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The politicisation of life, death and faith

The Parliament (Majlis) today resumes the debate on amending the Clemency Act to bring back capital punishment. Although the constitution allows the death penalty, the Maldives is abolitionist in practice.

The last time the Maldivian state put a person to death was in 1953. Depending on whether or not a majority of MPs agree to send the proposed amendment to the committee stages, today begins the process of reversing this tacit understanding of the death penalty as a form of cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment.

The amendment was proposed by MDP MP Ahmed Rasheed (Hoarafushi) after an urgent motion he introduced earlier in the Majlis session of March 8 to discuss the recent escalation of violent crime. It came on the foot of a savage altercation between members of rival gangs on March 4 in which three men were injured and a member of the public was forced at knife-point to hand over his motorcycle to one of the perpetrators. Blood was spilt in broad daylight, at the Artificial Beach, a public place frequented by families. Clearly, it is an issue that requires the immediate attention of the Majlis.

The debate that ensued, however, appeared to focus less on practical measures that can be taken to address the problem and more on finding a scapegoat with the meatiest political flesh for rival MPs to bite into.

Several MPs rushed to point the finger of blame at anyone else except the legislature itself: the security apparatus was acting with impunity in its refusal to be answerable to the Majlis; the criminal court was not doing its job properly; the president had been too lenient with members of the old regime who committed acts of torture and embezzled state funds; and the president had neglected to give due importance to the matter in his inaugural address of the Majlis on March 3, allegedly discouraging members from pursuing the matter with the required urgency.

People in glasshouses

“I was arrested on July 7 last year in allegations of planning to attack a politician with a sharp implement. They kicked in the door of my house. That was how it happened with me. But people who kill others on the street walk free,” Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and MP of the opposition-aligned People’s Alliance (PA) Ahmed Nazim said, joining the debate on March 8.

“And when I was under house arrest, confined within my own four walls, there were people throwing stones at my house, shattering the glass. They, too, are out there somewhere, walking free,” he continued. He was, Nazim said, “one of the few people in the Majlis with personal experience” of gang warfare and violent crime.

The ‘personal experience’ factor was significant in the debate. In addition to Nazim, MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik (MDP) and independent MP Ahmed Amir, relayed similar narratives of up close and personal encounters with violent crime. “I, too, was imprisoned,” Moosa said.

Having made allegations of torture against former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, his proposed solution to the problem was to imprison Gayoom himself. “As long as Gayoom walks free, there will never be an end to this problem”. MP Amir relayed his own woes of being “hit in the back while an MP”, and updated the Majlis on the fact that nothing has been done since, leaving him with a feeling of diminished equality.

MP Ahmed Rasheed, had a similar personal narrative underlying his push for implementing the death penalty. Based on “one case in which I was personally involved in”, he generalised for the Majlis the woeful inadequacies of the current criminal justice system.

“The lawyers that the Prosecutor General send to the court to represent the state are usually young children, with no experience”, he said. “With an hour, half an hour or twenty minutes to go before the court sits, these children are handed hefty case files, and told: “Here, young lady, take the file”. They are, of course, trounced by the more experienced lawyers for the defendant”, he said.

MP Rasheed’s blatantly sexist hymn sheet was shared by Deputy Speaker Nazim, who also referred to the “young 18-19 year-old girls” who represent the Prosecutor General in court, and are allegedly posing a threat to national security. Neither MPs mentioned that the more educated members of the judiciary are to be found among the country’s youth and not among the ‘experienced judges’ most of whom have had very little legal training despite having been on the bench for long periods of time.

Putting the death penalty in an Islamic frame

The deeply personal nature of the Majlis’ debate on an issue of such national importance is extremely troubling. So too is the quality of the debate so far that has put the death penalty within the framework of Islam and Shar’ia. Very few MPs have displayed any knowledge of either the long and incessant international debate surrounding the death penalty, nor the rich Islamic jurisprudence on capital punishment. Nor did they demonstrate an understanding that the matter of gangs and rising crime cannot be solved by personal opinions but may need proper study and expert advice across the board on the criminal justice system.

One MP, Ahmed Saleem, for instance, declared all legislation as irrelevant and unnecessary given the completeness of the Qur’an. To clarify his claim, he presented MPs with a hypothetical scenario: “What if”, he said, “someone like Dr Shaheed [former Foreign Minister] were to say that there is nothing in the Qur’an on how to run a foreign ministry.” Such a claim can only be made out of ignorance, for the Qur’an does give guidance on foreign policy, he said.

