Commissioner General of Taxation at the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA), Yazeed Mohamed, has named the Tourism Ministry as the prime culprit amongst state institutions which are failing to collect payments owed to the government.
“If rent on resorts is not paid, the Tourism Ministry must take action in accordance with the agreement. But so far no such action has been taken against anyone,” Yazeed told local newspaper Haveeru.
As MIRA was not party to the agreements made between certain government institutions and third parties, it could not itself enforce or implement payments, he explained.
“If rent is not paid we have to take it up in court. That is to obtain payments not paid for a certain period. Then it is used as an excuse. From that point on they get a free license to stay without making payments. Once a case is filed in court, it can go up to two years without a single payment,” Yazeed told Haveeru.
“Not everybody is penalised equally. There is no differentiation between the parties that pay the amount that is owed or the ones that don’t,” he added.
Despite not collecting payments such as land rents and associated fees, MIRA includes such figures on its monthly statistics.
The figures for August showed that ‘Tourism Land Rent’ collected last month was only 19 percent of the amount collected in the corresponding period last year.
Tourism land rent for the year so far is shown to be only three quarters of that collected by the same point on 2011.
The importance of this revenue stream can be seen in the share of overall revenue tourism land rent alone contributes to the authority’s figures – making up 10 percent of MIRA’s income this year.
Former Economics Minister Ahmed Inaz told Minivan News today that this issue was also a problem under the former Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) led government.
“The system is not transparent or fair – under the Nasheed government or now,” said Inaz.
“The Judiciary and executive should penalise industries which are penalising the system. The system should be designed for all, not individuals,” he said.
Dr Mariyam Zulfa, Tourism Minister under the Nasheed administration, disputed the suggestion that any resort owners received preferential treatment during her tenure and said that non-compliance was always a problem, everywhere.
“Only about 10 percent of resort operators failed to comply. In every country there are those who do not comply with taxation legislation’s requirements – the Maldives is no different” she said.
MDP members have persistently linked powerful resort owners with what it perceived to be a coup d’etat which saw President Mohamed Nasheed leave office in February.
Shortly after the transfer of power, there was a re-interpretation of the legislation governing island lease extensions which Zulfa predicted would severely reduce government revenue.
“The Nasheed government had requested that those resorts extending to a 50 year lease pay in a lump sum,” she said at the time, “but while I was Tourism Minister, Gasim Ibrahim and Ahmed ‘Redwave’ Saleem kept pressuring me to let them pay on a yearly basis.”
“They didn’t want to give any money to the government, and soon after the government changed they got what they wanted. [The installments] will only be payable at the end of the current lease periods – it is a huge loss to the treasury,” she added.
MIRA’s figures show that revenue from lease period extension fees has been US$11million (MVR168million) so far this year, compared to US$20million (MVR273million) at the same point in 2011.
Minister of Finance and Treasury Abdulla Jihad told the Majlis’ Finance Committee earlier this week that state revenue was expected to be MVR3.1billion (US$200million) less than expenditure this year.
Neither the current Minister for Tourism – Ahmed Adheeb – nor the Deputy Tourism Minister – Mohamed Maleeh Jamal – were responding to calls at the time of press.
Chairman of Felivaru Fisheries Maldives Ltd (FFM), Mohamed ‘Inthi’ Imthiyaz was yesterday sacked from his position over allegations of corruption.
Spokesperson of Presidents Office Abbas Adil Riza told local media that Imthiyaz was removed from his position following an investigation of corruption by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), allegations which included issuing of several cases of canned tuna on credit to a paper company under his name.
Imthiyaz is also the Registrar General of the Jumhoree Party (JP), led by business tycoon MP Gasim Ibrahim.
“The government’s view is that when a person is alleged to be involved in corruption he should be removed from his position in government or government affiliated company. Such cases will be investigated by independent institutions and being in such a position may hinder the investigation. So that was the principle that the government viewed,” said Riza, who is also a fellow JP council member.
President of ACC Hassan Luthfee confirmed to Minivan News that the case was filed and the investigation completed.
