Tag: gayoom

Government must guarantee safety and rights of journalists: Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed strong concerns for media freedom in the Maldives’ following the release of strong evidence that police forces used firearm prohibited to their role to force open the station of Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) on February 7, 2012.

The station was overrun by security forces as violent clashes broke out across Male’, culminating in the resignation of then president Mohamed Nasheed “at gunpoint”, he has said. By early afternoon MNBC was re-branded as Television Maldives (TVM), its title under former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

MNBC’s former director general Adam Shareef described the situation to RSF.

Shareef said he had noticed that the situation on Male’ had become “serious”, and around 4:00am requested the Defense Minister to send more security to the station.

MNBC headquarters and some journalists were previously attacked during the opposition-led protests which began on January 16, 2012, when Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed was arrested by the military after attempting to block his own police summons. The government at the time backed their decision by citing the judge’s record of professional misconduct and blocking police operations, as well as holding suspects without evidence and releasing suspects with strong evidence against them, most notably an accused murderer who killed another person soon after his release.

Shareef said he was shocked when the Defense Minister “refused to send any security forces to MNBC. At that time I knew there as something wrong with the police and defense forces. We were in shock at the refusal, and we were waiting from the early morning until 7:30am. At 7:30 the security members had left their shift, so there was no security at MNBC.

“I was alone with my staff, and I ordered them to stay calm and cooperate with MNDF [Maldives National Defense Force],” he said.

Shareef explained that individuals aligned with the opposition came to the station in the late morning and requested that the station be signed over to their control. When he refused, Shareef was informed that Nasheed had stepped down and Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik had assumed control of the country.

“I said I hadn’t heard the news,” Shareef told RSF, pointing out that the confrontation took place before Nasheed had formally resigned at 1:00pm that day.

Shareef goes on to describe the violent take-over of the station, which left many of his staff in fear.

A video released yesterday corroborates Shareef’s account of the take-over. A police officer uses a gun to open the locked gates of the state broadcasting station, allowing dozens of police and military forces as well as civilians to rush the building where staff can be heard crying and shouting in fear.

Police in the Maldives are not issued firearms.

Noting that the Maldives ranks 73rd out of 179 countries in the 2011-2012 RSF press freedom index, “Reporters Without Borders hopes that the Commonwealth ministerial mission, which is to investigate the circumstances of last week’s change of government, will also shed light on the takeover of MNBC, the use of threats and violence against certain journalists and media, and the threats to which several journalists continue to be exposed.”

Members of Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have today signed a petition requesting parliament to acknowledge last Tuesday’s events as a coup; to bring those involved to justice; and to hold elections as soon as possible.

Since the station takeover TVM has filled its airtime with Disney movies and cooking shows, streaming pre-recorded programs even during the police force’s violent crackdown on a peaceful MDP march on February 8.

In a February 13 statement, RSF warned that Maldives media is in a precarious position amidst the political turbulence.

“The international community must take full account of the danger to the media and to freedom of information in the Maldives,” reads the statement. “For the moment, media coverage of the incidents taking place in this Indian Ocean archipelago is limiting the violence against journalists.”

Foreign media groups including Al Jazeera, BBC, Reuters, AFP, India Express, the New York Times and Japan’s leading paper The Yomiuri Shimbun converged on Male’ on February 8, bringing the murky politics of the perceived island paradise into global focus.

“But, once the international community’s attention moves on, we fear that media personnel, especially those who are branded as ‘pro-Nasheed,’ could be exposed to reprisals by supporters of the new government or by the security forces, which may not be fully under the new government’s control,” RSF cautions.

It didn’t take long for Maldivians to wonder if they may be subject to similar rules of social behavior.

Following the crackdown in Male’, local media Raajje TV inaccurately reported that two MDP supporters had been killed. Islanders in six southern atolls responded with a firey attack on police stations, court houses and prosecutor general’s offices, leaving public facilities and legal records in ashes.

The next day, Male’-based media received reports opposition party supporters were leading police and military forces to the homes of MDP supporters, who were consequently beaten and arrested without charges.

In a previous article Minivan News investigated the claims. While the reported aggression appear to have calmed some citizens of Addu, Maldives’ southernmost atoll which reported the most severe damage, expressed concern that the quiet was temporary.

“We are not safe because we don’t know when again it will start,” said one man speaking to Minivan News outside Feydhoo’s smoldering court house.

Alif Fahumy Ahmed, whose brother-in-law was still detained in Gan’s burnt police station on February 11, was similarly watchful. “Things in Addu have calmed at the moment, but they may continue once HRCM and the reporters leave,” he said.

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Police fired gun in takeover of MNBC, video reveals

Video footage taken during the storming of Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) on February 7 reveals that a police officer used a firearm to break down the gates of the station headquarters in capital Male’, allowing dozens of police and military forces (MNDF) as well as some civilians in plain clothes to forcefully take over the station.

According to Maldivian law police officers are not issued firearms.

Approximately two hours before former president Mohamed Nasheed resigned from office “under duress” in what his government has called a “coup d’état”, a group of rogue security forces armed with batons, iron rods, wooden planks and evidently firearms “hijacked” the state media station, forcing it to change to Television Maldives (TVM), its title under former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

A video obtained from an unidentified source captured the event from an upstairs window within the MNBC compound, looking down on the television station’s locked gates.

The video begins as tear gas canisters are thrown at a group of MDP activists attempting to protect the building outside the gate, billowing yellow smoke and forcing then to retreat from the area. A woman inside the MNBC headquarters screams, “Oh Mother! Mother!” as another comforts her, asking to “stop crying.”

Riot police with shields charge the gate as the tear gas clears, accompanied by several men who are not wearing uniforms. As the scene unfolds, a male voice is heard saying,  “Look there’s the police coming, they have guns”, while another man exclaims: “Oh no! That’s the bad police”.

The mob then attempts to break the heavy chain on the gates while a man inside shouts, “Oh my God, they’re opening [the gates], they’re opening”.