“God created tribes, countries and states so as each can introduce themselves to the other… Had God made only one country, there would be no need for a Foreign Ministry.” Bang went the Treaty of Westphalia, centuries of diplomacy, and the concept of social constructs, all shot down to nothing with one sweeping statement.

Reducing the death penalty in Shari’a to mere advocacy to “kill the killer” is to reduce the rich and complex debate surrounding the death penalty in Shari’a to mere revenge. Such reductionism is a practice more often associated with those who criticise Islam from the outside than with those who speak in its praise from within.

Although all Muslims accept the permissibility of the death penalty because it is addressed in the Qur’an, its application is varied ranging from those who impose it to a short list of crimes to those who call for a moratorium on it altogether. Capital punishment in Islamic law, as reputed Islamic scholars have highlighted, has its own dhawabit (checks and balances). It is not imposed until due process has been observed, and all extenuating circumstances fully considered. Those who are calling for the death penalty ‘as per Sharia’ would also do well to remember, or to find out, that the state only has the power of execution – imposing it is not a power of the state.

Arguing against the death penalty in the United States from an Islamic perspective, Dr Azizah Y al-Hibri, professor at the T. C. Williams School of Law at Richmond University for example, has pointed out that in Shari’a it is the victim’s family alone that has the right to seek qisas (a form of retributive punishment) against the murderer. It is the majority view of Islamic scholars that if the victim’s family does not seek qisas in court, the state cannot do so on its initiative – unlike the common law system.

The state does have the power, however, to protect the public through other less retributive punishments such as confinement or exile: what the Maldivian state has opted to do for almost six decades. This restriction on the state is one of the most important – and relevant – aspects of the Shari’a to the current debate. It, or any other jurisprudence, has yet to be included in the discussions.

The importance of Shari’a’s restrictions on the state lies in the status of the judiciary as a branch of the state. Even in countries where the independence of the judiciary has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, restricting the power of the state to take away the life of its citizens is a crucial element of justice. When the state is authoritarian, when the judiciary is biased, or when other branches of the state exercise undue influence over the judiciary, it becomes essential for ensuring that life is not taken away arbitrarily.

Punishment without justice

Herein lies the crux of the matter. Questions over the independence of the Maldivian judiciary have now been at the forefront of public discourse for the better part of a year.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) recently published the results of its fact-finding mission to the Maldives in September last year. The report found the Maldivian courts to be failing in their duty to serve the public impartially and laid a lion’s share of the responsibility on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), charged with imposing and maintaining ethical and professional standards of the Maldivian judiciary.

The JSC has dismissed the ICJ report as “irresponsible” and the Constitutional stipulation to remove all unqualified and ethically questionable judges from the bench as “symbolic” with the result that a large number of the judiciary comprise of convicted felons and the morally dubious.

In 2010, the JSC received over 140 complaints against the judiciary, none of which have been investigated. Currently there a total of 115 complaints pending investigation at the JSC, accumulated from 2008 onwards till the present. Questions have been raised over the JSC’s fairness in its recent appointments to the High Court, and it is due to appear before the Supreme Court on the same issue.

Several other failures of the JSC have been equally blatant, but there appears no authority capable, or willing, to hold the JSC accountable. There is no agitation for reform or independence coming from within the law community itself. The Majlis, and its oversight committee supervising the conduct of independent commissions, is the only authority that can bring the JSC to account. So far, it has not done so in any meaningful way.

It should be noted, however, that at the end of last year, the Majlis committee did instigate an enquiry of sorts – one that raises more questions than answers them. The committee, whittled down from 11 to three members for unexplained reasons – all three of whom are lawyers – have been summoning individual JSC members for questioning. The matter raised in these enquiries, unusual both in the fact that it is summoning individual members to answer questions over the conduct of the Commission as a whole and in its closed nature, are secret and banned from media coverage. So far as is known, the enquiries have been of an administrative nature – who attended meetings when and such – rather than of an investigative nature probing the JSC’s refusal to carry out its constitutional duties.

The investigated and the investigators – where is the dividing line?

One of the characteristics of the debate on March 8, which brought the death penalty to the fore, was the determination of some MPs to blame the security forces of the country.

If only they were to be made answerable to the Majlis Oversight Committee on National Security, things would change, went the argument. Problem is, at the helm of the National Security Committee is Abdulla Yameen taken into ‘protective custody’ by the Maldives National Defence Forces (MNDF) in July 2010 and held on the island of Aarah, the Presidential Retreat, for nine days.