Imthiyaz, who is currently on a trip to Dubai, told local media he was not aware of the government’s decision to remove him from his position and rebutted the allegations, claiming that he had not done anything corrupt for government to remove him from the position.
“This case is about an allegation that one of the shops that I run took canned tuna cases on credit. Following the allegations I checked the transactions of the shops to confirm whether such a request was carried out but I didn’t find any. Also the board of FFM had not approved any such transaction,” he said earlier.
He further stated that he was giving full cooperation to ACC and added that he had been away from his business following his involvement in politics. Imthiyaz alleged the case was filed in ACC by political opponents to tarnish his image.
Minivan News tried contacting Imthiyaz but his phone was switched off.
Imthiyaz was the former Deputy Chairperson (Administrative) of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) but changes sides to the JP in February 2012 following the transfer of power. He was later nominated to the position of chairman of FFM by JP under its coalition agreement with the government of President Mohamed Waheed Hassan.
FFM is a government owned company formed during President Mohamed Nasheed’s tenure, after the splitting of the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO). Factories in Felivaru Island and Kooddoo Island were separated from MIFCO and made as into two different government companies: FFM and Kooddoo Fisheries Maldives (KFM) respectively. FFM specialises in producing high quality canned tuna and cooked loins for local and export markets.
Meanwhile corruption allegations have been levied up against several other appointees to the government companies.
Yesterday, Managing Director of MIFCO Hassan Shafiu and board members Ali Saifuddeen and Mohamed Wajeeh Ibrahim were also sacked from their positions over allegation of corruption.
Local newspaper Haveeru reported that the three were removed from their positions.
Minivan News tried contacting Shafiu but did not respond at time of press.
Speaking to Minivan News, ACC President Hassan Luthfee confirmed both cases had been filed.
He further added that Imthiyaz’s case had been finished and had sent a letter to Presidents Office regarding its findings. However he said that the MIFCO board members case is still under investigation and declined to provide any details.
Minivan News tried contacting Presidents’ Office Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza but he did not respond at time of press.
The Hulhumale Magistrate Court has ordered that former President Mohamed Nasheed be confined to Male’, ahead of a court case concerning his detention of Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed while in office.
“It’s a notice to the accused issued by the Hulhumale’ court and restricts his movements to Male’ City. The notice says he can only travel out of Male’ City with the prior permission of the Hulhumale’ Court,” said Chairperson of Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), Mariya Ahmed Didi.
Meanwhile, Nasheed was also summoned to the Civil Court on October 2 accused of defamation, for allegedly calling Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim a “traitor”. Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz has filed a similar case.
“This is very serious for us as a party, because we have a huge campaign coming up in the south, from October 1-13,” explained the party’s spokesperson, Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, observing that a third of the party’s MPs also faced court action.
“We plan to visit most of the islands in the southern two provinces, and it’s all been scheduled. This all looks very ‘Myanmar’ – using the courts and administrative manipulation to restrict political party activity. At a time when President Waheed is lobbying the Commonwealth to remove the Maldives from its human rights watch-list, his regime has detained the leader of the opposition.”
President’s Office Media Secretary Masood Imad told Reuters that the ruling was a judicial matter and that the government would not interfere.
However Ghafoor contended that while “Waheed likes to hide behind the fig leaf of judicial independence, the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International and other NGOs have highlighted that the judiciary is bias and effectively controlled by elements in the regime.”
The Department of Judicial Administration has meanwhile told local media that the travel ban was routine for defendents in upcoming court cases.
“It is standard procedure followed by all courts to necessitate those accused in a case to obtain permission from the relevant court to leave the country under Article 23 and 24 of the Court regulation,” a court official told Haveeru.
Nasheed, together with former Chief of Defense Forces Moosa Ali Jaleel, retired Brigadier-General Ibrahim Mohamed Didi and Colonel Mohamed Ziyad, are accused of illegally detaining Chief Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed during Nasheed’s final days in office.
Nasheed’s government accused the judge of political bias, obstructing police, stalling cases, having links with organised crime and “taking the entire criminal justice system in his fist” so as to protect key figures of the former dictatorship from human rights and corruption cases.