At the height of the attack on the gates, a uniformed police officer sticks a gun through the circular hole on the right-hand side of the gate and fires. Smoke from the weapon’s discharge floats up into the air. The crowd then bursts through the gates into the courtyard. Some of the men throw stones and one of the men, who isn’t wearing a uniform, is brandishing an iron rod in his hand. The mob then advances towards the main entrance of MNBC before the video cuts out.

“We felt trapped, kidnapped”

Minivan News spoke to some of the then-MNBC staff on duty inside the headquarters that morning, who recounted the “frightening experience” of February 7 on condition of total anonymity.

“They just stormed into the building and broke the doors and windows to force their way in. Some slapped the paper stacks and equipment off the tables. The first guy who came into the newsroom was a protestor and he ordered us to stop all the work we were doing. He kept on stomping his feet on the ground to frighten us and threatened to ‘finish us’ if we didn’t listen. So we stopped. We were all so scared,” one reporter recalled.

“In just a few minutes the whole place was filled with protesters shouting at us, police and MNDF took over the main control room. There were shouts and cries of girls everywhere. We felt trapped, kidnapped,” the reporter added.

“A policeman shouted that we [MNBC] have brought enough of what government wanted. Now its time for them to broadcast what they want,” another station employee claimed.

The employee added that they were ordered to patch through the VTV channel, owned by minority opposition Jumhooree Party (JP) Leader and MP Gasim Ibrahim. The nation watched VTV on state TV before the feed was cut off and came back on, re-branded as TVM.

Another staff member said that the security forces let the staff that wanted to leave the building exit, and assured them, “No harm will come to the rest”.

Newsroom sub-editor Ahmed Muhsin was taken home under police custody, another staff member told Minivan News.

“But we were surrounded by armed opposition protestors. We were scared for our lives,” the source continued. “The first anchor who went on air could not continue even because of the intimidation. So someone else had to take over”.

Police sub-inspector Ahmed Shiyam said that President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan has ordered an investigation into the events of February 7, and that police will not comment on the events of that day until the investigation is concluded.

Dr Waheed’s alleged involvement

MNBC Managing Director Adam Shareef told Minivan News that he was “advised to hide to guard his life” when the protestors stormed in threatening to attack Muhsin and himself for alleged alignment with Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

“I was hiding inside the light room until the security forces assured me I would be given protection. When I came out Dr Waheed’s brother Ali Waheed was there. He shook my hands and said that he was there to take over MNBC on behalf of Vice President Dr Waheed. This was before Nasheed resigned.”

Shareef also claimed that Ali Waheed came earlier that morning asking to handover the state media but he refused. “I told him that MNBC had the authority to run the state media and we would not hand over it unless the security forces came. So that’s why they [police and MNDF] came with the protestors,” Shareef observed.

He said that he waited at the station to ensure the safety of his staff, while Muhsin was escorted home.

Several sources at the newsroom confirmed that members of Dr Waheed’s Gaumee Ithihaad party including Ahmed Faiz and Alim Shakoor, younger brother of newly appointed Attorney General and opposition-friendly lawyer Aishath Azima Shakoor, were in the news room “giving orders” that day.

Previously, Azima Shakoor represented parliament’s state broadcaster Maldives Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) in a drawn out tug-of-war with state owned MNBC for control of the assets of the state broadcaster, formerly Television Maldives (TVM) and Voice of Maldives (VoM).

Its also notable that after taking office, the first presidential decree passed by President Dr. Waheed was to transfer assets to MBC, although Nasheed’s administration had repeatedly contended that the MBC board is stacked with opposition supporters and that its attempt to control of MNBC is effectively a “media coup”.

Meanwhile, MNBC was criticised for favouring MDP.

State media liberated or hijacked?

The MNBC staff, who earlier spoke to Minivan News, insisted that “in the name of liberating state media, the police, MNDF and the protestors hijacked [MNBC]”.

“We know the lawful state broadcaster is MBC. But this is not the way they should take over. If the rule of law was respected as Dr Waheed promised in his first presidential address, he would not have let the security forces take control over us,” said a senior member of the MNBC staff.

Minivan News could not reach Maldives Broadcasting Commission at time of press.

The commission has however given a license to MBC, which is now preparing to take over management of the national broadcasting station’s assets, local media reports. President Waheed has replaced the MNBC board and tasked it with overseeing the transfer of assets to MBC, which the MDP has previously alleged has a board stacked with opposition figures.

Meanwhile, speaking to Minivan News, the Maldives Journalist Association (MJA) President Hiriga Ahmed Zahir claimed that the organisation has not reacted to the take over of MNBC because the police were “enforcing the law”.

“MNBC was operating the state media unlawfully, despite repeated calls from us and court orders to hand it over to the parliament-created state broadcaster,” Zahir continued.

He claimed that MNBC was “abusing the state assets, and tax payer’s money” to make the state media a “propaganda machine” of MDP, in the non-existence of a fair editorial policy.

“I am not saying it was done in the most appropriate way. It was a chaotic situation. But we will always welcome bringing unlawful actions within the legal bounds. Police is the body to enforce the laws and I see no reason to object to the police taking over the state media to hand over it to the lawful body,” Zahir said.

He added that it would have been a problem if they had destroyed MNBC’s equipment or intimidated the staff, but said the organisation had not received any official complaints although some concerns have been raised informally.

Former National Security Advisor and former Defence Minister Ameen Faisal meanwhile observed that it looks “very strange” to see the police in the video firing a gun outside the MNBC office.

“It’s very strange to see. It’s very clearly seen in the footage that they were firing from the main outside gate inside [the MNBC compound] and our police force has never been issued with guns. The big question is how they got the guns. Evidently it was from the MNDF because they are the only people authorised to carry guns.”

He further added that the Maldives witnessed a “police mutiny turn into an armed mutiny” on February 7, which forced a democratically-elected president to resign.

“Any democratic country will not accept a government which used the police force and mutiny to forcefully resign a democratically-elected president. They have to condemn [the new administration], with this video footage and with all the torturing by the police. They should not accept the legitimacy of the government and should ask the people of the Maldives to decide who their president should be,” Faisal contended.

A photo circulating on Facebook apparently showing defected police and MNDF celebrating in the courtyard of the state broadcaster, after taking it over on Tuesday.
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Dr Waheed appoints majority opposition, Gayoom supporters to cabinet

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik made seven new appointments to the cabinet on Sunday morning.

