forgetting yourself, getting lost, living in a world of fantasy and escapism. That’s what it’s all about. Drugs and alcohol. What it’s all about. Why people take heroin, why people drink alcohol, why the people smoke marijuana, because they want to escape.

And look at the words they use: “I got stoned. I was wasted. I was got high. I was out of it.”

What does that describes? They describe, my brothers and sisters, self-annihilation: “I destroy myself.”

“I was like a stone.” What feeling does a stone have? None. “I was wasted. Out of it.” Out of what?

You see these people, they go drinking drinking drinking and they come home, in the morning, and you know what, they come home and they get sick. Blurrr… and they fall asleep, yeah really.

We have a problem in England, because police on Saturday night are so busy looking after people who are drunk and drowned in their own vomit.

That’s alcohol. That’s what happens. They are so drunk and then they wake-up in the morning and say ooh.. I had such a good time last night. You had a good time? What did you do? “Say, I don’t remember. That’s why I had a good time.”

The more they forget the more of the good time they had. And that’s what it’s all about: music makes you forget. Lost in music, I’m lost in music. I forget, I’m drunk, I forget. I watch the TV, I watch the movies, I’m in the fantasy world.”

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Maldives to pardon Filipino fraudsters in exchange for Climate Summit support

The Maldives government intends to pardon seven Filipino nationals who were arrested in 2008 for credit card fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The seven workers, identified by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as Kenneth Navarro, Lito Lago, Dario Agao, Christian Ryan Pineda, Jeffrey Jenkins, Gilbert Bendana and Joey Omawas, were employed at the Dome Cafe at the Maldives International Airport until they were arrested in 2008.

The Inquirer reported that the seven were initially jailed for a one and a half months after they were charged with theft and fraud for stealing a customer’s credit card and receiving items bought with the card in May 2008.

They were conditionally freed while their case was heard, but on February 17, 2009 were sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay Rf100,000 (US$77,800) in damages after the court found their statements were “conflicting”, and ruled that all of them were guilty.

“The Phillipines government has made a formal requet for clemency to be granted, and the President has given instructions for the request to be accomodated,” confirmed the President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair.

The request had not yet been granted and the process was “ongoing”, Zuhair said, suggesting that should the prisoners be released, the government of the Phillipines “should underwrite the damages, or the government should request it. The issue of compensation is a legal matter,” he noted.

The Philippines government has meanwhile published a statement crediting the release of the seven waiters to a ‘farewell gift’ from President Mohamed Nasheed to outgoing Phillipines Ambassador to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, Zenaida Tacorda Rabago.

“Several avenues were sought for the release/deportation of the seven Filipinos” under the authority of pardon granted to President Nasheed through the recently approved Clemency Law, the release stated.

“In turn, President Nasheed requested that the Philippines support an Asian Summit on climate change,” and “intimated to the Ambassador the hiring of Filipino professionals from the medical, entertainment, and educational fields,” the statement read.

Rabago has also worked to free two Filipinos who have served seven months in jail while awaiting formal charges from the Sri Lankan Government.

State Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem said the Ministry had not been given “any specific instructions” on the matter, but approved in principle.

“We need to send these people away because the jail system here is not conducive to holding foreigners,” he said, noting that the matter had been handed to the Clemency Board.

The Maldivian government is meanwhile working on repatriating Maldivian citizens imprisoned overseas. Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed, speaking in a meeting at the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) headquaters, last week, announced that government would seek to return Maldivian detainees from Syria.

Dr Shaheed said that he would soon travel to Syria with the main purpose of releasing the Maldivian detainees from Syrian jails.

”The main reason of scheduled trip to Syria is to release the Maldivian detainees from prison,” Dr Shaheed said. ”Hopefully, we can release these prisoners and bring them back to the Maldives.”

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Q&A: United Nations Resident Coordinator for the Maldives, Andrew Cox

Andrew Cox is the newly-appointed UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for the Maldives. Before arriving in the Maldives, Cox was based in New York as the Chief of Staff for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York.

Prior to this he held several positions in Sudan where he worked on comprehensive peace agreements between warring factions, and in Afghanistan. Before his UN career Cox worked as Field Director for Concern Universal in Sierra Leone and had assignments with various companies and NGOs in the UK, Democratic Republic of Congo and Côte d’Ivoire.