Nasheed justified the judge’s arrest based on his constitutional mandate to protect the constitution, after the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) complied with an injunction from the civil court preventing further investigation of the judge for ethical misconduct, and the failure of Parliament’s Independent Commissions Committee to hold the judicial watchdog accountable.
The then-opposition began nightly protests over the matter, while the government sought assistance from the UN and Commonwealth for urgent judicial reform. However Nasheed resigned on February 7 amid a police and military mutiny the day after the Commonwealth team arrived.
General Didi, who was serving as the Male’ area commander at the time of Judge Abdulla’s arrest, penned his “premature” resignation” after 32 years of service in the military upon the Prosecutor decision to prosecute him.
Ex-Chief of Defence Force Jaleel had also retired following the controversial transfer of power on February 7, while Colonel Ziyad has maintained he would be present in his uniform to defend himself in the court.
The case was sent to Hulhumale Court rather than the Criminal Court in Male’ due to apparent concerns over a conflict of interest, however it was initially rejected by the court on the courts it did not have the jurisdiction to hear the case.
The court was obliged to accept the case on resubmission by the Prosecutor General after a High Court appeal. Despite the case being sent to Hulhumale, the trial is to be held in the Justice Building in Male’.
Nasheed has specifically been charged with violating Article 81 of the Penal Code, which states that the detention of a government employee who has not been found guilty of a crime is illegal.
If found guilty, Nasheed will face a jail sentence or banishment for three years or a Rf 3000 (US$193.5) fine, a sentence that would bar him from contesting the elections.
This article originally appeared on DhivehiSitee. Republished with permission.
Using the law as an instrument of political power is not a new thing for governments, be they ‘established democracies’ or not. A prime example is how the Bush administration (ab)used the United States Constitution to circumvent international law on acts of war, to justify Guantanamo Bay, torture, extraordinary rendition and to deny justice and human rights to suspected terrorists in the War on Terror.
The government of Dr Waheed – which, incidentally, is enjoying the full backing of the current US administration – too, has proven itself to be a dab hand at (ab)using the law as an instrument of political power. The CoNI Report, which found there was no coup, mutiny or duress involved in the transfer of power on 7 February 2012, is a case in point.
The first part of this series looked at how CoNI approached the investigation with a foregone conclusion: there was no coup. As discussed, CoNI then began a process of putting together all evidence that supported this conclusion while systematically excluding, or discarding as irrelevant, any evidence that refuted or cast doubt over the said predetermined conclusion.
CoNI approached laws relating to the transfer of power on 7 February in the same manner as it did the facts surrounding it. Laws were picked and chosen as applicable only if they supported CoNI’s foregone conclusion: the change of government was Constitutional. Any part of the Constitution or existing laws that could be applied to refute the said conclusion or challenge its validity were ignored, glossed-over, deliberately misquoted, or dismissed as mere ‘protocol’.
Take, for instance, the following statement:
With regard to the idea that there was a ‘coup d’état’, nothing in the Maldives changed in constitutional terms – indeed, the Constitution was precisely followed as prescribed.
Yes, the Constitution remains unchanged. But that does not automatically mean that the transfer of power ‘precisely followed’ the Constitution ‘as prescribed’. This is a conclusion that can only be deemed legal by abusing law and making a mockery of the principles of the rule of law.
CoNI’s use of the law as an instrument of political power is most blatantly evident in the sections of the Report dealing with (a) presidential succession and (b) resignation and succession. It discusses as relevant to this issue six Articles of the Constitution: 108, 100, 112 (b), 112(d), 121, and 123 (b). Each of them appears to have been selected precisely to prove a particular point, which when taken together, supports the CoNI conclusion that the transfer of power was constitutional.
Article 108 is deemed relevant in this section, for instance, solely to remind the people that sometime ago, in 2008, when they voted for Nasheed, they also voted for Waheed as his running mate. As noted by the Legal Review of the Report by a team of Sri Lankan lawyers, it is an inherently limited argument that
[…] purports to construe the change of power or justify the change of power in terms of what had transpired 3 years ago rather than what had transpired in the present.
