Day: April 5, 2012

State funds for military and police, but not for Aasandha: Nasheed

Deposed President Mohamed Nasheed last night criticised the government’s attempts to introduce fees for free health insurance scheme Aasandha, saying the government had squandered funds marked for development on the police and military.

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s administration has claimed the Aasandha scheme is no longer financially tenable due to unsustainable demand. Dr Waheed succeeded Nasheed on February 7 after Nasheed resigned following a police and military mutiny. Nasheed claims he was forced to resign at “gun-point.”

Shortly after taking office, Waheed’s administration halted Public Private Partnership schemes and allowed extended resort leases to be paid in installments rather than upfront at the end of the lease. Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said the move will immediately take US$135 million of the country’s coffers.

Speaking to hundreds of MDP supporters at the party’s new protest camp following his return from his US tour promoting the Island President, Nasheed said the government’s claim of lack of funds for Aasandha was “unacceptable.”

“More than Rf 150 million (US$10 million) has been spent on police promotions. Another Rf 150 million (US$10 million) has been spent giving MNDF [Maldives National Defense Force] officers two years of allowances in a lump sum. Another Rf 50 million (US$3.3 million) has been spent repairing the damage to police headquarters. It was the police officers who staged the coup who vandalised the place and threw chairs and computers from the building’s windows. When this money has been wasted, we cannot accept it when they say there is no money for Aasandha,” Nasheed said.

More than 1000 police officers were given promotions on March 31 – a third of the country’s police force – while police have revealed plans to recruit 200 new officers to the force this year.

Nasheed said Waheed’s policies, along with alleged increased expenses on presidential trips, means “there will be no money in the treasury to provide services for citizens.”

“Aasandha services were provided based on taxing the rich,” he said. “First they told us they will not pay taxes, and then after staging a coup and bringing down tourist arrivals exponentially to the point it affects our income, we cannot obtain the development we seek and the services we seek to provide.”

New Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb had previously called on Maldivian businesses not to pay Goods and Services Tax (GST) to Nasheed’s government.

Nasheed said Waheed was obliged to implement the MDP’s manifesto, saying the coalition of parties that backed him to defeat Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the country’s first multi-party elections in 2008 had agreed to carry forward the MDP’s manifesto.

“Even in 2008 they wanted positions,” Nasheed said. “They did not have a plan in their hearts or party manifestos to deliver services to the people. Instead, they asked for seats in the cabinet. They said, ‘If you give me a cabinet position I will tell the people I know to vote for you.’”

The coalition of parties that supported Nasheed in 2008 include Dr Waheed’s Gaumee Ithihaad (GI), the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and Jumhoree Party (JP). The coalition dissolved months after Nasheed took office, and the three parties are now allied with Waheed.

“They tried to kill me”

Nasheed’s address was his first since a 10 day trip to the United States of America last week. Speaking to US media, Nasheed alleged former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was behind his ousting, and insisted his life was under threat on February 7.

“I am certain investigations will reveal Maumoon was behind the coup,” Nasheed said. “Ask [the army] who was instructing the MNDF generals that day. Ask them on whose orders the generals decided to side with Nazim.”

Ahmed Nazim is the current Defense Minister, and acted as intermediary between mutinying police and military and Nasheed on February 7.

“God willing, I will submit these details to the relevant courts and investigation. Such an investigation must have international oversight and has to be independent and impartial. They tried to kill me. They tried to take my life in order to stage a coup. It is my duty to reveal what transpired on that day,” Nasheed said.

“We have to clarify this atrocity, this coup, for the generations to come. I will submit what I know, the extent to which I knew and experienced it, to a trusted investigation,” he said.

Following calls from the Commonwealth, European Union, India, America and UK for an independent investigation, Waheed instituted a three member Committee of National Inquiry (CNI) to look into the legitimacy and legality of the transfer of power. However, the CNI has come under fire from the MDP and local civil society groups for unilateralism and lack of independence. Further, the CNI has said it will not conduct a criminal investigation.

Nasheed promised supporters he would ensure an investigation through international processes if domestic bodies failed to conduct an independent and impartial inquiry.

“What we didn’t do was accumulate force”

Nasheed reiterated call for early presidential elections and highlighted the importance of an elected government. “You cannot sustain a government through force. The force behind any government is the people,” he said.

