State Minister of Foreign Affairs Dunya Maumoon has accused former President Mohamed Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of “threats and intimidation tactics” over the outcome of the CNI report, due at the end of August.
“The Government of Maldives is committed to the resolution of political differences through peaceful dialogue and the democratic boulevard [sic] and institutions available in the country,” Dunya said in the statement.
However Nasheed “is going back on his own words and commitment to the international community that he would respect the outcome of the CoNI.”
Former President was speaking during an event commemorating ‘Black Friday’, the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists by the former regime in 2004.
Dunya expressed concern at Nasheed’s apparent determination to bring members of the police and military to justice for their illegal roles in the transfer of power, no matter the final verdict of the inquiry commission.
“President Nasheed had threatened violence on the streets of Male’ in order to ensure justice,” said Dunya during the press conference, the details of which have been distributed by the Foreign Ministry as a media release.
A translation for Minivan News of the pertinent section of Nasheed’s Monday speech is as follows:
“I am certain beyond doubt that the commission’s report would note that many officers of the security forces committed a number of unlawful acts. Our demand, our protest, our request will be for these [officers] to be brought to justice. Our work will be to bring them to face justice. We should only go back home after CoNI’s report after bringing them to justice and establishing justice in this country. For a certainty, I definitely will not go back home otherwise.”
Nasheed’s intentions were clarified the following day in a proposal submitted to the government by the MDP . The document mapped out the steps the party expected to see taken following the CNI’s conclusion.
This proposal stated the MDP’s willingness to cease its calls for early presidential elections and wait for the constitutionally mandated polls in 2013 should the final report show no evidence of any unlawful activity in the transfer of power.
However, should the report find that the transfer included illegal acts on the part of any individual, the MDP proposed that those implicated be brought to trial and that all parties agree to early elections.
In the event that the CNI rules the departure of Nasheed from the President’s Office to have been unconstitutional, the MDP proposed that his government be fully reinstated.
The party had hoped for a response from the government before the end of Ramadan this weekend and appeared to receive it today when President’s Office spokesman Abbas Adil Riza told local media today that the government would not discuss the report’s outcome before its release.
“CNI’s report will not act as a final verdict. The purpose of the report is to assist the relevant institutions. So, there’s no need to make the report a ‘political carnival’,” Riza reportedly told Sun Online.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the MDP’s executive council had agreed to call a meeting of its National Council in order to determine the party’s next course of action.
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