Day: September 6, 2013

Cursed coconuts on Fuvahmulah allegedly used to disrupt elections

Additional reporting by Ahmed Nazeer

Coconuts with black magic spells are allegedly being used to sway voters’ political party allegiance and incite confrontations between Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) supporters and police on Fuvahmulah, ahead of Saturday’s Presidential Election.

A ‘kurumba’ (young coconut) suspected to have a ‘fanditha’ (black magic) curse, with Arabic writing and suspicious symbols burned into the husk, was found in the garden of a home located in Fuvahmulah’s Dhiguvaadu ward yesterday (September 4), a source from Dhiguvaadu ward told Minivan News today.

The woman who found the suspicious coconut in the early hours of the morning intended to inform the police, however the homeowners – “hard core” Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) supporters – told her not to do anything until an expert investigated the coconut first, said the source.

“Neighbors supporting President Mohamed Waheed’s Gaumee Ihthihad Party (GIP) live in the area, so they heard about the fanditha coconut and wanted to create problems, so they contacted the police,” the source continued.

“MDP and PPM have been running strong campaigns and have many supporters in the area, however GIP only has about 15 members,” the source noted.

“Since GIP has very few supporters, they are trying to redirect attention away from the other political parties to gain votes,” alleged the source. “GIP has told PPM that MDP planted the fanditha coconut, however they are telling MDP that PPM is responsible.”

“Neighbors a few houses away were awake around 3:00am that night and did not notice any suspicious activity,” said the source.

The source believes that GIP, PPM and Jumhoree Party (JP) supporters are trying incite unrest among MDP activists on Fuvahmulah – especially GIP by involving the police in the fanditha coconut incident.

MDP supporters on Fuvahmulah remain very upset about the violent police crackdown that happened after the controversial transition of power in February 2012, according to the source.

“When MDP activists see local police they are not good with them, they do not keep calm, there is always a huge scene, shouting, etc.,” the source explained.

“[However,] these days MDP [Island] Councilors are trying to the max to keep supporters calm,” the source continued.

“And the situation is very calm right now. It [the fanditha coconut incident] was nothing huge, just a very simple thing,” the source said. “There won’t be any impact on voting.”

Fuvahmulah police did not want to get involved in the black magic incident, instead they preferred to allow the family to take action independently, a police source told Minivan News today.

“If we get involved, it will turn into a big thing,” said the police source, in reference to inciting unrest among MDP supporters.

However, local media reported that police took possession of the black magic coconut.

The Maldives Police Service was not responding to calls at time of press.

Black magic sabotage

A black magic practitioner from Fuvahmulah allegedly cast spells on five yellow young coconuts – kurumba can also be green or orange – and gave them to another man to deliver to a specific key location, a Fuvahmulah island council source told Minivan News today.

The island council source alleged a person named *Easa cast a spell on five coconuts and gave them to *Moosa to deliver. However, Moosa left the coconuts on his bed covered with a sheet before going to work.

“Moosa’s wife was not told about the cursed coconuts, so she was shocked to find coconuts on their bed and called the police immediately,” said the island council source. “The police went over to the house and took the coconuts.”

“She thought MDP had cast the black magic spells because the coconuts were yellow,’’ the island council source explained. “Once Moosa found out what his wife had done, he told her it was very bad that she had reported it to police.’’

Moosa and his wife then went to get the cursed coconuts back from the police, but police refused to return them, according to the island council source.

The island council source noted that Easa made a typographical error when cursing the coconuts. The coconut curse says to “get rid of [PPM presidential candidate Abdulla] Yameen”, but was supposed to read “get benefits from Yameen”.

Furthermore, during the 2008 presidential election Easa also started practicing black magic a month before the election day, noted the island council source.

“Every day after dawn prayer he went to the beach and did black magic stuff. He also went near the polling station and threw cursed objects at people,’’ said the island council source. “[But] Easa’s spells did not work the last time.”

“This hasn’t been taken too seriously by the islanders, but the MDP supporters are very concerned,’’ the island council source said.