Regardless, CoNI uses it to demonstrate that, by law, it matters little that they voted for him not as their leader but as the leader’s deputy. Only when considered separately from the fact that thousands of people now suspect the very same deputy of having caused their leader’s downfall—and when taken in isolation from the various other aspects discussed below—does Article 108 allow Waheed to become someone that can even remotely be regarded as an ‘elected’ president.
Article 100–which deals with the legal means of removing a President from office–is mentioned in the Report, but is not discussed as deserving of note. Given the predetermined conclusion of CoNI, that there was no duress involved in the President’s resignation, the Article of the Constitution is indeed irrelevant.
Articles 112 (b) and (d) deal with eventualities requiring the Vice President’s succession to office of the President.
Article 121(a), which deals with details of a President’s resignation letter, meanwhile, helps establish that because Nasheed wrote the letter in his handwriting, it must be valid and legal. Once President’s Nasheed’s claims that he wrote the letter under duress are dismissed as ‘baseless allegations’ (having excluded any evidence to the contrary), then Article 121 makes perfect sense.
The letter is in Nasheed’s handwriting (written under what circumstances matters not) and it was delivered to the leader of the Majlis (how and by whom did not matter). When looked at in this sort of fantastical isolation, Article 121 can, indeed, be interpreted as validating the document as legal.
Article 114, meanwhile, is cited almost in full:
An incoming President or Vice President shall assume office upon taking and subscribing, before the Chief Justice or his designate, at a sitting of the People’s Majlis, the relevant oath of office set out in Schedule 1 of this Constitution.
Interestingly, although cited in the CoNI Report as the law relevant to ‘resignation and succession’, the Report pays scant subsequent attention to it. In fact, much like the JSC’s dismissal of Article 285 of the Constitution as ‘symbolic’, the CoNI Report dismisses the stipulations of Article 114 as mere ‘protocol’.
The Presidential oath, as stated in the Constitution, requires the incoming President to say his own name in the oath. ‘I, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik…’ Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz Hussein, who administered the oath, did not include Waheed’s name in its composition. Similar problems affected US President Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony in January 2009. The remedy then was for Obama to re-take the oath exactly as prescribed in the Constitution. The current Maldivian government, and the CoNI Report, in contrast, chose to ignore the glaring omission in Waheed’s oath, as if it mattered little.
At a stretch, this is a matter that can be dismissed as a breach of protocol.
But the same cannot be said for the requirement in Article 114 that the new President must take the oath of office at a sitting of the People’s Majlis. President Waheed took the oath office at a ceremony held in the privacy of a room in the Majlis premises, with only his wife, the Chief Justice, Speaker Abdulla Shahid and a few administrative staff as audience and witnesses. This is not simply a bungled oath.
Neither is it, as the CoNI Report claims, a ‘possible non-compliance’ of ‘protocols which had been created for general office management.’
Precisely where the presidential oath is taken is not simply a matter of housekeeping, nor merely a matter of deciding on which venue is free or most conveniently accessible for the occasion. If the Constitution were to be ‘followed precisely as prescribed’, and if Waheed has been properly sworn in as the President of the Maldives, it would have been done at a sitting of the people’s Majlis.
Is Waheed a caretaker president?
Something starts to smell really rotten when it comes to issues surrounding this question. First, the Report glosses over the fact that the oath administered to Dr Waheed to enable his accession to the presidency was one meant for a caretaker president.
Take the fact, for example, that although it is Article 114 that CoNI cites in reference to Dr Waheed’s oath, in reality the oath administered to Waheed is the one stipulated in Article 126:
Any person temporarily discharging the duties of the office of the President or Vice President shall take and subscribe before the Chief Justice or his designate, the relevant oath of office set out in Schedule 1 of this Constitution.