The majority are hard-line opposition figures, while several are long time supporters of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Only two of the new appointments (the tourism and and health portfolios) have previously undeclared political affiliations.

Dr Waheed has faced pressure from his predecessor former President Mohamed Nasheed, who has challenged the legitimacy of Dr Waheed’s government claiming that he was forced to resign in a bloodless coup d’etat  on February 7 at the hands of rogue police and military officers.

Dr Waheed said yesterday that he wanted cabinet to “represent all major political parties”, hoped that Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) would be represented, and said he would “keep posts vacant for them”. The MDP has so far rejected any participation in Dr Waheed’s government.

Mohamed Hussein Shareef ‘Mundhu’ was appointed as the Minister for Human Resources Youth and Sport. Shareef has been the spokesperson for former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom since his last term in office and also holds the Acting Secretary General’s post in Gayoom’s Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM).

Aishath Azima Shakoor was appointed as the Attorney General. She once held the same post under the former administration and is known be one of the most successful lawyers in the country with a record number of wins in controversial cases against Nasheed’s administration. She is a council member of Gayoom’s PPM.

Ahmed Mohamed ‘Andey’, Deputy Leader of leading opposition party Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), was appointed as the Minister of Economic Development. He has been an outspoken critic of Nasheed’s privatisation policies and the state’s budget formulation. He was the former CEO of the State Trading Organisation (STO) under Gayoom’s administration, the organisation implicated in blackmarket oil trading with the Burmese military junta under the former chairmanship of Gayoom’s half-brother, Abdulla Yameen.

The DRP was the first official party registered by Gayoom before he announced his resignation from politics in February 2010, becoming the party’s ‘honorary leader’. He became increasingly politically active and later fell out with his anointed replacement, Ahmed Thasmeen Ali, and formed the PPM after an acrimonious split.

Dr Asim Ahmed, a member of the DRP, was appointed as the Minister of Education. He has not been a particularly active member in the country’s political spotlight.

Dr Ahmed Shamheed was appointed as the Minister of Transport and Communication. He is a member of minority opposition Jumhooree Party (JP) and works as a Director at Villa Shipping and Trade, owned by JP Leader Gasim Ibrahim. He served in the ministry of planning and development under Gayoom’s administration. He is also a director of the Maldives Tourism Development Corporation Board (MTDC).

Ahmed Adheeb, was sworn in as the Minister of Tourism Arts and Culture. Adheeb is the President of the Maldives National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI) is well known as a critic of the Nasheed’s economic policies. Under his leadership, the MNCCI made a failed attempt in court to halt the enactment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act, citing worse economic ramifications and violations of law. He is a widely respected economic analyst.

Dr Ahmed Jamsheed was meanwhile appointed as the Minister of Health and Family. Jamsheed, formerly Director General of the Centre for Community Health and Disease Control (CCHDC) resigned from his post, over concerns about reduced workloads, and later joined as the Cheif Operating Officer (COO) at ADK hospital. He is one of the leading and most outspoken public health experts in the country, and has been extremely active in promoting both public health and combating malaria epidemics in the Maldives.

Dr Waheed earlier appointed Deputy Leader of minority opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DQP) Dr Mohamed Jameel as the Home Minister and retired colonel Mohamed Nazim as the Defence Minister last week. Both are also notable supporters of Gayoom. Most recently Dr Jameel, Gayoom’s Justice Minister prior to the separation of powers, was an outspoken critic of Nasheed’s religious policies, authoring a pamphlet entitled ‘President Nasheed’s devious plot to destroy the Islamic faith of Maldivians’ and attacking his “business dealings with Jews”.

Dr Jameel is the only member in the cabinet from DQP, Dr Shamheed only member from JP while including Nazim the ministerial posts held by DRP members reach three and PPM stands at two.

Meanwhile ministers are yet to be appointed to the Finance Ministry, Islamic Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Fisheries Ministry and the Housing Ministry.

Abdullah Riyaz, former Assistant commissioner dismissed by Nasheed was appointed as the Commissioner of Police and Major General Ahmed Shiyam, appointed as Chief of Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).

“No self interest”

Speaking after the appointments, President Dr Waheed said that remaining cabinet ministers will be appointed in a week, and expressed his hopes for MDP’s participation.

“We all are with that hope. Because, today the country needs all of us to work together to establish peace, and take the country out of the deep pit of economic and political [problems] to find a prosperous future for our children,” Dr Waheed said.

He also added that: “I cannot do this work without the benevolent and sincere help of the [cabinet ministers]”, who he claimed had the full potential to serve the nation with “no self interest” during these “special circumstances”.

The newly appointed cabinet ministers must be approved by the parliament, in which MDP currently holds 35 seats, a single seat behind total opposition combined.

Minivan News could not get MDP’s comment on the new appointments as no member was available at the time of press – however, MDP has steadily rejected the legitimacy of Dr Waheed’s government accusing him of participating in what they call an opposition backed coup to force Nasheed out of office.

MDP Thodoo MP Ali Waheed has earlier stated that MDP will do everything to “stop the implementation of Dr Waheed’s every order” through parliament if he continues to remain in office, and ignores the party’s call for new elections in the next two months.

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Are we really going to abandon UK PM’s new best friend?: Independent

“When David Cameron referred to Mohamed Nasheed as his “new best friend” last November, I wonder if the then President of the Maldives, who was forced from office at gunpoint on Tuesday, believed that Britain’s prime minister meant what he said,” writes Sholto Brynes for the UK’s Independent newspaper.

Mr Nasheed would certainly have cause not to now. True, initially he announced that he was stepping down in order to avert bloodshed after weeks of protests and a police mutiny. But, on Wednesday, he revealed that he had been marched off by soldiers with guns.

“They told me they wouldn’t hesitate to use them if I didn’t resign,” he said.

On that same day Mr Nasheed and his supporters took to the streets of the capital, Male, in protest, only to be greeted by tear-gas grenades from riot police; Mr Nasheed himself and many others were beaten.