No arrests have been made in connection with the case, the source added.

Earlier this week, police summoned a white magic practitioner to evaluate a young coconut believed to have been cursed by a black magic spell, after it was found near the Guraidhoo Island presidential election polling station in Kaafu Atoll.

*Names have been changed

Spiritual healing

This is the second cursed coconut incident reported in as many days, related to the presidential election. To better understand this “very common practice”, Minivan News spoke with Spiritual Healers of the Maldives President and Exorcist, Ajnaadh Ali.

“During elections black magic is used to gain votes and make people ill,” explained Ali.

Ali suspects a spell was read over the Fuvahmulah fanditha coconut instead of inscribed, because the coconut reads “May Allah protect us from Abdulla Yameen”.

The black magic spell cast to influence voting “is a spell of separation. It’s the same idea as a love spell. It can either bring people together or split them apart,” Ali noted. “The black magic will attack them mentally, by demanding the individual think a certain way even if they would normally know something is bad. It makes them blind in the mind.”

“While any object can be used, because coconuts represent a life structure (like eggs) they use those objects to make the spell powerful, with the advice of the devil,” noted Ali.

“There is a long history of the practice in the Maldives, but it is still very common nowadays on every island,” he continued. “There is a lack of knowledge regarding the religion. Some people who do black magic think it’s right because the Quran is used.”

“In Dhivehi, fanditha means magic – black or white – but the way it is practiced is what makes it good or bad. Black magic is when people worship or invoke jins or devils to cause harm to others,” Ali explained.

“Black magic is practiced by misusing the Quran, chanting or writing verses and the names of devils or jins (spirits) to summon their help. It cannot be done unless someone has some disbelief of Allah,” he continued. “It it also disrespectful of the Quran.”

The best protection against black magic is reading Quranic verses, particularly the last two chapters of the Quran, said Ali. ‘Ruqyah’ is a form of white magic, specifically an Islamic exorcism where Quranic verses are read and prayers recited to heal.”

“Ruqyah will neutralise black magic to rid of the evil eye or any other spiritual matter, like jin possessions or mental illness,” he explained.

It can also be conducted for the benefit of worshipping Allah, he added.

“Any Muslim can practice ruqyah by themselves, however its more effective if they have knowledge of jins and the Quran. Also, they must be following the religion,” he noted.

The five pillars of Islam are prayer, fasting, alms for the poor, pilgrimage to Mecca, and declaring belief in one God, Allah.

A 1979 law requires persons wishing to practice fanditha to “write and seek approval from the Ministry of Health.”

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Comment: Conspiracy of silence over GMR arbitration

Amidst the high decibel of the election campaign, it is easy to completely miss out on some critical issues.

This seems to have happened last week, when the Maldives Airport Company Limited (MACL) recorded an early loss in its legal battle with GMR over [President Dr Mohamed] Waheed’s government’s decision to terminate the Male airport concession agreement. There has been no word or confirmation from the Waheed government on this and his eager-than-ever spokespersons are nowhere to be found. This is especially interesting since they have been more than keen to take any credit they can on the entire airport saga.

Per a report in Minivan News, this is an “early legal skirmish” for GMR in its $1.4Bn claim against Government of Maldives and MACL for illegal termination of its concession agreement in December last year. In one of the earlier comment pieces in this same publication, it has been argued how the termination was a political decision, not an economic decision and how politicisation of the airport by Waheed and his ex-allies is systematically destroying our national asset. This latest news now is all the more concerning and I am certainly surprised to see that it hasn’t been picked up by any of the other newspapers which leads me to believe many people didn’t realize what this may mean for us as a nation.

While Minivan News hasn’t highlighted their source for this judicial order. I wish they had.  In this column I will highlight what I believe are the implications of this order.

Legal setback – arbitration panel leaning away from MACL?

No doubt this is a major setback for Waheed and his Attorney General, Azima Shukoor. Waheed’s government has lost the first round of the battle and the first blood has gone to the other side. The judicial order provides early indications as to which way the arbitration panel may be leaning based on the arguments that they have heard from both parties till now.

