Month: May 2011

Maldives a carbon technology lab for the world: Sunday Times

The Maldives, aiming to be a zero-carbon nation by 2020 ahead of any other country, is like a ‘lab’ of technology for the world where future ways of reducing carbon into the atmosphere is developed here before being implementing across the world, writes Feizal Samath for Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times.

A two-day technology road-show in Male, the capital on May 9-10 which brought industry, technocrats and government officials from 22 countries including the five largest economies in the world – US, China, Japan, India and Germany, showcasing technological advances and knowledge.

President Mohamed Nasheed and Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam attended the event with Miss Universe 2005, Natalie Glebova.

According to Tourism Minister, Mariyam Zulfa, the Ministry recently signed a MoU with Swiss-based myclimate to prepare a strategy for voluntary carbon offsetting measures. “We will be looking at things like developing a model eco island as a resort of the future. We are working on the carbon footprint. While the airlines will look after themselves, the resorts are also looking at renewable energy for most of their needs,” she said adding however that the biggest challenge is the diesel that goes into generators which are used by all resorts.

If in 2010 it was worry about islands sinking, then this year the climate change-savvy country says there are much more serious issues.

“Sea level is rising but that’s not our main challenge,” noted Aslam, adding that shifting of islands when the sea level rises is a more complex issue.

“The islands are a dynamic feature and when sea level rises there would be changes. If you look at the morphology (structure of organism) these islands sit within a reef system. As the water level rises the hydrodynamics within the reef system will also change.

Full story

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Maldives Organisation for Elderly People receives US$40,000 UAE Health Award

The Maldives Organisation for Elderly People has been presented with the UAE Health Award during the World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting in Geneva, reports Gulf Today.

UAE minister of health Dr Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim, presented US$40,000 to the winning organisations, which also included the Society for Progress Association in Chad.

The award is annually granted to those individuals or organisations that provide various services in the medical and health development.

The Maldives Organisation for Elderly People provides a number of psychiatric and social services to the elderly in addition to health awareness programmes, physical education training sessions, yoga and physiotherapy either at home or at the centre.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Expatriate slashed with machete

An expatriate man was badly injured after he was attacked with a machete in Henveiru Park in Male’ yesterday evening, reports Haveeru.

Police said they had no leads on the attack on the man, who was reportedly a food cart worker.

SunFM reported that a group of men asked the expatriate for a cigarette, and attacked him when he refused.

The injured man was taken to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in a police car.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Two women arrested in connection with the discovery of dead baby in Villingili

Two women have been arrested in connection to the discovery of discarded six month foetus in Villingili, found on Friday inside a Coast Milk tin.

Deputy head of police Serious and Organised Crime Department Inspector Abdulla Nawaz told media today that police had arrested a 30 year old woman from Noonu Atoll who was the suspected mother of the baby, and a 24 year old woman from Kaafu Atoll who was alleged to have assisted her deliver the baby prematurely.

Nawaz said that police were now examining the body of the 30 year old woman after she confessed to giving birth two days ago but was unable to tell police where the baby was.

The 24 year old had meanwhile confessed that she had assisted Shaira in delivering the baby prematurely, Nawaz said.

Abortion is illegal in the Maldives, although an unreleased 2007 by the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) found the practice was believed to be widespread due to the social stigma faced by a woman bearing a child out of wedlock.

Nawaz said that police had also obtained information about the baby found dead in Male’ track swimming area in early May, and were seeking to verify the report.

This morning the body of a newborn baby boy was discovered in a park in Hulhumale’,  with underwear tied tightly around his neck.

Spokesperson for Hulhumale’ Hospital Dr Ahmed Ashraf said the baby may have died from asphyxiation because of the restricted air passage.

‘’When the baby was found the knot was a bit loose, but the marks on its neck shows that it was tied tightly around the neck,’’ Dr Ashraf said.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Comment: Islam is for tolerance of the Other

It is disturbing and saddening to see that we dare to curtail basic human interests and entitlements of others that some of us take for granted.

What Islam stands for: According to Article 16 of the Madinah Charter (al-mithaq al-madinah) of 622 CE, social, legal and economic equality was promised to all loyal citizens of the state, including non-Muslims.