JJ Robinson: How does your experience in development and within the UN system benefit your new role in the Maldives?

Andrew Cox: I’ve worked for the UN since 1999 and NGOs before that. I come from a development background, but I just seem to have ended up in a lot of conflict, post-conflict and post disaster-places.

During my three years in Sudan I spent a lot of time working on a comprehensive peace agreement, and I spent time in Afghanistan in 2002 just as the situation there was changing – I was very sorry to leave, actually. I have also spent some working in Sierra Leone, which oscillated between conflict and post-conflict.

I think the process of transition in [such places] is very interesting – it’s about how people behave when their basic assumptions are changing and the bedrock is shifting under them. People act in extreme ways and sometimes it’s very difficult to get institutions in these countries to change.

What is especially difficult [about countries in transition] is the need for urgency. You don’t have luxury of 10 years to see if something might work. You just have to try things at high speed and discard them if they don’t.

One of the interesting things about coming to Maldives is that I find this transition happening. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue, although sometimes a little above the level of dialogue in terms of intensity and rhetoric.

What the Maldives is going through is not unusual and is to be expected in such circumstances. What I hope I can bring from my past is help and advice, and assistance from the UN system in managing this transition.

JJ: The Maldives has made a major transition to democracy, and the next major transition is the transition from less developed country (LDC) status to middle income. What does this mean and what are the key challenges for the country?

AC: On the surface there are some things the Maldives will lose along with its LDC status, such as access to concessional credit, which is probably one of the more important things. It will also lose a certain amount of grant income from donors.

But the point is to look at it as an opportunity; OK it may hurt in certain areas at the beginning, but in the end the Maldives has got itself where it needs to be and now has more to offer the world than it might have had before – it’s not just about offering beaches to tourists coming in.

When I saw the President I asked him if he had thought about having the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) serve in UN peacekeeping operations – it’s one way in which Maldivian experience can be sent out there to benefit the rest of the world, and of course it’s a learning experience for those who participate.

Similarly, the Maldives was a victim of a major natural disaster in the tsunami, and in my view it would make a lot of sense for the country to join the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC), which sends in disaster coordination experts to a country whenever there a natural disaster. The Maldives should be able to contribute to that.

I also think, and the President said this and I fully agree with him, that the Maldives should not be about dependency on aid. It should be about development, trade, and punching greater and greater weight in the region.

What everyone seems to be doing at the moment is focusing on the future. The loss of income from donors, if things go well, will be replaced by greater trade and economic growth. But there are some structural issues making that difficult, no doubt about it.

JJ: What kind of structural issues?

AC: The budget deficit is the major one. I’m not completely up-to-date with the figures, but last time I looked it the deficit was 33 percent of GDP, which everyone – the government as well as international institutions – has said the Maldives has got to address.

The deficit in Greece is 12 percent of GDP. Obviously Greece is a very different place [to the Maldives], but everybody needs to be serious about the problem. It’s a huge challenge and until it is solved it is going to be difficult to change other things.

The UN’s position is to help the government find ways dealing with this. There’s various things you can do but in the end the gap between income and expenditure has to change, because it is simply not sustainable at the moment.

JJ: How does the UN navigate the polarised politics here? How do you find the middle-path and involve the opposition?

AC: There have been many changes here over the last few years, and the UN has been here throughout that entire period. I think we played quite a positive role – although you can’t get everything right. But by sticking to its principles, the UN tries navigate its way through. For example, during the change to democracy the UN worked closely with then-president and his party, as well as the opposition.

What we tried to do was help them manage the process [of transition]. It’s very clear what the UN stands for – our principles are out there. There’s no hidden agenda and the approach is consistent across the UN. There are many different levels of support the UN can bring.

I’m not trying to be naive or idealistic – but it’s [an approach] that works just as well if you’re dealing with rebels in the middle of a conflict or if you’re dealing with development challenges – you help those who are there to make the right choices, and sometimes provide an enabling environment for that to happen.

The UN is also here to try and improve the lot of ordinary Maldivians. One of our principles is that we work with all parts of society and we do that in an open way, and that can sometimes be difficult to explain. But in the end it is our job to work with everybody who can be a positive force for change, and to try and advise those who are less convinced for the need to change to change their approach. That’s consistent across all the countries we work in.