Waheed government could not convince the tribunal members on the right way to proceed with the case and this would certainly make one nervous about whether they will be able to convince the panel about their legal position that the contract is void. We have to keep in mind that members of the government and their allies were publicly criticising the deal, protests were being staged against GMR and cries of nationalisation were being made just before Azima suddenly pulled the rabbit out of the hat and claimed that there was no contract all this while!

Details of the political campaign run by members of the government are in the public domain, and they raise questions as to whether the contract was invalid or if the lawyers were asked to find ways of canceling it.

Certainty of compensation by Maldives for termination?

The most important part of the article that the tribunal has discussed is awarding three different types of claims according to which way the panel decides on the legal question of whether the contract was void ab initio or not: “GMR-MAHB’s claim for compensation as per the termination clause of its concession agreement, its parallel claim for loss of profits over the lifespan of the agreement due to its termination, and the government’s counter-claim for restitution should the tribunal decide in its favour”. If one thinks deeply about it, this doesn’t sound like good news at all for Waheed and Azima, or for our nation.

If we lose the legal arguments, we will be faced with a US$1.4 billion claim that we may have to pay for how the airport contract was terminated. However, if Azima wins the legal arguments in the panel then it’s the restitution claims that will be relevant. Otherwise, the contract itself has some termination clauses and this is the third type of claim that may be awarded by the panel based on legal arguments. Let’s look at each of these three claims one by one.

GMR’s US$1.4 billion claim is what it is and we will have to wait and watch if they are awarded this claim. The more interesting aspect is what the panel seems to have said on the other two types of claims.

On the termination payments per the contract, I am all but reminded that in a press conference last year Azima herself said that if the contract is cancelled, we may have to pay GMR anywhere between US$600-700 million in compensation. Given that Azima has been maintaining that Nasheed’s government did not do any due diligence while procuring the contract, whereas she has done extensive due diligence before canceling the contract, I am tempted to take her word on the estimated cost of termination. Hence, in this case, we may have to pay GMR around US$600-700 million.

Now, for the worst part and which Azima has argued in court: in case we win the legal arguments in court, the panel will decide for restitution. If one quickly goes to Wikipedia and understands what restitution refers to in legal terms, it means “orders the defendant to give up his/her gains to the claimant… to restore the benefit conferred to the non-breaching party”.

In essence, if restitution is done in this case, the government will have to give back all the money that GMR brought to Maldives with them to invest and GMR will have to give back what they got from Maldives. Even some quick ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculations reveal that this would still mean paying around US$240 million to GMR!

If one believes their statements that they have already invested ~US$240 million in the airport, then this money will need to be given back to GMR. At the same time, they have also said that they haven’t taken investment out of the airport and whatever they earned was put back in the airport. Hence, we are still looking at a claim of US$240 million that we may need to give GMR even if we win the legal case!

Conspiracy of silence?

During his controversy-ridden reign in which he has lost allies one by one, Waheed has taken a number of suspect decisions which he has been too happy to slip under the carpet. He perhaps thought that the decision to axe the airport contract was a populist decision and he had probably hoped that it would bring him back to power.

This is why his spokespersons as well as the AG were trigger-happy to announce that nothing will happen in the arbitration before next year – “since there is no valid contract, there can be no compensation”.

Now, this early legal setback– which may cost us millions of dollars in damages even if we win the arbitration– has laid bare all the arguments that Azima gave when the contract was cancelled. The shallowness of her arguments has now left the nation with a US$240 million bill in the best case, and more than a billion dollars at worst! So much for the “legal due diligence and advice of foreign lawyers” that she received.

No wonder that there has been no word from the government on this so far. This may be either because they have nothing to say given the early setback that they have received or they would rather push this under the rug and hope they can get through the elections without making any comment which may jeopardise their chances. At the end of it, they seem to have taken advantage of a tight election schedule to hide without giving any explanations whatsoever!

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].

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