If it was an extraordinary reversal for the diminutive leader, who has won worldwide acclaim for environmental policies such as making his country carbon neutral by 2020, the response of the international community must have been a still more bitter pill to swallow. It seemed many had bought the line that Mr Nasheed had gone too far in ordering the arrest of the chief judge he accused of holding up corruption investigations and wrongly releasing an opposition politician. Also that the protests against his economic policies and supposed lack of commitment to Islam in this 100 per cent Muslim nation were proof that he was beginning to act in a high-handed manner and had dissipated his popular mandate.

On Wednesday, India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was extending his “warm felicitations” to Mr Nasheed’s successor, the former vice president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan. On Thursday, the US State Department declared that it recognised the new government. And although Mr Nasheed somewhat bizarrely thanked him for drawing attention to the coup, nevertheless William Hague tacitly followed suit by calling on the Maldives’ “new leadership to establish its legitimacy with its own people and with the international community”.

The facts are these. Mr Nasheed came to power in 2008 in the Maldives’ first democratic election. Blocked from carrying out many reforms because his Maldivian Democratic Party has never enjoyed a majority in parliament, Mr Nasheed has had to deal with a judiciary almost wholly appointed by the former regime, which, therefore, has never had any wish to delve into its violence and corruption.

Taking advantage of this, and other factors over which the president has had no control – such as the rising cost of the foodstuffs that have to be imported into a country that subsisted on a diet of nothing more than coconuts and tuna for centuries – elements of the old regime formed an alliance. They teamed up with the minority of hard-line Islamists and with corrupt businessmen, who knew that greater transparency would threaten their interests, to force Mr Nasheed out.

There was nothing remotely constitutional, legal or even popular about his removal. It was a coup backed by associates of his predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a dictator under whose 30-year rule Mr Nasheed and countless others had been tortured. The current incumbent, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, pretends otherwise: but he has already appointed two of Mr Gayoom’s former ministers to his cabinet, in the key departments of Home and Defence, and rewarded other Gayoom loyalists with the positions of presidential spokesman and Inspector-General of Immigration. It is believed that he struck a deal at the end of January: he would get the presidency, and Mr Gayoom’s men would return to power.

Mr Hague further displayed no sense of irony in the House of Commons when he said: “We hope that the new leadership will demonstrate its respect for the rule of law,” blithely ignoring the fact that it owes its position to a willingness to dispense with such democratic niceties.

A patina of Islamism is likely to overlay the new regime, and there will be much hollow talk of the need to preserve democracy, but underneath it is a return to the autocratic kleptocracy that preceded Mr Nasheed’s election. A proper taxation system did not exist before he came to power, and Mr Nasheed pointed to that yesterday as another of the motivations for the coup, which he said was “financed by resort owners. They liked the old order of corruption. We were rocking the boat, taxing them.”

Such words should be shaming indeed to the British government. We should never rush to foreign intervention. Frequently it is unjustified and catastrophic, as in Iraq, or diplomatically and practically impossible, as in Syria and Burma. But in the Maldives the case is clear-cut. It is a nascent democracy whose elected leader, admirably, chose the difficult path of reconciliation over retribution. “I’m trying not to prosecute the previous regime,” he told me when I interviewed him at the opening of a new Hilton on Noonu Atoll in 2009. “I’ve never removed my own jailers, only the chief of police. The rest of the top brass are my own interrogators.” Sadly, he appears to have been a victim of his statesmanlike and magnanimous behaviour. For there can be no doubt that it was forces allied to Mr Gayoom, who has been openly advertising his desire to return to power for months, who brought him down.

The international community acted without consideration last week. “It was a clever coup,” Mr Nasheed’s adviser Paul Roberts tells me from the Maldives. “Forcing him to resign, then locking him away so the vice president took office. It appeared all very normal and the diplomats moved too fast. They didn’t get all the facts before speaking out and suggesting the new regime was legitimate.”

Several countries have since rowed back slightly from their premature recognition of the new government. The US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Blake, arrived in Male yesterday to assess the situation, while India’s special envoy, M Ganapathi, has returned to New Delhi admitting that it was “complex”.

Full story

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Comment: I am for democracy too

A coup is a coup. Much of what transpired at MNDF headquarters the morning of February 7 remains unclear, but several key facts have come to light, and placed in the context of Maldivian politics, leave no doubt in my mind that President Nasheed was ousted in a cleverly executed coup.

Following Nasheed’s forced resignation, the entire country burned. Key law enforcement institutions became Enemy Number One overnight. In contrast to the relative professional and non-violent reaction to protests against Judge Abdulla’s arbitrary detention, police used brutal force and violently targeted key MDP officials on February 8. Controversial appointments to key posts in Dr Waheed’s government, particularly the Minister of Defence and the Commissioner of Police, who served as the main interlocutors with President Nasheed at MNDF HQ, with no legitimacy whatsoever, further deteriorate MDP supporters’ faith in the police and the MNDF.

In an atmosphere so emotionally charged and tense, it is an elephantine task to remain rational, to stick to facts, and to make decisions that will save our democracy in the long run. It is even harder to do so when media channels, on either side of the political divide, are biased and resorting to propaganda. Nasheed and his supporters have unleashed a deluge of hyperbole to rile up crowds and chip away whatever is left of the public’s trust in the police and the armed forces.

Nasheed showed Waheed’s government and the international community his ammunition when he led his supporters into a direct, violent confrontation with the police and armed forces on Wednesday. He is using the threat of violence to force elections in two months, when it is very clear that an election in two months will not be free and fair. In the meantime, Waheed has come out to say he will not hold elections until 2013. What has been lacking in our democracy since 2008 stands in the way of restoring democracy today. Democracy is about compromise. Nasheed and Waheed need to meet each other half way so that our democracy is not flushed down the drains of history.

Even if Waheed’s government is illegitimate, what is done is done. And protracted civil unrest and violence in small communities, which may take generations to heal, is not the way forward. At a time when people are divided and emotional, we need strong leaders who place the good of the nation above personal gain. Waheed must have the balls to ensure that his government does not go after senior leaders in the MDP in the run up to elections in six months. In return to agreeing for elections in six months, Nasheed and his co must be given guarantees by Waheed’s government that the MDP leadership and supporters will not be made political prisoners. In my mind, there is really no other way forward and if people have suggestions, it is time we start a national debate on how to overcome this impasse in a conciliatory manner.

