Day: March 25, 2012

Government “won’t be bullied by MDP”, Dunya tells Sunday Times

Daughter of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and newly-appointed State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dunya Maumoon, has told Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times that “the government of President Waheed refuses to be bullied by the Maldivian Democratic PArty (MDP) into any particular position.”

Following meetings with the diplomatic community in Colombo, Dunya acknowledged that many were keen to know when the early election would be held.

“Most of the diplomatic community understand and believe the commitment of the government to strengthening democracy and protecting human rights, but some countries are very focused on the election date. But this is not the starting point for the dialogue process. Many other steps we have to take before that, and one, is to let parliament progress,” she told the Times.

“The MDP says they are not going to let anything proceed unless a date is given for an election. We are adamant that they don’t bully us by holding on to that election date. The government is in command. The President has considerable support. It is not right to allow a single party or a single individual to hold the country to ransom,” she said.

Gayoom would play an advisory role “behind the scenes”, she said.

“My father wants to be behind the scenes”

“My father has extended his support to President Waheed and he has offered his services in an advisory role but he wants to be behind the scenes,” Dunya said.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed maintains that the new government came to power in a coup de’tat, after he was forced to resign “under duress”.

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Escape from the Maldives: ‘This doesn’t look good, Mr President’

All hell was breaking loose down the street at the army headquarters, former advisor to ousted President Mohamed Nasheed, Paul Roberts, told MSN, recounting the last moments of Nasheed’s government.

“A couple of hundred supporters of former president Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives between 1978 and 2008, accompanied by a hundred or so police officers in full riot gear, were fighting with troops and trying to break into the HQ.

“I stood transfixed at the ongoing bedlam. A tear gas canister bounced past me down the street and dozens of young people started running towards me. I bolted into the President’s Office, behind the relative security of blast walls and armed guards.

“My colleagues who had made it into work were wandering around in a state of shock. I asked what was going on and people said there had been a police mutiny and hundreds of officers were no longer under state control. As the morning wore on, the situation became grimmer.

‘My colleague in army intelligence was looking increasingly worried. He reported that “all of the military police” and around 70 other soldiers had “switched sides” and joined the demonstrators. Most of the cabinet ministers were assembled in a second floor meeting room. There was no sign of President Nasheed.

‘The ministers were in disarray. Nobody knew what to do. My phone was going crazy, with calls from journalists and diplomats hungry for information.

“At around 11:30am, a friend at the state TV and radio broadcaster called and said police and protesters had raided the building. The journalists were locked in a room and the TV station had been taken off air. I went to the office balcony.

“A few of the President’s senior security advisers were making frantic calls to New Delhi, requesting Indian military intervention. I went up to my office and telephoned the British High Commission in Colombo, which handles Maldives’ affairs. I told them some of my colleagues were reporting that we were losing control of the country, and they were requesting foreign military intervention.”

“My phone kept ringing non-stop. One of the bodyguards was staring at me fiercely. I could see the bulge under his shirt by his hip, where I knew he kept his firearm. I slinked off to the toilet to answer my phone. It was a reporter from the New York Times. I told him the military had taken control of the President’s Office and I thought a coup was taking place. I came out of the loo and stood at the second floor balcony, near the President’s room.

“On the ground floor, the press office people were hurriedly taking a video camera into the press conference room. I saw Nasheed walking towards me, surrounded by a couple of aides and around seven people in combat fatigues.

“His eyes were bloodshot. He looked at me and smiled, as he always does. “So, Paul?” he said. I replied: “So this doesn’t look very good Mr President.”

“He slapped me on the back as he walked past into a meeting room. Within minutes, he hurriedly scribbled out a resignation letter and announced his decision on live TV. Two security people loyal to former president Gayoom, who had no role in the military or police at the time, flanked him.”

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The sea rises and democracy falls in the Maldives: Independent

Until four years ago, visitors to the Maldives were unwittingly supporting a nasty dictatorship where beatings and torture were routine, writes Joan Smith for the Independent.

“Then, in autumn 2008, the dictator, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was turfed out in the country’s first democratic elections. The new president was my friend Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner who soon began making a name for himself on the international stage.

I first got to know Anni, as he’s known, around 10 years ago. I met him in London and found him remarkably resilient for someone who had spent six years in jail, 18 months of it in solitary confinement. He is passionate about human rights, with a dry sense of humour and an apparently endless store of patience which convinced him that his Maldivian Democratic Party would one day triumph over the regime.

When he became president, Anni quickly established himself as an environmental campaigner, achieving almost rock-star status. He forced the world to recognise that the archipelago, which is only two metres above sea level, faces extinction because of global warming. His government set up a health system, pensions and the country’s first university. It struggled to modernise the judiciary, attracting criticism for some of its actions, but promoted the country as a functioning Muslim democracy. Last year, David Cameron even described Anni as his new best friend. But less than two months ago, Anni was deposed in an alleged coup.