He could have stayed in power had he used force on February 7, Nasheed said, but choose not to: “The Maldivian Democratic Party has been working on development for the past three years and six months. We were not accumulating force.”

Nasheed said soldiers had asked him to open the armory to put down the police mutiny, but he had refused to let them.

“I came to power, and you voted for me, not to accumulate force. You wanted widespread transport networks, economic development, and to put an end to the drug plague and begging for healthcare, for. You voted for harbours, for sewerage systems, to build outer walls of football fields, to build roads, cemeteries and for holistic education,” Nasheed said, repeating the MDP’s election pledges in 2008.

“What we didn’t do was accumulate force. What we didn’t do was torture people,” he added.

“Be courageous,” he said. “We are only calling for an election, not for the sun, the stars and the moon.”

“We cannot leave the protest square”

The MDP must sustain its protests in order to press for early elections, Nasheed said. He called on all of his supporters to stay at the protest camp, dubbed Insaafuge Maidhan (‘Justice Square’) and to continue to raise their voices. The establishment of the camp follows the government’s removal of the MDP’s protest camp near the tsunami monument by the police and military last month.

“We will come out in large numbers for a massive protest. A long demonstration that will resolve our issues. A demonstration that will reveal to the world what Maldivians are fighting for,” he said.

Nasheed said he was “disappointed” with America and India’s prompt acceptance of Waheed’s administration.

But he appeared to accept the move as characteristic of international politics. “It will be very difficult for major powers not to accept whichever government is in place. Governments have to interact with each other. Hence, they have to, they must talk to whoever holds the key to the military headquarters.”

“But powerful democracies will also look into how this key can safely be handed over to the people. I trust the Indian government. I trust America, the Commonwealth and the EU.”

The Commonwealth, EU and foreign governments have supported Nasheed’s call for early elections despite their engagement with Waheed’s administration.

Nasheed also called on foreigners who wish Maldives well to join MDP’s protest. “Come to the Maldives to protest. Stay with us until we gain our government back. Citizens, humans are humans no matter where they are in the world. Whether you are English, French, American, Indian or Maldivian, we are all made of flesh, bones and blood. We all experience the same in life.”

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Indian resort worker beaten and mugged in local hotel

An Indian national working in a local resort was attacked with a hammer and mugged while in Male’ city, allegedly by a former employee of the same resort.

The victim, identified by India’s Express News Service as 24 year-old Ramakrishnan Sadanandan from Thiruvananthapuram, was reportedly attacked at 2:30pm on March 31 while staying in a local guest house.

According to the victim, he was  attacked and robbed of US$200.

“They forcibly entered my room holding an identity card, pushed me to the bed and started beating me with a hammer,” Sadanandan told the Express News Service.

“They took my mobile phone, cash worth US$200, camera and gold chain, and ran away. I informed the hotel authorities about the incident and they called the police,” he said.

Sadanandan, who works as a front office supervisor at Medhufushi Island Resort and Spa, said that the police had “only registered the complaint”. He has also filed the complaint at the Indian High Commission in the Maldives.

Speaking to Minivan News, Sadanandan said that he had been continuously threatened in the last two days and warned that he would not be allowed to leave the country safely.

However Sadanandan said that he is planning to leave the country as soon as possible and if required he would seek the assistance of the Maldives Police Service.

A person familiar with the matter told Minivan News under condition of anonymity that Sadanandan and the person who had attacked him both had worked on the resort. Sadanandan was the senior officer to the person who had attacked him.

According to the source, Sadanandan was warned prior to the attack, and “was lucky that he was at a hotel or else the he would have ended up in huge trouble”. The source also said that Sadanandan had audio recordings of the attacker in which he had been threatened.

A police media official confirmed to Minivan News that the case had been lodged with police and that efforts were underway to arrest the people involved in the crime.

Speaking to Minivan News, First Secretary of the Indian High Commission in the Maldives, S.C Agarwal, said “I think the Maldivian society needs to be a little bit more sensitive to the foreigners.”

“Foreigners come here because they are invited to come here by the Maldivian community. They are issued with visas and work permits. If they are being mistreated, in the long term it will bring long term consequences to the country,”  he said.