You say a liberal?

That said, the coup d’etat of February 7 is also a window of opportunity for the people to demand more and better from of our political leadership. One person had written on facebook that we might have been too tolerant of President Nasheed’s runaway administration. True, opposition political parties under Nasheed’s administration did not play by the same lofty rules we set for the government. But with more power comes more responsibility. Nasheed was in power, the opposition parties were not, hence the double standards in expectations. With our civil society so weak from 30 years of authoritarian rule, the political leadership had a massive responsibility. Nasheed had the power to write the story of our democracy differently. He may have lost elections in 2013 if he did, but he would have been a mighty hero in my mind had he focused on strengthening our democratic institutions over forcing and bypassing democratic institutions to ensure the fulfillment of the MDP’s five key pledges.

A 30-year dictatorship left a legacy: an uneven playing field; a weak civil society; a small and toothless middle class; a dearth of self-thinking peoples; and a biased media. The vestiges of dictatorship remain and they matter. History matters. But it only directs, it does not determine. The many constitutional crises, the political posturing, and the name-calling we see today are not inevitable results of a 30-year dictatorship. It is the combined result of a 30-year dictatorship, and a conscious choice by the Nasheed administration to play power politics instead of fostering the slow, painful and perhaps, in the short run, self-defeating, democratic reforms that would have strengthened our democracy.

When Nasheed came to power in 2008, he inherited not only a massive budget deficit, but also a political system that operated on political patronage. Nasheed did not try to change this informal system. He adopted masters of such politicking, including Ibrahim Hussein Zaki and Hassan Afeef into his administration, indicating that political realism would provide Nasheed government’s ideological grounding. To outwit Gayoom et al, Nasheed decided to play the power game instead of democracy. In doing so he acted like an astute politician, not a liberal democrat. Those who expected the latter, mostly liberals, are deeply disappointed with the Nasheed administration. The handful of young and educated who were convinced that an MDP defeat in 2013 would spell out the end of democracy, and those who foresaw an end to their innings with the end of Nasheed’s government, were glad that he played the part of a clever politician. But then the coup happened.

In a very real way, Nasheed himself is to blame for presenting coup planners with ample fodder and opportunity. Arbitrarily detaining Chief Judge of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed for nearly 20 days, in spite of the arrest’s unconstitutionality, in spite of continued street protests that often turned violent, and in spite of escalating police fatigue, Nasheed defended the arrest to the last minutes of his administration and continues to defend it today. But to this day, Nasheed has not explained the precise national security threat that justified the military detention of Abdulla Mohamed. By commanding the MNDF to arbitrarily arrest Abdulla Mohamed and detain him on their training camp, Nasheed unnecessarily plunged one of Maldives’ few professional institutions into disarray and opened it up to politicisation. Presidents who are concerned with consolidating democracy do not issue such orders. They do not think in “either or” terms. Creativity and compromise are fundamental characteristics of a strong democratic leadership.

You say a revolution in 2008?

History matters. Those who were rich and powerful under Gayoom, remain rich and powerful today. In short, our democratic “revolution” in 2008 failed to change the status quo. The aristocrats and merchants who own the tourism, fishing, construction, and shipping industries act like an oligarchy. They have the means to ensure that they maintain their monopolies and deflect any harm that come their way. Take for example what happened with the penalties for tax evasion. And where is the minimum wage bill? What happened to workers’ right to strike? When democratic institutions, such as the parliament, become monopolised by aristocrats and merchants, and when the main rule of law institution, that is the court system, remains dominated by unlearned persons who are easily manipulated by the aristocrats and merchants, the middle class that is the key to democratic consolidation, has no representation and no space to assert itself.

To his credit, Nasheed did attempt to foster a middle class. He implemented a long overdue taxation system that forced tourism tycoons to pay their fair share for state bills. His policies sought to improve access to basic services. And he faced huge challenges. But in playing power politics, he also ensured that the rich and powerful remained so, and nurtured a new group of rich and powerful people who would ostensibly protect his presidency and candidacy in 2013. To that end, a number of development projects continued to fall into the hands of those affiliated with the MDP, and sometimes those hands were not the most capable and able. And the lease of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport is anything but transparent. If justice is fairness, Nasheed government’s corrupt activities fell short of delivering justice, and served to exacerbate the already existing crisis in the judiciary.

Way Forward

The way forward is in compromise and learning from mistakes. It is not in taking sides and refusing to budge. Peace is not a platitude. To characterise peace, conciliation, and negotiation as platitudes and “bullshit” is to reject the essence of democracy. And being “colorless”, and withholding blind support for the MDP or any other political party is not a wholesale rejection of democracy. Restoring Nasheed, whichever way possible, will not restore democracy.

No to street violence, No to political witch hunts, No to destroying the social fabric of our small nation, and No to politicising our armed forces and the police. But Yes to elections in six months. The current government is illegitimate and the nation cannot afford to wait until 2013 for presidential elections. At the same time, MDP supporters will risk the nation by going out on to the streets. The political leadership of this country should go to the negotiation table fast if we are to restore democracy. And people of this country should step back from pledging blind support to leaders. Learn from mistakes. Pledge your support to democratic processes. Pledge your support to negotiations and elections, not in two months when an election would be impossible, but in six months, when it has a better chance of translating your vote freely and fairly.

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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Maldives mishandled by India: Eurasia Review

The Government of India appears to have been caught napping in the Maldives on two counts, writes B. Raman for the Eurasia Review.

First, it failed to foresee the implications of some arbitrary actions of former President Mohammed Nasheed such as the arrest of the Chief Judge of the Criminal Court and disciplinary action against a Sandhurst-trained Colonel of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), who were perceived to be anti-Nasheed and advise him to desist from such actions.

These actions antagonised the judiciary and created fissures in the MNDF and the Police. These elements joined hands with anti-Nasheed protesters in forcing him to quit as the President.