The police arrested Yameen on corruption charges earlier that month, but after about six hours in custody, the Criminal Court, in an extraordinary sitting held at midnight, ruled that Yameen should be released into ‘house arrest’. When supporters of the ruling Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) gathered outside his house, MNDF took him into what they called ‘protective custody’.

Yameen, claimed, however, that MNDF had detained him against his will. The Supreme Court found MNDF’s actions to have been in breach of the Constitution; the ICJ report was highly critical of the executive’s involvement in the actions. Currently Yameen is back at Court claiming millions of Rufiyaa in damages for his detention.

In the immediate aftermath of the debacle, the National Security Committee began to summon senior members of the MNDF and other members of the security apparatus before it. MDP MP Reeko Moosa Manik claimed the Committee’s actions were instigated as a form of revenge by Yameen against MNDF and called for his resignation from the Committee. It did not materialise.

In addition to the history of personal involvement between the security forces and Yameen, there is also the more recent spectre of allegations of corruption worth over US$800 million against Yameen published in various South Asian media outlets from India to Burma and the Maldives.

Yameen has denied the accusations, first published in Indian current affairs magazine, The Week on February 11, alleging that the scheme involved blackmarket oil deals between the State Trading Organisation (STO), when it was headed by Yameen, and the Burmese military junta.

More recently, the Democratic Voice of Burma, an independent Burmese news outlet, has connected the same oil-scam to the explosion of heroin in the Maldives in the early 2000s. The heroin addiction of a whole generation of Maldivian youth and its current problems with violence and drugs has been well documented, and its effects clear to see.

Even if the allegations are untrue, it is clearly in the public and national interest that any state figure of authority implicated in such serious offences, to declare a conflict of interest and distance themselves from holding sway over investigations with even the remotest of links to them personally.

There was no reference made to the personal history between Yameen, the president of the National Security Committee, when his fellow People’s Alliance (PA) party member, Deputy Speaker Nazim, so fervently proposed cooperation between the security forces as the solution to the country’s escalating problem of gang violence.

Own backyard

There are currently five bills crucial to the maintenance to law and order, security and crime reduction pending members’ attention at the Majlis. Chief among these, and pending the longest, is the Penal Code.

Submitted in October 2009, it has now been in the ‘committee stages’ for exactly 17 months to the day. Awaiting attention is also the Evidence Bill, submitted in just a month after the Penal Code, in November 2009.

The Narcotics Bill was submitted in March 2010, almost a year ago; and the Bill on Special Measures to Combat Crime was proposed a month later. Neither has passed the ‘committee stages’.

More recently submitted is the Jails and Parole Bill, pending since October last. Also awaiting Members’ deliberation is an amendment to the Police Act submitted in June 2010, and the Private Security Bill submitted the same month.

As a majority of the Majlis remains preoccupied with long recesses, extending their own privileges, boycotts and deadlocks, these vital pieces of legislation – without which even an unbiased judiciary would find it difficult to perform its duties – gathers to itself the dust of neglect.

MP Mohamed Musthafa, who proposed the Bill on Special Measures to Combat Crime in April 2010, accused members of the opposition of deliberately stalling its passage through the parliament. “If you push that Bill through, the credit will go to the government, there will be no advantage in that for us,” Musthafa said he was told by some opposition MPs. “Intoxication with politics is leading this country to its ruin,” he said.

As the issue opens up for debate at the Majlis again today, it remains to be seen whether any MP who calls for the imposition of the death penalty in order to fulfil its ‘Islamic duties’ refer to the manner in which the Qur’an urges the victim’s family to move forward and to forgive (Qur’an 2:178, 42:40) even as it provides for the right to demand qisas.

It also remains to be seen whether the same MPs would remind fellow members of the instances in which the Qur’an favours forgiveness over revenge or punishment and extols its virtues in many other contexts (Qur’an 42:40; 5:45; 2:237; 24:22; 2:109).

It will also be interesting to see, whether any of the debate calls on existing empirical evidence that reveals no direct link between capital punishment and deterrence of crime. Amnesty International has found, for example, that in the United States crime is lower in states where capital punishment is not practised compared to the states where it is.

Its conclusion was that: “The threat of execution at some future date is unlikely to enter the minds of those acting under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, those who are in the grip of fear or rage, those who are panicking while committing another crime (such as a robbery), or those who suffer from mental illness or mental retardation and do not fully understand the gravity of their crime.”

