Nasheed fighting back: ETN Global Travel News

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.”

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