Secondly, it failed to realise that despite his antagonising the judiciary and sections of the Police and the MNDF, Nasheed retained considerable popular support particularly among the younger generation and was in a position to take the battle against his opponents to the streets. Instead of keeping quiet till the street equations became clear and instead of desisting from any action that might be misinterpreted as granting legitimacy to the MNDF-engineered replacement of Nasheed by his Vice-President Mohamed Waheed Hassan, the Government of India prematurely made statements that were interpreted in Maldives as amounting to India’s abandoning its support to the democratically-elected President.

When Nasheed’s supporters, with a defiant Nasheed at their head, took the battle against their opponents to the streets, the Government of India found itself with its credibility badly weakened.

The result: the Government of India’s traditional position as the sole arbiter of political fortunes in the Maldives has been badly damaged and a number of international actors from the UK, the US, the European Union and the United Nations have rushed to the Maldives to try their hand in internal peace-making, thereby marginalising the traditional role of India. Only China and Pakistan have not yet entered the political fray in the Maldives. If they do, that will be ultimate humiliation for Indian diplomacy at its southern door-step.

We had earlier lost our clout in Sri Lanka as a result of soft and reactive reflexes and we stand in danger of similarly losing our clout -even if we have not already lost it – in the Maldives due to similar apologetic reflexes lacking in robustness of anticipation and action.

In the Net world, one could notice articulation of condemnation of the Government for failing to intervene militarily in the Maldives in support of the democratically-elected Government. Unfavourable comparisons have been made with the robust response of Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, to support the then President Abdul Gayoom against threats from foreign mercenaries suspected to be from the LTTE by sending Indian rapid action forces to the Maldives to neutralise the threat.

The hesitation of the Government of India to send rapid action forces in response to a reported SOS from Nasheed is understandable because the present situation is qualitatively different from what prevailed in 1988. The threat to Nasheed was not from external forces, but from sections of his own MNDF and the Police due to his perceived arbitrary style of governance. If the Government of India had sent the security forces to the Maldives this time, they would have been called upon to act not against foreign mercenaries and their local supporters, but against sections of the political opposition in the Maldives and their supporters in the MNDF and the Police.

Our security forces would have been able to overcome opposition from the MNDF and the Police, but then what about managing the messy sequel – with the Maldivian security forces many of whose senior officers were trained by us turning hostile against India?

The criticism of the Government of India for not intervening immediately through our armed forces is not quite justified. But there is a lot of actions short of direct military intervention which we could have taken – such as visibly and noisily strengthening our direct action capability in the vicinity of the Maldives, to convey a message to the contending forces in the Maldives and to external forces that might be tempted to take advantage of the situation to undermine Indian influence that India was prepared to use its armed forces if needed to protect its nationals and interests, and rushing a high level and stick-wielding emissary to Male to cajole, if possible, and to force, if necessary, the contending forces not to undermine democracy and not to allow any other external elements to come in and partake of the broth.

The Government of India failed to take any of these actions and now finds itself with diminishing options in the face of an unpredictably evolving situation domestically and internationally. In 1988, the international community recognised implicitly that the Maldives was India’s concern and that India had every right to act according to its wisdom.

Even though the situation seems to be slipping out of our hands, we can still retrieve it provided we show leadership befitting a big power and act resolutely on the lines indicated above. Evidence of such leadership and resolute action is missing in Delhi.

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“This coup will not be the last word”: Mark Lynas

Ousted President Mohamed Nasheed will not stop promoting democracy and freedom of expression in the Maldives, writes Mark Lynas in UK’s Guardian newspaper.

A former climate change advisor to Nasheed, Lynas warns that governments who value democracy “should not be under illusion about what has just taken place [in the Maldives.]”

“The first democratically elected leader of a 100% Muslim country, [Nasheed] swept away the 30-year dictatorship of Maumoon Gayoom in national elections back in 2008. Now the Maldives sadly sees its spring being rolled back: a leader elected through the ballot box has just been deposed by street violence and intimidation,” writes Lynas.

Lynas suggests that progress achieved under Nasheed was the fruits of an uphill battle which included multiple arrests and even personal torture.

“The former dictator Gayoom and his forces never accepted the outcome of the 2008 elections, and their networks of power and influence were increasingly threatened by Nasheed’s campaign against corruption in the judiciary. Indeed, this crisis was sparked by the arrest of senior court judge who had repeatedly refused to prosecute corruption cases in order to protect powerful allies from the former regime. Recently the opposition had begun to use inflammatory antisemitic and jihadi hate-speech to falsely accuse Nasheed of undermining Islam,” Lynas writes.

Lynas goes on to state that Nasheed’s efforts to make the Maldives “the world’s first carbon-neutral country was typically ambitious” and had seen progress, however “all bets are now off.”

Meanwhile, environmental NGO 350.org launched a petition early this morning calling for leaders world wide to apply diplomacy to ensure the safety of Nasheed “and the Maldivian people.” The organisation has called Nasheed a leading figure in the movement against climate change.

Expressing uncertainty over the Maldives’ current trajectory, Lynas concludes, “If I know the man at all, this coup will not be the last word.”

Red more on The Guardian.

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Salafists taking root in Maldives amid toxic politics: Reuters

Few of the million or so tourists who visit the Maldives each year would catch even a whiff of the troubled politics or growing militant threat roiling the islands of one of the world’s most renowned get-away-from-it-all destinations, writes Bryson Hull for Reuters.

“Taking a page from the book of Gayoom, Nasheed ordered [Chief Judge Abdulla] Mohamed’s arrest and defied a Supreme Court release order, sparking more than three weeks of sometimes-violent protests by opposition parties that scented a chance for their own Arab Spring in the Indian Ocean.

The reason, Nasheed says, is because the judge, like the other 200-odd criminal court judges, was illegally sworn in for a life term and has blocked every attempt to bring multi-million-dollar corruption, rights abuse and criminal cases against Gayoom’s allies and relatives.

“Gayoom is running the judiciary,” Nasheed said. “When he lost the presidency, he was clever enough to carve out a territory and hide there, or get protected there. And none of the cases are moving.”

So to make good on his electoral promise to enact a new constitution and establish an independent judiciary, Nasheed says he has acted outside of it.