This is an oath which is not required to be taken in front of the Majlis, for it is not meant for a President proper. And, although the CoNI report makes no mention whatsoever to Article 126, this is the oath that is administered to Waheed. That is what Speaker Shahid says before the oath is administered. Watch the video:
Having stated that Nasheed has resigned under Article 121(a) of the Constitution, this is what Speaker Shaid says (at 1:11):
I, therefore, request of the Vice President, Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, to take the oath as stipulated in Article 126 of the Constitution enabling him to carry out the responsibilities of the President.
Article 126. Not Article 114.
To cite Article 114 to justify an action taken under Article 126, as the CoNI Report did, is to deliberately mislead the public into believing that we have a President proper rather than a Vice President temporarily assigned the responsibility of carrying out the duties of the President—until such time as there could be a president proper.
This deliberate deceiving of the pubic is further shored up by blatant disinformation, or to put it less kindly, by a blatant lie.
Below is a screen shot of an extract from page 22 of the CoNI Report. Note the highlighted section, and what it states as the contents of Article 123(b) of the Constitution.
This is not factual information.
What Article 123(b) says in reality is this:
The ‘subsequent election, permanent incapacity or death’ which the CoNI Report falsely states as contained in Article 123 (b) of the Constitution, in reality, appears in Article 124 (b) in relation to the permanent incapacity of both the President and the Vice President together. It is, therefore, not relevant to the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power on 7 February 2012.
Note that even then, the person who assumes the office of the President does so in a temporary capacity.
If the Constitution were precisely followed as prescribed, as the discussions above show, Waheed is a caretaker president; someone who is temporarily in charge of carrying out the duties of the President until a President proper – that is, a president elected by the people of the Maldives – is sworn in under Article 114.
Even though CoNI and the current Coalition Government, which set CoNI up and also administered the caretaker oath to Dr Waheed, knows this full well, it has chosen to selectively apply parts of the Constitution – and at times deliberately lie – to force the public as a whole to accept him as the ‘elected’ (recall the use of Article 108) President of the Republic of Maldives. Something which he is not.
Why?
Because it is the only ‘legal’ way in which the current government can withhold from the Maldivian people their right to a free and fair election – which must be held as soon as possible – so the caretaker president can be replaced by the President proper, be it Waheed, Nasheed or someone else.
Getting around the mutiny
A group of police and military personnel refused to obey the orders of their Commander in Chief on 6th and 7th February 2012. This is documented in CoNI’s own Timeline, which it describes in the Report as the most solid foundation for its conclusion that there was no coup. Therefore, even for an institution that proved so adapt at twisting the law to suit its facts, there was no getting around the fact that the armed forces—for whatever reason—disobeyed their leader. This was a mutiny:
mutiny |ˈmyoōtn-ē|
noun ( pl. -nies)
an open rebellion against the proper authorities, esp. by soldiers or sailors against their officers : a mutiny by those manning the weapons could trigger a global war | mutiny at sea.
So how does CoNI absolve the mutinying armed forces of any responsibility in the transfer of power? First it points out that ‘there is no definition of the expression “coup d’etat’ in Maldivian law’, implying that because the Maldivian law has so far failed to define the term, no transfer of power, no matter how illegally affected, cannot be deemed a coup.
Then it notes that there are several statutory provisions that do define rebellion as an offence against the State punishable by law, but promptly dismisses them as inapplicable because, even if there was such a thing as a coup, the open rebellion of the armed forces cannot be deemed a coup because it occurred before the coup.
This position is nothing short of ridiculous: the only thing that can be considered a coup under this definition is the actual act of assumption of power by a new President – the act of swearing in, in this case. Everything that comes before it, leads to it, triggers it, is the catalyst of it, and/or is the direct cause of it, according to this position, is irrelevant and inconsequential.
Yet, this is the position CoNI takes: because the rebellion of the armed forces can neverbe a coup per se even if it directly leads to one, any such mutiny cannot be punished as an offence against the State.
By (ab)using the law in this manner, CoNI is thus able to make a military and policecoup d’etat against the State impossible—even if it occurred in broad daylight and was witnessed, in real time, by the entire nation. In this manner, the police and the armed forces, and the three men who commandeered them and guided them through the rebellion, are all absolved of responsibility and made immune from prosecution for not just their disobedience of authority but also its consequences: the end of a democratically elected government.