Anni says he was forced at gunpoint to resign on television by military officers loyal to the old regime. He was placed under house arrest and the vice-president, Waheed Hassan, took over. As soon as Anni was released, he led a protest march in the capital, Male, where he was beaten up along with his party’s interim chair, Moosa Manik. According to Amnesty International, another protest march earlier this month was violently broken up by the police, who used batons and pepper spray.

Outside the Maldives, Anni’s friends have watched events unfold with horror. To begin with, the abrupt change of government didn’t receive as much attention as it deserved because it was stage-managed to look as though Anni had resigned of his own will. But a campaign to restore democracy is gathering pace: the EU has expressed concern about political unrest and the Commonwealth has called for early elections.

At the London premiere on Thursday, I was torn between enjoyment and anxiety, pleased to see Anni on the screen but worried about his safety and that of democracy campaigners in the Maldives. Earlier this month, Anni wrote an impassioned article and I don’t think I can do better than give him the final word: “The world has a duty not to sit passively by as the flame of democracy – for which Maldivians have fought so long – is snuffed out in our islands once again.”

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Parliamentary speaker raises “discord” concerns: Sun Online

Parliamentary Speaker Abdulla Shahid has claimed that discord such as the Majlis protests that saw President Mohamed Waheed Hassan initially blocked from providing his inaugural address this month has become a common occurrence since “authorities started doing things against the law.”

In an interview with the Sun Online news service, Shahid stressed that “any and all authorities” in the country were required to follow national laws in spite of whatever they wished to achieve whilst in office.

“In everything, we have lost control and things are going haywire, because steps have been taken in contravention to the dictates of the law,” he said.

“When the Executive starts violating the law, things would go wrong. As speaker of the Majlis, I am acting within the law, and I would not break the law even if the only way to achieve what I want to achieve politically is by breaking the law. The turmoil and tumult rampant in this country is the direct result of some authorities not respecting the law.”

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Step-grandson pleads guilty to being accessory in “sorcerer” murder

The step-grandson of an alleged “sorcerer” found dead following an attack on the island of Kudahuvadhoo, Dhaalu Atoll, has confessed to being an accessory to murder as his trial began today at the Criminal Court.

Haveeru reported that Kudahuvadhoo resident Ibrahim Waseem contradicted a previous statement provided to authorities by claiming today that he had sought revenge against Ali Hassan – the defendant’s step-grandfather.  Waseem claimed he has been seeking revenge after hearing allegations that Hassan was responsible for the murder of his mother using sorcery.

On January 8 this year, the body of 76 year-old Ali Hassan was discovered with multiple stab wounds in an abandoned home on Kudahuvadhoo. Waseem stands accused of conspiring with Fauzan Mohamed and Ibrahim Majeed, both also from Kudahuvadhoo, of murdering Ali Hassan as he made his way back from maghrib prayers. The defendant admitted to spying on Ali Hassan, but denies direct involvement in the murder.

According to Haveeru, Waseem declined to be appointed a lawyer during the trail after being made aware of the charges facing him by the presiding State Attorney, Aishath Fazna Ahmed.  After the charges against him were read out, Waseem was reported to have told Judge Abdul Baari Yusuf that they were true, a claim confirmed for a second time after a police statement was also read out to the court.

A statement given by Waseem was read out during the trial to the court claiming that he had been told by Fauzan Mohamed that Ali Hassan has murdered the defendant’s mother using sorcery. The statement continued that Fauzan has requested Waseem’s assistance in murdering his own step-grandfather over the allegations. Waseem claimed to have agreed only to spy upon Hassan as part of the plan.

Local media reported that when asked by the judge if the defendant had any closing remarks during the trial’s first day, Waeeem responded that he hoped for a swift end to the case.

Sorcery case

After Hassan’s body was found on Kudahuvadhoo at about 8:00pm on January 8, a special team from the police’s Serious and Organised Crime Department were dispatched to the island the very same day.

The victim himself had previously been accused of using sorcery on a 37 year-old woman, who was reported missing at 2:00am on December 4, 2011 and whose body was found floating in Kudahuvadhoo lagoon later that morning.

Island Council President of Kudahuvadhoo Ibrahim Fikry today told Minivan News following the discovery of Hassan’s body in January that local islanders were all frightened by the incident.

“After the death of the woman the islanders were scared, and then this incident occurred and now the islanders are worse,” he said adding that no one at the time walked on Kudahuvadhoo’s roads after sundown.

“The injuries sustained were horrific,” Fikry told Minivan News at the time, claiming to have seen the body of the man.

Fikry said that the victim’s forehead was slashed and that his neck was slit. “There were deep stab wounds to the chest and back, revealing the bones. The intestines were visible from a slash to the stomach,” he recalled.

An islander from Kudahuvadhoo who spoke to Minivan News after the discovery of Hassan’s body claimed that the victim was “unpopular” in the community for his alleged practice of sorcery.

Hassan was formerly Deputy Island Chief of Gemedhoo in Dhaal Atoll, which was devastated in the 2004 tsunami. When the population resettled in Kudahuvadhoo, he was removed from the position over allegations of child abuse, said a council member.

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