Similarly, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab’s Covenant following the Arab conquest of Jerusalem reads:

“[‘Umar ibn al-Khattab] has given [people of Jerusalem] assurance of safety for their lives and property, for their churches and their crosses, for their sick and their healthy, and for all the rituals of their religion.

Their churches shall not be used as dwellings, nor shall they be demolished and nothing shall be diminished…”

Now all this has basis in the Qur’anic injunction that “there is no compulsion in religion”. Have we then lost our humanity and humaneness?

It is hypocritical of us to ban and curtail such basic freedoms by saying that the Maldives is a ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’.

How we became ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’

It is true that we have a strong Islamo-nationalist identity. But we must know that identities are artificial and they are constructed through symbols and discourses.

Our national identity is a construction of a discourse largely engineered by President Gayoom.

President Amin may have been behind the initial promotion of nationalism. But his nationalism was not based on an exclusionist Islam. None of his national day statements that I have read promoted such an oppressive conception of of Islamo-nationalism.

The discourse of an exclusionist Islamo-nationalism is found in Gayoom’s speeches, writings and policies. In fact, according to Gayoom’s official biography, A Man for All Islands, Gayoom, from the beginning, ensured that an Islamo-nationalism was a priority of his regime.

Gayoom-controlled radio, TV, and the education system promoted and socialised us into this discourse of exclusionist Islamo-nationalism.

We may not readily realize that we are influenced by and socialized into this mythical discourse of Islamo-nationalism based on ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’. The power of this discourse is so perverse that even the most natural word association for ‘sattain satta’ probably is ‘muslim/Islami qaum’.

And all major oppressive measures in the country have been justified based on the discourse of ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’.

Thanks to the 30-year efforts of Gayoom, today our ‘imagined community’ is thoroughly based on an exclusionist and oppressive conception of Islam.

Islamo-nationalism’s oppressions

According to Daniel Brumberg, total autocracies such as Saudi Arabia spread the idea that the state’s mission is to defend the supposedly unified nature of the nation or the Islamic community.

Gayoom’s regime may not have been a total autocracy. But his stated political justification of the state was his mission of defending a unified community.

We must know that, just like his Arab counterparts, this was just a ploy for political control. Hence, any differences of views to that of his vision are taken as ‘anomalies’ or ‘deviations’ or ‘falsities’ threatening national unity.

Such people must be ‘rectified’, exiled, imprisoned, deported, tortured, or if need be exterminated. Exclusion or extermination can also find more poignant forms such as civil death or suicide.

Gayoom’s discourse of ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’ often oppressed two kinds of opponents: Islamiyyun such as Sheikh Hussain Rasheed Ahmed and non-religious challengers like current president Nasheed.

Islamiyyun were brandished as ‘Islam din rangalah nudanna meehun’. And non-religious political opponents were brandished as either ‘fundamentalists’ or ‘Christian missionaries’.

The outcomes of this oppressive Islamo-nationalist discourse are naturally not limited to Maldivians.

Hence the migrant workers in the Maldives also cannot practice their religions as respectable and equal human beings.

Undoing Islamo-nationalism

Identities cannot easily been undone. But it is not impossible to undo them. As an immediate step, the government must stop spreading Gayoom’s discourse of ‘sattain satta muslim qaum’.

Even the current government spreads the discourse that ‘Maldives is the only 100% Muslim liberal democracy’. While this discourse is presented often to the donors, this is just the same Gayoomist myth. We are neither 100% Muslim nor a liberal democracy.

We are still a borderline democracy according to comparative democratization research. The Freedom House still designates the Maldives as an ‘electoral democracy’, and our donors know this. Instead of promoting Gayoom’s discourse, we must acknowledge our oppressive laws, practices and attitudes, and try to change them.

Secondly, we need to create a Divehi equivalent for ‘tolerance’. Divehi word ‘tahammal’ or ‘kekkurun’ does not fully convey the meaning of the concept of tolerance. Tolerance means accepting people and permitting their differences and practices even when we personally strongly disapprove of them.

We may not want to become Buddhists or Hindus, nor may we approve of Buddhism or Hinduism. But we must accept the Buddhist and Hindu Sri Lankans or Indians in the Maldives and we must permit their religious practices.