“You have to push everyone to the brink and tell them ‘You do this or we all fall’,” Nasheed told Reuters in an interview at the presidential bungalow in Male, the capital island.

“I think it would be so wrong of me not to tackle this simply because I might fall or simply because people may raise eyebrows.”

And it has done just that, drawing private diplomatic rebukes from Western nations which backed his ascendancy to lead the archipelago of 1,200 islands out of 30 years of Gayoom’s rule, which was widely criticised as dictatorial.

“It’s just indefensible. It’s almost like Nelson Mandela coming out and locking up all the white people,” a businessman based in Male who works with a government-linked company told Reuters, asking not to be identified.

But while the political fray goes on with all eyes on the 2013 presidential election, Maldivian intelligence officers and Western officials say hardline Salafist and Wahabist groups are gaining political ground in the more distant atolls and making a beachhead in Male.

The capital island is home to almost 200,000 of the Maldives’ 330,000 people, all Sunni Muslims. It is also home to the majority of the estimated 30,000 people on the islands who are addicted to heroin, according to UN estimates.

“It’s potentially a tropical Afghanistan. The same forces that gave rise to the Taliban are there – the drugs, the corruption and the behavior of the political class,” a Colombo-based Western ambassador who is responsible for the Maldives told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The Salafists are taking over atoll after atoll. They work on the ground and it is insidious. Nero is definitely fiddling while Rome burns.”‘

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Q&A: Silent coup has cost Maldives a judiciary, says Aishath Velezinee

Aishath Velezinee was formerly the President’s Member on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), the watchdog body assigned to appoint and investigate complaints against judges.

She has consistently maintained that the JSC is complicit in protecting judges appointed under the former government, colluding with parliament to ensure legal impunity for senior opposition supporters. During her tenure at the JSC she was never given a desk or so much as a chair to sit down on. In January 2011 she was stabbed twice in the back in broad daylight.

The JSC is now at the centre of a judicial crisis that has led to the military’s detention of Chief Judge of the Criminal Court, Abdulla Mohamed.

JJ Robinson: To what extent does the current judicial crisis represent the failure of Article 285 in 2010, the constitutional provision guaranteeing an independent and qualified judiciary at the conclusion of the two year interim period?

Aishath Velezinee: 100 percent. This was what I was trying to bring out at the time – but I could only allege that Abdulla Mohamed was at the heart of the matter. But it was very obvious to me that this was not just the action of one man, but a hijacking of the judiciary [by the opposition] – the ‘silent coup’.

In the highly politicised environment at time it was very difficult to get people to look into this, because parliament was out to cover it up – nobody was willing to take it up, and everyone wanted distance because it was too sensitive and so highly politicised. So really no one wanted to try and see if there was any truth to what I was saying.

Time passed. I didn’t imagine all this would come up so soon – it has been an amazing experience to see all of this suddenly happening so quickly.

It was inevitable – with everything Abdulla Mohamed has done inside and outside the courts, it was very obvious that he was not a man to be a judge.

With all the highly political rulings coming from the Criminal Court, it was clearly not right. The JSC’s cover up of Abdulla Mohamed was also apparent.

He had spoken on TV [against the government] – and it was not just his voice. There was no need to spend two years investigating whether he had said what he said.

Finally they decided yes, he is highly politicised, and had lost the capacity to judge independently and impartially. His views and verdicts were expressing not just partiality towards the opposition, but apparently a very deep anger against the government. It is very obvious when you speak to him or see him on the media. We had to look at what was behind all this.

JJ: Abdulla Mohamed filed a case in the Civil Court which ordered the JSC investigation be halted. Does the JSC have any jurisdiction to rule against its own watchdog body?

AV: Absolutely not. If the judicial watchdog can be overruled by a judge sitting in some court somewhere, then it’s dysfunctional. But that’s what has been happening. And [Supreme Court Judge] Adam Mohamed, Chair of the JSC, has probably been encouraging Abdulla Mohamed to do this.

The whole approach of the JSC is to cover up the judge’s misconduct. When it comes to Abdulla Mohamed it’s not just issues of misconduct – it’s possible links with serious criminal activities. There is every reason to believe he is influenced by serious criminals in this country.

JJ: The international community has expressed concern over the government’s ongoing detention of the judge by the military. Is the government acting within the constitution?

AV: It is impossible to work within the constitution when you have lost one arm of the state: we are talking about the country not having a judiciary. When one man becomes a threat to national security – and the personal security of everyone – the head of state must act.

He can’t stand and watch while this man is releasing people accused of murder, who then go out and kill again the same day. We are seeing these reports in the media all along, and everyone is helpless.

If the JSC was functioning properly – and if the Majlis was up to its oversight duties – we would not have got to this stage. But when all state institutions fail, then it is necessary to act rather than watch while the country falls down.

JJ: What next? The government surely can’t keep the judge detained indefinitely.

AV: We have to find a solution. It is not right to keep someone detained without any action – there must be an investigation and something must happen. I’m sure the government is looking into Abdulla Mohamed.

But releasing him is a threat to security. I have heard Vice President Mohamed Waheed Hassan calling for him to be released. Abdulla Mohamed is not under arrest – but his freedom of movement and communication would be a danger at this moment. We are at the point where we really and truly need to get to the bottom of this and act upon the constitution.

We talking about cleaning up the judiciary, and this is not talking outside the constitution – this is the foundation of the constitution. The constitution is build upon having three separate powers.

The judiciary is perhaps the most important power. The other powers come and go, politics change, but the judiciary is the balancing act. When that is out of balance, action is necessary.

With regards to attention from the international community – I tried really hard in 2010 to get the international community involved, to come and carry out a public inquiry, because we do not have any institution or eminent person with the authority to look into the matter. We needed outside help.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) did come and their report highlighted some things, but they did not have access to all the material because it’s all in Dhivehi. We need a proper inquiry into this, and a solution.

JJ: The Foreign Minister has asked the UN Office of Human Rights to send a legal team able to look into the situation and advise. To what extent will this draw on the constitution’s provision to appoint foreign judges?