Given CoNI’s abuse of rule of law – using the law as its primary instrument – it would be a travesty against the very concept of democracy for its Report to be accepted and endorsed as the definitive truth, and as a legally binding document that settles once and for all the many disputes that surround the transfer of power in the Maldives on 7 February.
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Speaking in London after meetings with British and Commonwealth officials, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said that despite his reservations regarding the decision of the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI), he no longer expected the international community to say it was a coup or to attempt his reinstatement, reports Rita Payne for ETN Global Travel Industry News.
He was, however, worried that a standard had been set by the President of the Maldives who is accused of being the perpetrator of the coup.
“I can understand that in a diabolical sense in some rationale, because if the Commonwealth says that it was a coup, they must correct it, and that in their mind can be very untidy, so they would rather say yes it was constitutional – but this means that we have not been able to break from our traditions of the mob taking over and forcing governments or power to be transferred.”
Nasheed argued passionately for the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group not to drop the Maldives from its agenda when it meets in New York this week. He feared that the Commonwealth would send out the wrong signal if the transfer of power in the Maldives was deemed to be legitimate and it no longer monitored the observance of democratic and civil rights in the country.
“If we are off the CMAG agenda, I can’t see how focus can be brought upon the situation and issues in the Maldives. We must remain on the CMAG agenda. I would be with the view that if the CMAG cannot be engaged in the Maldives and if they remove the Maldives from their agenda I don’t think that any dialogue would continue, and I feel that we would all end up in jail. So it’s really up to the international community and more specifically the Commonwealth countries to decide if they would want to support democracy in the Maldives.”
Secretary General of the Maldivian National Olympic Committee (NOC) Ahmed Marzook fears that the persistent delaying of the South Asian games will be detrimental for athletes both in the Maldives and throughout the region.
“This is a big blow, and not just for us – it’s about regional sport,” he said. “This is the hope for youth in the region – this is the only thing for youth in the region.”
Marzook’s comments follow India’s decision to delay the hosting of the games for the second time. Originally scheduled for next month, the games had been rescheduled for February 2013 due to this summer Olympic Games.
However, during a teleconference with the Indian Olympic Association last week, Marzook was told that the games could not be held in February, with September 2013 mooted as an alternative.
The NOC has yet to receive official confirmation of the postponement, fuelling concerns that the games may even be pushed back to 2014.
This, explained Marzook, would only exacerbate the budgetary problems that have been caused by the delays.
“In 2014 we will be competing in both the Commonwealth and the Asian games. This will be hard if we have the South Asian Games in the same year – imagine the ticket prices for the delegations,” he said.
The postponement of the South Asian games has already caused the NOC financial problems, with money for training coming from rigid government budgets, and contracts already having been agreed with foreign coaches with February in mind.
Despite the success of the Maldives Olympic team at this year’s London games, the international experience was viewed largely in terms of preparation for the proposed regional games in February.
“The South Asian games are the first steps in terms of international exposure for many athletes,” said Marzook.
Despite regulations which state the eight-nation games must be held every other year, the competition was last held in 2010.
Previous aberrations from the biennial rule came in 2001, when the September 11 attacks caused the postponement of the Islamabad games, and in 2008 when issues surrounding the general elections in Bangladesh resulted in delaying the Dhaka games.
“If India can’t host this, who can,” asked Marzook, who argued that the recent Commonwealth Games in New Delhi meant that all the infrastructure for the event was in place.
Marzook argued that the reason for the delay was infighting between the Indian government and its Olympic association (IOA).
The IOA is currently in the middle of a political storm as, this week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) insisted on sending international observers for the association’s elections.
Suresh Kalmadi has been President of the IOA since 1996 but was suspended after being arrested and jailed for his part in a corruption scandal surrounding the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
When asked about the delay in the games, Cultural Attache’ at the Indian High Commission in Male’, PC Mishra, said that the there were “no specific reasons” for the postponement.