Whatever the quality or outcome of the debate, the result will be a strong indicator as to how far the politicisation of life has travelled in the two years since the Maldives became a democracy. If it has come so far as to be able to impose its will beyond life to death, there is little hope that this government is capable, or willing, to resuscitate the increasingly moribund Maldivian democracy.

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Municipality civil servant first to be suspended in Facebook blackmail scandal

A senior civil servant working at Male’ Municipality has been suspended by the Civil Service Commission (CSC), reportedly in connection with one of the explicit videos obtained by police from a Facebook blackmail ring.

CSC Commissioner Fahmy Hassan confirmed to Minivan News that the civil servant had been suspended pending an investigation into the offending video, which had been leaked to the internet and reported to the CSC.

“We do not have knowledge of how the video was released, or whether he was being blackmailed,” Fahmy said.

Fahmy noted that there had been previous such incidences that prompted investigations, and these were occasionally unproven.

Police arrested 14 people involved in the alleged Facebook blackmail ring last month, in which profiles featuring an attractive blonde woman in sunglasses were reportedly used to extract explicit photos and videos from those who befriended her. Almost 3000 people – mostly Maldivian – befriended the various fraudulent profiles, with names like “Angelic Sharrown” and “Lyshiaa Limanom”.

”While some of the pictures were taken of people while drunk, other pictures were taken without the consent of the persons,” police said, when the arrests were announced.

Some of the people in the videos appeared to be performing explicit acts in the presence of minors, police said, adding that this could lead to further investigations of those pictured.

”The case relates to the rights of many citizens and affects the social policy of the Maldives, and may also affect the safety of the society,” said police at the time.

Information gathered so far had revealed that people from all levels of Maldivian society were affected, “including underage females juveniles, young women, professional and semi-professional persons, and people of both genders working all across the country.”

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Comment: Lack of good parenting is the root cause of youth issues and a dysfunctional society

Dysfunctional families are a root cause of emerging youth issues in Maldivian society.

Adding complexity, youth lack supporting guidance in the educational sphere because school management and the teachers lack effective approaches for dealing with children from such families. While most families in Maldives are dysfunctional, Maldivians have a tendency to ignore problems and treat them as evils caused by others.

A child’s behavior reflects their experiences at home. When there is hostility or fighting among parents, this creates a lot of anxiety. When parents are rude and abusive towards each other, children experience insecurity. A cycle of competition, jealousy, rivalry, disrespect and forms of abuse starts amidst confusion and nervousness and thus creates the dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional families disconnect and neglect each other.

The Maldives has one of the world’s highest divorce rates. Many parents do not handle their separation maturely and can be seen to act with bitterness and revenge controlling their behavior. An unfair burden is placed upon the child during the divorce.

It is time to stop looking at where to put the blame. It is right there with parents as children learn firstly from parents. Relationships lose their magic overnight and love tanks empty out leaving a feeling of desolation and regret. Divorcing/separating parents are mostly self-centered and self-absorbed, forgetting the pain left in their children.

Children replay what they observe and experience. Children experience the feeling of loss, betrayal and being cast aside while parents tangle with resentment, sense of failure and blame, leading to self-victimisation and succumbing to revenge or silence and resignation.

In the aftermath of divorce or separation (where the father does not divorce the woman but takes a second wife), children develop identity issues as to where they stand and who they are, in relation to their parents’ foundation. Added to this confusion, children are treated as a financial burden when parents openly fight on alimony disregarding the sensitivity of the child in question. One common behavioral issue I have observed is a resentful parent labeling a child with the negative character of the other parent, destroying the child’s life further. This burden of guilt is poison that will last a long time.

Causing sibling rivalry

Sibling rivalry is often caused by parents. Conclusions are drawn in early childhood depending on the ease or stress experienced by parents. Hence a parent labels a child from the first experience of babyhood thus influencing the child’s life over the years to come.

The comparisons are voiced in phrases such as “an easy child”, versus “a difficult child”. Later: “Why can’t you be like your brother?”, “Why can’t you be obedient like your sister?” or constantly referring to the better performing sibling.

This a common occurrence at home, and puts children in competition with each other. Children are taught to compete with each other when parents consistently show favoritism or praise one child, and not another. This creates hostility and resentment. It’s difficult for siblings to be friends in adulthood when they were taught to compete as children.

Parents are the first tribe influencing their child’s belief

Most Maldivian parents do not realize they are the first and most influential role model for the child. Children shape up to parents. A child grows up influenced and shaped by the environment they live in. In the front line of tribes around the child, are the parents. Parents have a direct influence on the child’s emotions leading to behaviors and ultimately their lives, for better or for worse. If parents fail, the child will experience huge hurdles. These can only be overcome eventually.