Third, our education system must promote tolerance, mutual respect, and a critical-history of the country and Islam in general.

Textbooks must problematize the mythical narrations like Rannamari, which as Maloney said, served to render other historical events peripheral. Instead, the real age and images of Divehis must be re-taught.

The age of the Divehi is not 900 years, but more than 1500 years. The real Divehi is indeed indicative of a far richer adventurism, innovation, cultural practices, linguistic uniqueness, adaptability, and the sheer incredible strength of spirit and survivability in these lands against numerous odds, not least foreign interventions.

The real Divehi is indicative of an incredible story of inclusiveness, of co-existence of political exiles and immigrants from India or Sri Lanka. This Divehi story must be our discourse for re-doing our historical identity.

Gayoom’s mythical unity as found in the oppressive Religious Unity Act is not even our historical reality in the Muslim period. Maliki madhab was dominant until 1573, when Muhammad Jamal Din advocated Shafi’I madhab.

Thus, whether we approve of it or not, we have both intra-religious and inter-religious differences. There is no way to stop this diversity except through despotic oppression.

We cannot remain ignoring this reality and deluding ourselves into a utopian umma. We must embrace the ‘fact of pluralism’ and tolerance as basis of our new national identity.

That, after all, is also what Islam stands for.

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]

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Former prisons chief interrogated after release of DPRS torture photos

Former Prisons Division Head with the Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Serivces (DPRS) Isthafa Ibrahim Manik has been detained and questioned by police, after disturbing photographs of tortured victims in custody were obtained by the Presidential Commission and leaked to the media.

Manik remains in custody at Maafushi after the courts granted police a 15-day extension of detention.

The photos released so far include images of men tied to coconut palms, caged, and bloodied. One of the photos, of a prisoner lying on a blood-soaked mattress, has a 2001 date stamp.

A senior government official told Minivan News that the photos were obtained by the Commission from the DPRS itself on Monday, and that those released “are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Inspector of Police Abdulla Nawaz confirmed in a statement to the state broadcaster MNBC that the matter involved severe cases of torture and suspected fatalities, and had been passed to police.

“Former heads of the Prisons Division will be interrogated,” he said. “We will also question former ministers if it is believed that they were involved,” he added, claiming that police would withhold the identities of some of those summoned for questioning.

One of the pictures, reportedly obtained from the DPRS

National Security Advisor and former Defence Minister Ameen Faisal, a member of the Presidential Commission, told MNBC that prison records had revealed that inmates were punished without court order “and subjected to inhumane torture and ill-treatment.”

“This commission has received information that some inmates who were tortured ended up dead,” Faisal said.

Many members of the current government, including President Mohamed Nasheed and Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem, claim to have been tortured under the former administration.

“They were limited only by their imagination,” Naseem said, describing the describing the former government’s treatment of prisoners as “medieval”.

Gayoom’s spokesperson Mohamed Hussein ‘Mundhu’ Shareef told Haveeru that the government’s arrest of the former head of prisons was the “the third part of the drama” in a long-plotted lead up to the arrest of the former president.

“The attempt to arrest President Maumoon will only boost his profile. We see this simply as the government’s attempt to divert the people’s attention from the dollar crisis and rising commodity prices,” Shareef told Haveeru.

The Presidential Commission has previously summoned Gayoom, who refused to appear.

In October 2010, President Nasheed’s high profile support of elderly historian Ahmed Shafeeq, who has alleged that 111 people died in custody under the former administration and that he himself had been arrested and his diaries destroyed, prompted Gayoom to write to the British Prime Minister David Cameron.

In the letter, Gayoom appealed for pressure to be placed on President Mohamed Nasheed following “the escalation of attempts to harass and intimidate me and my family.”

The matter, he told the British PM, involved “unsubstantiated allegations by an elderly man by the name of Ahmed Shafeeq that I had, during my tenure as President, ordered the murder of 111 dissidents.”

“In a book authored by this Shafeeq, which was ceremoniously released [on October 10] by Mohamed Nasheed himself, it is accused that I also ordered the man’s arrest and supposed torture in prison. In a country of just over 300,000, it is safe to assume that even one ‘missing person’ would not go unnoticed, let alone 111.”