AV: That has been something we were interested in doing, but the former interim Supreme Court Judge Abdulla Saeed was absolutely against it – not only bringing in foreign judges, but even judicial expertise. He was also against putting experts in the JSC so it could be properly institutionalised. The ICJ tried very hard to place a judge in there but didn’t get a positive response.

The UN brought in a former Australian Supreme Court Judge, but he didn’t get any support either. There was a lady [from Harvard] but she left in tears as well. There was no support – the Commission voted not to even give her a living allowance. They are unwelcoming to knowledge – to everyone. It is a closed place.

JJ: Is there a risk the UN will send a token advisor and things will quickly return to business as usual?

AV: We need the ICJ to be involved – someone like [former] UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Leandro Despouy. He was here for a fact-finding mission and had a thorough understanding of it, and gives authoritative advice.

We need to look for people who understand not only the law in the constitution, but what we are transiting from. Because that is really important.

JJ: There was talk of foreign judges and the establishment of a mercantile court for cases involving more than Rf 100,000 (US$6500). Based on the current state of the judiciary are people now more open to idea of foreign judges, where once they may have opposed it on nationalistic grounds?

AV: It is not a new thing. We have always used foreign knowledge since the time of the Sultans. We used Arabs who came here as our judges, they were respected people. Ibn Battuta practiced here as a judge during his voyages.

So it is not a new concept. This is the way we are – we do not have the knowledge. Now we are transitioning to a modern, independent judiciary, so of course we need new knowledge, practices and skills. The only way to get our judges up to standard is [for foreign judges] to be working in there, hands on.

Of course before that we have to make sure that the people on the bench are people who qualify under the constitution. With the bench we have right now it wouldn’t do much good bringing in expertise, because many of the people sitting there do not even have the basics to understand or move forward, they are limited in not having even basic education.

JJ: What percentage of the judiciary has more than primary school education?

AV: As a foundation, at least 50 percent have less that Grade 7. But they all say they have a certificate in justice studies – a tailor-made program written by the most prominent protester at the moment, former Justice Minister Mohamed Jameel of the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP). There were no textbooks on the course – they were given handouts.

Now we do have access to resources through the internet. But do the judges and magistrates have the skills or language abilities necessary to research on the internet? No they don’t.

JJ: Based on your access to privileged JSC information, you have also previously expressed concern at the high number of judges with actual criminal records. What about Abdulla Mohamed?

AV: Abdulla Mohamed was already a criminal convict before he was appointed to the bench. This man was found guilty of creating public disorder, hate speech and had publicly shown himself to be a woman hater or fearer- I don’t know which. But he has this bias against women and has been quoted as such in the courtroom. He’s got issues.

There are unchecked complaints against him in the JSC. The JSC has this practice of taking every complaint and giving it to committee one at a time. But if you look at everything, there is a pattern suggesting links to criminals. The Criminal Court has been given power as the only court able to rule on police custody during police investigations – why does Abdulla Mohamed have a monopoly on this? He personally locks up the seal. Why does he control it?

JJ: What do you mean when you claim he has links to organised crime?

AV: It’s a pattern. He tries to prevent investigation of all the heavy drug cases, and when the case does make it before the court his decisions are questionable. In one instance newspaper Haveeru sent a complaint saying the Criminal Court had tried a case and changed the verdict behind closed doors.

Haveeru later called for the complaint to be withdrawn. But my approach is to say, once we have a complaint we must check it. The complainant can’t withdraw a complaint, because there must have been a reason to come forward in the first place. That verdict referred to something decided two years before – Abdulla Mohamed changed the name of the convict. A mistake in the name, he said. How can you change a name? A name is an identity. The JSC never investigated it.

JJ: Prior to the JSC’s decision to dissolve the complaints committee, it was receiving hundreds of complaints a year. How many were heard?

AV: Five were tabled, four were investigated. Their approach was that if nobody was talking about the judge, then the judge was above question. So they would cover up and hide all the complaints.

Approach of this constitution is transparency – and the investigation is itself proof of the judge’s independence. An accusation doesn’t mean he is not up to being a judge. But if it is not investigated, those accusations stand. Instead, the JSC says: “We don’t have any complaints, so nobody is under investigation.”

We are struggling between the former approach and the new approach of the constitution. We have seen judges with serious criminal issues kept on bench and their records kept secret. They have a problem adapting themselves to the new constitution and democratic principles that require them to gain trust.

The JSC has many other issues- taking money they are not entitled to, perjury; none of this was looked into. All sorts of things happened in there.

JJ: Is it possible to revive Article 285, or did that expire at the conclusion of the interim period?

AV: Article 285 is the foundation of our judiciary, the institutionalisation of the one power that is going to protect our democracy. How can we measure it against a time period set by us? Two years? We did everything we could to try and enact it. It was a failure of the state that the people did not get the judiciary.

We cannot excuse ourselves by saying that the two years have passed. Parliament elections were delayed – much in the constitution was delayed. 80 percent of the laws required to be passed under this constitution have yet to be adopted. Are we going to say ‘no’ to them because time has passed?

We can’t do that, so we have to act.

JJ: Parliament has oversight of the JSC – what ability does parliament have to reform it?

AV: Parliament has shown itself to be incapable of doing it. We are seeing parliamentarians out trying to free Judge Abdulla Mohamed – including Jumhoree Party (JP) MP Gasim Ibrahim, a member of the JSC.

So I don’t think we even need to enter into this. it is apparent they are playing politics and do not have the interest of the people or the state at heart. They never believed in this constitution, they were pushed into adopting a democratic constitution, they failed in the elections, and now they are out to kill the constitution.

I am wondering even what they are protesting about. Last night it was Judge Abdulla, and the religious card. It is fear driven.

What we are seeing is [former President Maumoon Abdul] Gayoom and [his half brother, Abdulla] Yameen trying to turn their own personal fears into mass hysteria. Nobody else is under threat – but they are if we have an independent judiciary. If their cases are heard they know they are in for life.

JJ: So this is a struggle for survival?

AV: Exactly. The final battle – this is the last pillar of democracy. If we manage to do this properly, as stated in the constitution, we can be a model democracy. But not without a judiciary.

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