The child is like a recorder, taking up the parent’s behavior and playing it back. How a child behaves in school or the environment outside home tells the story of what the child experiences at home. As children absorb and respond to what they experience, it requires the parents to behave with responsibility, love and respect towards each other, care for the people around them, respect the natural environment including animals, respect money and materials, being humble and grateful and be the child’s guide to become a fully developed individual to take its place in the world.

Most families have dysfunction in one way, shape, or form. It’s never safe to assume that a family is not dysfunctional just by how they act in public. This assumption makes people wonder why a child from such a “good family” or “good parent” is rebellious or resigned in class, in gangs, in drugs and crime.
The root cause of the aggression, lack of ethics, abuse and violence, power hunger and suppression, blind obedience, corruption, fear, envy and jealousy, greed or any anti-social or anti-human behavior (including destruction of nature) in Maldivian society is parents failing to be good examples and role models, to attend to the child’s needs, to stay connected to their children and nurture them to adulthood.

The vulture snaps up its prey

Disconnected from families, marginalised by social, economic and cultural forces, young people are pushed in the direction of gangs that provides peer support, sense of belonging, protections and strangely enough covers up for the relationships that they have not experienced at home and school.

Youth coerced into gangs and seemingly by lack of choice happens because parents have not been able to guide their child to make good judgments and have expected children to do what they are told to do (interpreted as a sign of obedience).

Although it may be hard to swallow, parents need to accept responsibility for what occurs in their child’s life. Poverty, low parental attachment to the child, and low parental supervision, lack of attention to child’s needs, all increase the probability of the child spending the youthful years in violence, drugs and gangs.

Additional risk factors are bad education systems leading to poor learning and consequent low success in school, low student commitment to school, and low attachment to teachers. The potential combination is associating with delinquent friends and unsupervised “hanging around” with these delinquent friends. Easy access to drugs and the lack of nurturing from parents (in additional to parents with resentful, violent attitudes) are high risk factors for young people’s involvement in gangs at a very young age. Drugs coexist with dealing and theft.

The point is lack of good parenting is the root cause for the increasing social issues arising in the Maldivian communities. The question is how do we bridge the gap, address the parent issue, support children, guide youth and create a better society.

Aminath Arif is the founder of SALAAM School

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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Economic stability threatened by “significant policy slippages”, warns IMF

The Maldives has suffered “significant policy slippages” that have undermined the country’s capacity to address its crippling budget deficit in 2011 and beyond, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned, in a statement concluding its Article IV consultation with the Maldives.

“On the expenditure side, there have been no net fiscal savings from public employment restructuring, public sector wages will be restored to their September 2009 levels earlier than expected, and the new Decentralisation and Disability Bills will lead to considerable spending increases,” the IMF stated. “Also, the Business Profit Tax will come on stream eighteen months later than planned.”

The IMF warned that the Maldives economy was presently unsustainable, on the back of “expansionary fiscal policies” from 2004 which left the country especially vulnerable to the decline in tourism during the 2008-2009 recession.

The country’s financial deficit exploded on the back of a 400 percent increase in the government’s wage bill between 2004 and 2009, with tremendous growth between 2007 and 2009. On paper, the government increased average salaries from Rf3000 to Rf11,000 and boosted the size of the civil service from 24,000 to 32,000 people – 11 percent of the total population of the country – doubling government spending from 35 percent of GDP to 60 percent from 2004 to 2006.

While preliminary figures had pegged the 2010 fiscal deficit at 17.75 percent, “financing information points to a deficit of around 20-21 percent of GDP”, down from 29 percent in 2009, the IMF reported.

The IMF said that while it recognised “the difficult political situation facing the authorities”, “decisive and comprehensive adjustment measures” were required to stabilise the economy, allow sustainable growth and reduce poverty. In particular, it raised concern about the “lack of significant progress in public employment restructuring.”

“Efforts to strengthen the financial sector and improve the business climate will also be critical,” the IMF said, noting that private sector credit had all but stalled. However it generously conceded that the pace of adjustment “should take into account political constraints.”

The IMF’s Mission Chief to the Maldives, Rodrigo Cubero, told Minivan News that while the government had introduced the core components of a modern tax regime that would begin generating revenue from this year, these achievements were offset by new spending on legislative reforms such as the decentralisation act.