Agarwal added that foreigners deserved to have their rights and liberties respected once they entered the country with valid documents.

Regarding the case of Sadanandan, Agarwal confirmed that the High Commission had received the complaint on day the event took place.

Agarwal also said that a similar incident occurred about 10 to 15 days ago, in which an Indian woman was mugged on the street and had her mobile phone stolen. However, he said that the police had arrested the perpetrators on the same day and the mobile phone was retrieved. However she had declined to proceed with the case because she did not think she would succeed as a foreigner.

Despite the reluctance of foreigners to report such crimes, the Indian High Commission had received more than 400 complaints in the last five months. Most related to labour issues, but some included mugging and robberies affecting the Indian community.

“In my last five months in working in the High Commission, I have received about 400 complaints from the Indian community here. And that is not good,” Agarwal said.

The Indian High Commission had advised Indian nationals not to carry large sums of money in their pockets, and to take precautionary measures at all times, he added.

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Revenue figures reveal economic impact of change in lease extension policy

The Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) released figures earlier this week showing the extent to which the change in island lease payments has affected the Maldivian economy.

According to MIRA’s figures, the total revenue projected for March was Rf1044 million [US$ 68 million], but had received 37.9 percent lower than the projected revenue “mainly due to the unrealised revenue from the Lease Extension Period.”

MIRA had anticipated to receive a total of Rf375 million [US$ 24 million] for lease extensions – however, due to government’s recent decision to accept resort island’s lease extension payments in installments – the  income received dropped to nearly Rf23 million (US$1.5 million).

These figures were published the same week that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the People’s Majlis that drastic measures must be made to reduce the government’s budget deficit. At the same time, the government announced that it was promoting a third of the police force and paying two years of allowances to defence personnel.

The IMF noted that the budget figures it had seen did not reflect the lost revenue resulting from the change in collection of lease payments.

Concluding the IMF’s visit to the country, the group’s representative suggested that the government reduce civil service pay and benefits, re-introduce recently removed import duties, increase the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and increase the bed tax by 50 percent.

The IMF’s expressed it fears that the government may exhaust its reserves if it did not resolve its budgetary imbalances: “Immediate steps have to be taken. This is the reality, we have to face it.”

MIRA’s figures appear to bear out the fears of the former Tourism Minister Dr Mariyam Zulfa, who predicted that the new government, having “over-interpreted” the repayment clauses in the Tourism Act, could expect to see up to $135 million taken from government revenues in the next year.

At the time of the Tourism Ministry’s announcement of the extension payment changes, the government had already received lump sum payments from 25 resorts equating to US$40 million and was expecting nearly US$135 more from 90 resorts.

“The lease extension is about increasing the asset value of the properties. In the Maldives, all the islands actually belong to the government and when the second amendment to the tourism law came into place it gave the option for resorts to extend the existing 25 year leases to 50 years,” explained Dr Zulfa, at the time.

“A time period was given and there is a clause [in tourism lease extension regulation] that stipulates that the payment must be done in completion before the lease period can be extended. So, the Nasheed government had interpreted that clause as the payment to be paid in full for the period extended. So, because the wording is such that the payment must be complete before the extension is granted, we interpreted it as the full payment.”

“But there is another clause [in Tourism Act] which says the manner in which the payment is calculated is on an annual basis. This [current] government has over-interpreted that clause and has said that the payment has to be made on an annual basis, but I have always insisted that the value of the government assets must not be allowed to decrease because the payments go to funding welfare services, housing projects, infrastructure projects, health services and so on that would benefit the local community,” she said.

“The current government has not only allowed payment to be made on an annual basis but allow for the payment to start at the end of the 25 year period, which is years away. It is a huge loss to the government treasury, about US$150 million, and I think as a result that a lot of people will be deprived of the many projects that we have started for the benefit of the communities across the atolls,” argued Zulfa.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb has said that the government would reimburse US$ 40, accepted as lease extension payments prior to the change in policy  by deducting the amount from the rent payments.

Explaining the decision at the time, Adheeb also said that the government was happy make things easier for the tourism industry wherever it could, after it had contributed so much to the economy through taxes.

He further claimed that the government was seeking to act in line with a December 2011 High Court ruling against Nasheed administration’s interpretation of the relevant clause in lease extension regulation.