Men chained to coconut palms

Nasheed’s government had “escalated its attempts to harass me” in the run up to the local council elections, Gayoom wrote, despite his retirement from politics.

“After the government’s defeat in last year’s parliamentary elections, the popularity ratings of the ruling MDP have fallen further in recent months as a result of the government’s failure to deliver on its campaign promises, and its lack of respect for the law.”

“On the other hand,” Gayoom told the British PM, “I continue to enjoy the strong support, love and affection of the people, and have been voted by the public as ‘Personality of the Year’ in both years since stepping down from the presidency.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

“I tried to clean the muddy aspects of a long rule”: former DRP MP Ali Waheed

The following is an English translation of a speech by former opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) member Ali Waheed given after signing with the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

I first met you from behind a podium like this during the 2008 presidential campaign. The 2008 presidential election was a competitive contest that took place due to the hard work of the beloved members of MDP and the efforts of members from other parties as well. We were able to have that election due to a lot of hard work by some members of the Special Majlis [constitutional assembly convened to revise the constitution].

What I am trying to say is, with the life of our constitution changed and those changes accepted by the people, but without forming an interim government – that is a transitional government that included the opposition – we Maldivians had to face a competitive election. That election was won by his Excellency President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed from the Maldivian Democratic Party-led coalition.

Following that election then came the parliamentary election. In that election the Maldivian people gave to those opposed to the government a majority to hold it accountable. In truth, a government of change was formed among us and, to hold that government to account, parliamentary majority was given to opposition parties.

Two and a half years we swam in that sea. However, what we, or I definitely, tried to do [in opposition] was clean the muddy aspects of a long rule. To do that, at the DRP Congress I came out in first [place] as deputy leader in spite of the direct disapproval of DRP Zaeem al-Usthaz Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

However, when boys who came from Thoddoo, Addu and the street achieved high posts in democracy, beyfulhun (aristocrats or members of the upper class) could not accept it!

We did not bring change to the country for a person to advance because he belongs to a certain family or clan, but for a person to move up through merit. Today we can see that those who could not digest this have created different factions and we can see the state of the party we formed with our hard work. Therefore, because [the party] has become an inheritance, I have let go and walked out empty-handed.

I’ve come to this podium tonight empty-handed. I have signed this form as a common member of MDP. I joined DRP as a common member. I know how to climb one rung after another and advance in the party.

We have seen that in parliament we have had very competitive and heated debates. However democracy is for those who can come to the [discussion] table even with differences of opinion.

There are people in the DRP who believe that talking to Caranyge Mohamed Nasheed is haram [sinful or forbidden]. However, I say this with daring, I am the one who criticised Mohamed Nasheed the most but here I am at this podium!

Democracy is about criticising when it’s needed and shaking hands if we have to. We are all Maldivians here! This country belongs to all of us. This President is the President of all of us so we can criticise and praise him, too.

What we see in parliament, with two and a half years gone, what we see from opposition activities is that, despite prolonged efforts within the opposition coalition, everything becomes about saving a person whose tail is caught and stuck in the 30-year reign! Everything! So what solution can [they] bring?

We dare to load our magazine with bullets, sling our rifles and come out to the front. That’s why it is from our tongues that the ‘boom, boom’ comes most loudly. However, a flight cannot be operated without passengers, without fuel. That’s why I’ve come to collect the passengers.

We truly have to think today, our country is at a very critical juncture economically and socially. My manner of speaking is not going to change even if I’ve left the blue podium for the yellow. The fact that prices of goods are rising is a reality that we all know. That dollars are out of reach for us is a reality.

The government has a plan but what the opposition has is only calling [the plan] bad. When we asked for an alternative, we never got an answer for that.

When the party’s name failed and the name of youth was attached, even then we came out to protest, because it was on behalf of the rights of the Maldivian people. However when it came to negotiating, or when it came to offering a better change than the one made by the President, what they are now saying is ‘if we protest any further we might be arrested, so we’re going to stop protesting’!

It can’t be done this way. There must be a solution. Therefore, when there is no purpose or destination, what I want to say is that it’s going to become an exercise in futility. Ordinary DRP members use your brains and think!