JJ: What are some of your experiences from the programs you have worked on in the past that you think would also work in the Maldives?

AC: I worked on the last stages of the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan, which is a mostly Muslim country. The key in Sudan was doing everything you could to get the parties to sit together. Obviously we don’t have the same kind of situation in the Maldives, but the principles are still the same.

A facilitating role sounds a little bit ‘wishy washy’, until you realise what happens when you don’t have that. It doesn’t have to be the UN – in Darfur the African Union had the lead on the political side, and the UN helped them to do their job.

As a newcomer to the Maldives, it is very obvious that there is a certain amount of heat in the political discourse, to say the least. A lot of this is a very natural outcome of the change everyone has gone through. I think the trick is to find areas where there can be cooperation, and not to allow bigger disagreements to pollute the water where consensus might be possible.

For example, I think the cross-party effort to deal with domestic violence is very interesting right now. Everyone agrees domestic violence is a problem, and although there may be disagreement over how that problem should be addressed, this is absolutely one of those areas for mature political dialogue. We will try and help that process along, but it needs to be the parties in parliament to figure out how they want to deal with domestic violence issues.

The UN's role is to facilitate dialogue, explains Cox
Civil society is weak in the Maldives, explains Cox

JJ: To what extent should be UN be a leader of civil society in a country, in terms of supporting NGOs and helping them work properly and efficiently?

AC: I don’t think leader is the right word. If we were, then if we withdrew our support the whole thing would collapse and that’s not the way it should be. The real strength of civil society in most countries, to use an overused phrase, is ‘grassroots.’

Civil society is only powerful if it comes into being organically. I think most people on either side of the political divide recognise that civil society is very weak in the Maldives, and that much more needs to be done to support its growth.

I think the UN can play a major enabling role. There are an awful lot of people around the world who have [grown civil society], and one thing we can do is to bring some of them in to explain how they did it. That process of sharing information and knowledge is very important.

JJ: What do you mean when you say civil society is weak in the Maldives? There are a great many NGOs and it does seem to be a sought-after profession.

AC: Yes exactly – I think across all parts of society, and obviously it varies area to area, from human rights to gender to drug prevention, there are a number of things you look for, such as sustainability of funding and resources. In the end civil society will only be strong if Maldivians embrace their own civil society and start paying for it.

Some of that is about government funding, but much more of it is local philanthropy and gift giving – and earning the organisation that you’re associated with.

The UN can give out a grant of US$20,000 [to an NGO], and what they’ll do is buy a computer, pay for some travel and training and so on, then it’s gone and that’s it. What happens then?

This is a very important question that a lot of civil society organisation managers are thinking about – or at least I hope they are. Because in the end, international funding can’t be assured for anybody over time.

I think the whole point is to use that external support as a way to building up a civil society organisation so it can have links with the community and an income stream, and a sufficiently strong volunteer network to get done what they think needs to get done.

How do we help them through that process? Definitely we have supported NGOs in the past, and there has been a proliferation in the last year or two, but now they need to move beyond that start up phase and become a bit more secure. You really need a strong civil society because it gives you a way to get important things done that is separated from politics.

JJ: The Maldives recently beat Iran to the UN Human Rights Council – what kind of an achievement does that represent?

AC: I think it’s a remarkable achievement. The Maldives ran a good election campaign on its own merit and got the support, which was a very big deal.

The Human Rights Council is in organisation in flux, and I think both [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki Moon and the High Commissioner of Human Rights [Navi Pillay] see it as a long term project – and many of its members see it in the same way.

For the Maldives it represents a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate it can be a world leader, as it already is in the area of climate change. For a country to progress so far on the human rights side allows it to go out there with a very honest position and say ‘we’re not perfect yet, but this is what we’ve done.’

Another part of the Human Rights Council is that you have support from your peers to deal with human rights issues, so when it works well is when there is an atmosphere of cooperation and people get down to business away from the heated rhetoric you also sometimes hear on human rights issues.

But I would also say that because the Maldives has a somewhat exalted position on this council, this is also a challenge. The Maldives can’t stop its progress on human rights, because the eyes of the world are on the Maldives as much as eyes of the Maldives are on the world in the human rights sense. I think it is very important that this election provokes a renewed investment in human rights in the Maldives, and if it doesn’t happen then the Maldives’ position on the Human Rights Council could invite unwelcome attention.