After the ruling was made, and before it lost control of the government, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), had stated its intention to appeal the High Court’s decision. Dr Zulfa reports that the current government has removed this appeal from the high court.

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Hearing held into deaths of Emma and Jonathan Gray at Kuredu Island Resort

The Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) has pressed ‘disobedience to order’ charges against 23 year-old Swedish national Filip Eugen Petre, the driver of the King Quad 700 that crashed into a tree and caused the death of a tourist couple honeymooning at Kuredu Island Resort last year.

The first hearing of the case was held in the Criminal Court yesterday.

Petre’s lawyer Areef Ahmed contended that his client could not be charged under Islamic Sharia because his client is non-Muslim, local newspapers reported.

State Attorney Ahmed Nashid told the court that every soul was protected under Islamic Sharia and that Petre was charged for disobedience to order because it was a case involving two deaths.

Nashid also contended that under Islamic Sharia, if an offender’s action caused the death of a person, the offender shall be punished.

He told the judge that the crime Petre was accused of committing was carrying people on a vehicle which was not intended to carry passengers, and that his criminal actions started from that moment.

Judge Abdul Baary Yousuf asked Areef to explain this action of his client, to which Areef replied that this was the normal procedure at the resort.

The judge told Areef that he was not asking about the procedures of the resort, but was asking whether his client had acted right in the incident.

The judge kept repeating the question to Areef, and said that one’s disobedience was not a reason for others to disobey.

Areef then told the judge that he need time to answer the question.

According to Article 88 of the Penal Code, disobedience to order is a crime and According to Article 88[c], if the result of violating the article resulted a death, the case shall be dealt with according to Islamic Sharia.

While this can include the death penalty, in practice the Maldives commutes this to up to 20 years imprisonment.

The young tourist couple from West Yorkshire, Emma and Jonathan Gray, were riding on the quad-bike as passengers when it collided with a tree around 4:00am on August 6.

On August 6 last year police were informed by resort management at 4:15am that two guests had been found with injuries beside one of the resort’s roads

A statement from police that day stated that a third individual, later identified as Petre, was injured in the incident and was taken to hospital.

Jonathan’s mother Cath Davies recently told the Halifax Courier that the prospect of Petre facing the death penalty was “shocking. It’s absolutely horrendous,”

“We never expected there to be an outcome like this. It’s good they have dealt with it. It’s great they have investigated it properly. But I wouldn’t want it to be carried out. It’s not going to bring Jay and Emma back. It’s not going to make us feel any better. It doesn’t seem right. I just find it quite abhorrent,” she told the paper.

Following the incident in 2011, Filip’s father Lars Petre, a shareholder in the resort, provided a statement to Minivan News in which he described the accident as “by far the most tragic event in my life, and words cannot describe how saddened we are. I and my family are deeply concerned with errors on some of the media reports and we are also deeply saddened by some accusations made at my son.”

“My son Filip Petre (23 years) was taking the two guests home, to the other side of the island, when he experienced some difficulties with the bike, and crashed headlong into a tree on the road. The crash took two lives and badly injured my son.

“He fell unconscious with the crash and woke up some time later to find the two deceased also lying on the road. He immediately called for help and worked alongside with the doctor who arrived to try and save the victims of the crash, while he was bleeding himself.

Another British national, 42-year old Sharon Duval, died on Kuredu in October 2010, also while honeymooning with her husband, after her body was found on the beach by another guest.

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Don’t follow our example, Pakistani civil society warns Maldives

Civil society organisations in Pakistan have expressed alarm over the political crisis in the Maldives, urging the country not to make the same mistakes as Pakistan and calling for the Maldives’ suspension from SAARC until democracy is restored.

Civil society activists from organisations including the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Sindh Development Forum, former Supreme Court judge Nasir Aslam Zahid and human rights activist Iqbal Haider addressed the Maldives’ situation at a joint press conference on Saturday.

“At least two countries in South Asia – Pakistan and Bangladesh – that have faced martial laws and coups in the past know very well how people suffer when democracy is brought down,” the civil society representatives said, according to newspaper Pakistan Today.

“We believe that democracy and governance are two different matters and the failure of governance should not be equated with the failure of democracy. An elected regime is brought in by the efforts and votes of the people through the institution of elections and the exit of an elected government should also follow the same procedure.