“It is an administrative process,” said Mishra, who described Marzook’s concerns as “a little bit premature – an overreaction.”
Marzook said that Nepal had offered to step in to host the games in February, but that India had blocked the move.
Nepal, which is due to chair the next SAARC summit in before May 2013, was reported earlier this month to have fallen behind in its preparations owing to the political standoff in the country.
Bangladesh’s Daily Starnewspaper said that Nepal was expected to inform other SAARC foreign ministers of the postponement of the 18th summit at a meeting scheduled to be held alongside the United Nations General Assembly, which is currently meeting in New York.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding Maldivian athletes’ next international tournament, Marzook said that training would continue.
He revealed that arrangements were nearly completed for the intensive training of the country’s two top runners in Jamaica.
Azneem Ahmed and Hassan Saaidh – both members of the bronze medal winning 4x100m relay team in Dhaka – will travel to Jamaica after the NOC secured leave from their respective employers – the Police and the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).
“The whole world is watching China’s confrontations in the South China Sea and the East China Sea—but India is watching with particular concern,” Harsh V. Pant, a defence studies professor for King’s College, London, writes for the Wall Street Journal.
“India has no territorial claims here per se, but one Indian official recently said that the South China Sea could be seen ‘as the antechamber of the Indian Ocean,’ given the flow of maritime traffic. New Delhi is nervous about Beijing’s threat to the freedom of navigation, and this is one reason it is strengthening ties with island nations in the Indian Ocean.
This month, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony travelled to the Maldives to shore up relations with the young democracy. He was ostensibly there to inaugurate a military hospital built with Indian assistance, but New Delhi used the occasion to make a slew of defence-related announcements.
Chiefly, Delhi will begin training Maldives’ air force and position a naval team in the islands to train Maldivian naval personnel. Mr Antony also said India would station a defence attaché in its Maldivian embassy, extend the deployment of a helicopter squadron in the islands for two more years, and help the Maldives government in its surveillance of its Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends for 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its shores.
All these take defence cooperation up to the next level. More importantly, they underscore India’s continuing commitment to Maldives, despite a somewhat contentious transfer of power earlier this year when its first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed resigned under pressure when protests broke out against him. Some saw this as a coup, but India isn’t taking sides. Some of this is sheer agnosticism on Delhi’s part—it doesn’t want to interfere in another nation’s internal affairs—but a lot of it is realpolitik too.
Vice President Mohamed Waheed Deen has stated that political parties should refrain from breaking up unity among the people. He stated that all Maldivians belong to “one family” and should have a sense of kinship.
Speaking at the inauguration of the 5th Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Interior and Home, Waheed Deen said that Maldivians used to treat each other with respect and empathy, but that these traits were no longer present.
“We cannot even distinguish who among us are friends anymore. However, Judgement Day is a day in which we can no longer stay with members of our parties,” Waheed Deen said.
Waheed Deen stated that regardless of differences that could be seen at present, all humans come from the same roots. He noted that for this reason everyone needs to treat each other with mutual respect. Waheed Deen stated that politics and political ideologies were no reason to cause animosity between people.
Speaking about the objectives of the SAARC Home Ministers’ meeting, Waheed Deen stated that the main issues to be covered were the global concerns around internal and external security and safety.
The vice president expressed hope that discussions would be held, and solutions would be put forward for issues of high concern to the Maldives; including piracy, drug trafficking, human trafficking and terrorism.
Waheed Deen repeatedly stressed on the importance of mutual respect and unity, stating it would lead to faster national development.
SAARC Secretary General Ahmed Saleem and Minister of Home Affairs Mohamed Jameel Ahmed also spoke at the meeting today. The issues of numerous security risks in the region were highlighted in both speeches, along with the intention to discuss the matter further during today’s meeting.
The 5th Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Interior and Home is being held at Bandos Island Resort and Spa, owned by Vice President Waheed Deen.
Earlier this week, the Fifth Meeting of the SAARC Immigration Authorities was also conducted. Immigration Controller Mohamed Ali expressed concern over illegal immigration to Europe and money laundering through Maldives.
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