It just the way we seen these things work over the years. I sincerely hope – and everything I’ve heard suggests this will continue to happen – that the Maldives will continue to strengthen human rights in the country, especially now.

JJ: How would you describe the level of human rights in the Maldives, from the perspective of a newcomer?

AC: I would probably describe it again as a situation of change. There have been tremendous advances made, but obvious areas that need strengthening – areas like access to justice.

I think there are important bills pending on the judiciary, things like access to legal aid. The Maldives needs to invest in the judiciary and its ability to do its work, and there needs to be investment in corrections – I think the problems are self-evident. Then there’s right to information, and of course the police, who now have themselves been changing and adapting to new challenges. I think there’s a raft of institutional legal framework measures that are needed to strengthen human rights in the Maldives.

I think the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) needs to continue to be supported, for obvious reasons. It’s important to have a strong home-grown human rights commission to encourage the government to take the steps it needs to take, and I think it is absolutely important to have strong human rights organisations on the civil society side. This is a priority for UNDP, and we’ll be scaling up our support to human rights NGOs. If you get them right, there’s a knock on effect to other NGOs.

JJ: Human rights issues such as freedom of expression and gender equality appear to sometimes conflict with stricter interpretations of Islam. Is it possible for human rights to be fully realised in a 100% Islamic country?

AC: I think there is a very strong human rights tradition in Islam, and I think it’s absolutely possible. I know there are many different legal systems under the Islamic system, and what I think is quite important is to learn from other experiences around the world and shamelessly steal the best parts. I see absolutely no contradiction between Islam and human rights.

JJ: The Maldives has established itself as an international leader on climate change based on its vulnerability to rising sea levels, but at the same time it’s trying to attract long term business investment. Is there room for these to exist side by side?

AC: I think it’s an interesting dilemma, and if it’s going to get solved anywhere it be here. Obviously I’m not a climate change scientist, but speaking as the manager of UNDP I think there’s interesting opportunities in the Maldives over how to cope with climate change.

We still don’t know how bad it’s going be, so yes, risk inherent in every situation. But let’s not forget that the Maldives is not alone in this – the Maldives may have problem with rising sea levels, but there are many other countries with problems related to climate change – you just have to look at sub-Saharan Africa, and see how climate change is affecting water and food production there.

Certainly from the Maldives side, the country has to press on with mitigation and creating a low-carbon economy. There are thousands of different possibilities, and money to be made off successful models of technology that can be proven to reduce carbon. On the adaptation side there’s a lot we don’t know how about how reefs will react to changing water temperatures, and new technologies which can be looked at in terms of sea defenses. And things like if you’ve mangroves that you look after, you got a much greater change of withstanding rising sea levels and weather events than if you don’t have them. It’s a matter looking at these things and the impact of communities that live in these areas.

With all that in mind, the Maldives is a good place to invest in from the point of view of climate change-related industries. Businessmen and women are not stupid – they evaluate situations and make decisions accordingly. One of the things the government has committed to is loosening the trade environment and having clear regulatory frameworks, and I suspect if they successful pushing that through then that will also encourage investment.

So don’t think the two messages are contradictory. You have to do an awful lot because of climate change, but you can continue to build the economy as well.

I think adaptation is also very important – people need to be able to manage risk more than they can at the moment. Generally speaking we estimate that for every dollar spent on disaster risk mitigation you save $10 in losses when a natural disaster strikes – the economics are quite obvious.

We have quite some interest in the Maldives’ obvious vulnerabilities to climate change and major weather events, and it’s useful to use different communities around the Maldives to test ways of strengthening people’s ability to withstand natural disasters. If we get that right, then that is also something the Maldives can export – knowledge and know-how about how to deal with vulnerability in the face of climate change.

What we are going to be doing over the next year or two is looking along with the government at creating a global climate change centre in the Maldives. We are working on the details at the moment.

Another priority area is to look at governance programs and see how we can help. A major step forward of the last few months was the government getting together its strategic action plan – it’s a great document but it’s very thick, and it’s not much use unless it gets implemented. We all feel it is quite important to have a results framework, and if the government is able to do that, Maldives stock will go up in eyes of donors.

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