We come out under different colours not only to serve the party, but to serve the nation. If so, if one party offers a better ideology or philosophy, ideology must be met with ideology. We cannot change the country if we bring only resistance to that ideology [without offering an opposing or alternate ideology].

So it’s been two and a half years of resisting and opposing for argument’s sake. But two and a half years later, DRP has not given birth to an ideology – that is why I had to leave.

Ali Waheed and Reeko MoosaI do want to say this though: because the government did not have a majority in parliament, I do accept that things had to be done in the margins. Any government would have had to do so, as the President says, acting inside and outside and in margins of the chart – that was necessary to maintain this government!

Now however, when parliament returns from recess, we will redraw the chart and its boundaries will be clear. We will move forward with this government even if it means setting aside those who would obstruct benefits to the Maldivian people.

If we do not, what we have before us are very dire consequences. For example, we are very young. Our young generation is bound in chains. There is not a single family in this country without a youth caught up in drug abuse. With things as it is, we cannot solve this if we squander the future of this country with political quarrels between opposition and government in parliament.

Tomorrow we might have a new leader and a yet a new one the day after that. A new colour might come. I have not come to the MDP podium assuming at all that MDP will win in 2013. Even if [MDP] loses, we have come accepting a principle and we shall remain so.

You would have heard at the last sitting of the Majlis session about a sunset law, as it’s popularly known in the media. If powerful laws are written as the prescription for what’s ailing our youth, we cannot find a solution. And if we resist the changes that need to be made to our economy, we cannot win tomorrow. Therefore, we have to bring our expenditure in line with revenue. Without doing so, how can we bring down the price of a dollar? The only thing that will come down will be our shorts.

I don’t want to say much today. I don’t want to launch attacks. I saw yesterday the leader of my former party saying that ‘leaders are those who do not leave whenever they are worried.’ I have been worried and concerned for two and half years now. I have not come [to MDP] all of a sudden.

I did go to the Supreme Court and remove ministers, thinking that it was a philosophy that was beneficial to the Maldivian people. However when the matter of approving this Finance Minister [Ahmed Inaz] came before us, we started receiving orders to eliminate him because he was young. But I’m a youth too. I told them, why not keep [the no-confidence motion] until after the recess, as politically by then the people will be unhappy with rising prices. But they went and ahead and did it anyway. After that, the finance minister said at a news conference that Majlis giving him consent meant MPs have said yes to the increase in the value of dollars – for that they wanted to submit a no-confidence motion and the first name on it was Ali Waheed. I told them you sign it, it cannot be done!

This is why I’m saying that the efforts of politicians in parliament and inside and outside government to shape and instill democratic principles in this country are going to waste. Independent institutions are being filled with people who belong to those whose tails are caught. The whole system is collapsing! We cannot stand aside and watch this happen.

It is not the President or MDP who will be harmed because of this. It is the beloved Maldivian people and our children who will suffer. […] We must not be stuck in quotation marks after two and a half years. We have to hike it up to maximum and bring wellbeing and prosperity for our people. Vassalaamalaikum.

Ali Waheed as a DRP MP:

“I would say our Zaeem, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, is with us here tonight. The reason is that there’s a full moon tonight and Maumoon is this party’s full moon.”
– April 2010, celebrating the DRP’s victory on the decentralisation bill.

“Given the state of the country today, the biggest betrayal to the nation and the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party would be to split up this party,”
– November 2010, on holding concurrent opposition protests

”They take me to police custody like a medicine they take twice daily. It’s all President Mohamed Nasheed’s doing. He is afraid of me.””
– March 2010, after a police case against him was filed with the Prosecutor General for last years ‘gate-climbing’ protest outside Muleaage.

“Without doubt these new procedures are void – nobody can narrow the summoning of cabinet ministers to parliament.’’
– October 2010, after the government ordered Ministers not to respond to parliament questioning.

“People who should be behind bars are sitting around on the beaches, sucking on butts and all sorts of things – this is the result.”
– October 2010, on how the lack of prisons is responsible for rising crime.

“When I received government documents that I believed had the potential to harm the national security of the country I presented it to the national security committee to investigate. I do not believe that it is known as thieving. It was not leaked by my mistake.”
– May 2010, after releasing confidential documents on the government’s intention to accept several Guantanamo Bay inmates.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)