“There is no way use of force or coercion should be allowed to overthrow a democratically elected government. We also believe that if South Asia is to progress as a region, it will have to adopt democracy as a system of governance,” the representatives said.

“We also stress the need for the Pakistani government to take a strong stand with regards to the events in the Maldives. There are a lot of similarities between the Maldives and Pakistan. Like the Maldives, the elected government of Pakistan too came to power after a very long struggle against military rulers that had held power unconstitutionally for a long time,” they said.

The Pakistani civil society representatives warned that the Maldives was now following the same path of decline that had mired Pakistan in political, religious and economic turmoil.

“The growing strength of religious forces in the Maldives seeking to assert their political prowess and their role in the overthrow of the government is also a point where Pakistan could relate to its South Asian neighbour. The elected governments in Pakistan have battled and are still struggling with the same phenomenon.

“South Asia, as a region, has lost resources and valuable time over the quest by powerful military institutions to assert dominance over the state. This has to be discouraged and a culture of promotion of democracy needs to be cultivated,” the representatives stated.

“We also urge the government to call for the activation of the SAARC mechanisms to prevent the undemocratic move in the Maldives. A joint stand from the platform of SAARC needs to be taken to condemn the events in the Maldives. We also urge all South Asian publics to take this matter seriously and support their respective governments in condemning the action.”

Civil society organisations in the Maldives have been noticeably quiet since the controversial events of February 7-8.

Off the record, several civil society figures have said they have avoided making a stand for fear of politicisation.

“I don’t think taking the right stand means we are politicised,” said another, on condition of anonymity.

“To be frank, we’ve really tried to work on these issues but we’ve hit a wall with the media, [particularly broadcast]. We’re just not getting the time and attention we used to [under Nasheed’s government].”

Several NGOs, including Transparency Maldives, the Maldivian Democracy Network, the Maldives NGO Federation and Democracy House sent a letter to new President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan on February 29 – three weeks later – requesting observer status on Dr Waheed’s Committee of National Inquiry (CNI) into the circumstances surrounding the change of government.

The NGOs subsequently met with Dr Waheed and the CNI in an attempt to ensure the composition was acceptable to all political parties, as Nasheed’s MDP has currently boycotted the inquiry claiming it consists of key Gayoom loyalists.

The NGOs sent a second letter on March 15. Minivan News understands that they are still awaiting a reply.

“The onus is on the President to change [the composition], as the CNI has said it cannot,” said an NGO representative.

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“Two political films, two very different codas,” LA Times on The Island President

The LA Times’ John Horn finds interesting parallels in the amendments made to two films chronicling the respective political careers of former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed and Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi.

The world moves at the speed of life. Hollywood, not quite as fast. The discrepancy is usually not an issue, but in the case of two politically minded films coming to theaters this month — the documentary “The Island President” and the feature”The Lady” — the gap between real time and movie time has lent the movies two very different postscripts.

“The Island President” from director Jon Shenk (“Lost Boys of Sudan”) follows Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the Maldives, as he fights to stop or at least slow global warming; if it’s left unchecked, scientists predict, his low-lying island nation will be submerged by the end of the century. The movie played at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals in September, but in February — before “The Island President” could be released in the U.S. theatrically — Nasheed was forced out of office in what he and his supporters called a coup.

Shenk has added a coda to the film addressing the plight of his subject, but he didn’t otherwise edit the documentary following the recent developments. Although Nasheed’s new status has given him a lot more time to promote “The Island President” — he’s chatted in recent days with David Letterman and Jon Stewart — his ouster means that the movie now ends with as much of an ellipsis as an exclamation point.

“It’s hard to separate the film from the man. So it’s inevitable that people will ask the question, ‘Does this make you feel anything different about him? Does it add to the story?'” Shenk said of Nasheed’s removal from office.

“I feel there’s some distraction, instead of having the typical discussion about how the film was made and reviewers liking or not liking it. It feels both distracting and it gives it a sense of immediacy that for certain people might make it feel more exciting.”

Said Meyer Gottlieb, whose Samuel Goldwyn Co. is distributing “The Island President”: “What’s happened to Nasheed makes him far more visible. From a press perspective, he’s a much more interesting figure now.”

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