“We see bringing the fiscal deficit down as the key macroeconomic priority for the Maldives,” Cubero said. “A large fiscal deficit pushes up interest rates, thereby undermining private investment and growth, and also drives up imports, putting pressure on the exchange rate and inflation, all of which hurts the Maldivian people, particularly the poor.”

“Further efforts are still needed to reduce the fiscal deficit. Those efforts should comprise further tax reforms as well as measures to reduce expenditure and to improve the channelling of social expenditures to the needy.”

He would not be drawn into the politics of the Maldives’ economic situation, “but what we can say with confidence is that broad political support will clearly be needed both to design an economic programme and to carry it out as planned. That is why we also support as broad a spectrum of consultations with different stakeholders as possible.”

Graduation impact

The Maldives graduated in January 2011 from the UN’s ‘Less Developed Country’ designation to ‘Middle Income’, a move which reduces its access to certain concessional credit and donor aid.

Cubero said that as far as the IMF was concerned, “the Maldives remains eligible to the IMF’s concessional financing under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT). The IMF follows its own rules and procedures to determine PRGT eligibility; the criteria include income per capita, market access, and short-term vulnerabilities.”

The Maldives had, he said, “made significant economic progress in recent decades, allowing it to reach middle-income status. However, given the large public debt and still very large fiscal deficit, it is very important that the financing terms for the Maldives’ public borrowing remain as favourable as possible. While reducing the fiscal deficit is imperative to maintain debt sustainability, favourable financing conditions would also help keep debt manageable.”

Confidence

In its report, the IMF was broadly confident that the Maldives could stabilise its economy in the medium term, due to the tight monetary policy of the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) in mopping up excess liquidity, as well as the passing of the Business Profit Tax and a Tourism Goods and Service Tax.

The economy had rebounded strongly after shrinking 2.25 percent in 2009, and GDP growth for 2010 was an estimated 4.75 percent, the IMF said, with an expected inflation rate of five percent in 2010.

As for the ongoing dollar shortage, while the IMF did not actively advocate a revision of the pegged exchange rate, it did call for “continued discussions between the authorities and the staff on this issue while being mindful of the risks involved and the impact on the poor.”

“The MMA continues to ration the supply of foreign exchange to banks, while fully meeting the demand from the central government and some state-owned enterprises,” the IMF stated. “Dollar shortages persist, and the parallel market premium has increased somewhat.”

In November 2010 the IMF delayed a disbursement under the second review of its program with the Maldives, ahead of the 2011 budget.

The delay, Cubero explained at the time, was due to the “fiscal slippages” caused by insufficient progress towards reducing the wage bill and passing tax legislation – most significantly, the Business Profit Tax.

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Deploy UN peacekeepers to Libya, urges Maldives President

President Mohamed Nasheed has called for the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers in the troubled gulf state of Libya, in an effort “to contain” its leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Nasheed made the suggestion during an interview on ‘Walk the Talk’, a current affairs program on Indian television station NDTV.

The Libyan government, a 42 year autocracy under Gaddafi, is facing rising international censure after using African mercenaries and military hardware – including anti-aircraft missiles – against civilian protesters.

At least 300 people are believed dead in the uprising while armed opposition groups now control much of the east of the country including Zawiyah, a town just 30 miles from the west of the capital of Tripoli. The British SAS meanwhile evacuated more than 500 British oil workers from a staging point in the Libyan desert, using C-130 Hercules transports.

“I feel that the UN should now be thinking about peacekeeping in Libya – on the ground intervention. This is very important,” Nasheed said on ‘Walk the Talk’.

“It is very disturbing to see the whole thing being played out, and everyone talking about their nationals – we all humans and sovereignty cannot be played over humanity,” Nasheed said.

“It is very disturbing to hear everyone talking only about their own nationals. People should be talking about Libya and the people. You kill an Indian, you kill a Libyan, what difference does that make? You’ve killed someone.”

Direct action was needed, Nasheed said, rather than the further economic sanctions that had been imposed.

“[The international community] are talking about sanctions – but Libyans already can’t import anything,” he said.

Nasheed noted that Gaddafi had survived the extreme political turbulence of the last 3-4 days, and said he was “very jittery” about the prospects of the leader stepping down voluntarily.

“Certainly he should go – I’ve no doubt about that,” he said. “It is our responsibility to make sure that at the end of the day we don’t have headlines saying 500,000 people are dead from aerial bombing in Libya.”

The Maldives, Nasheed said, was a “laboratory case” for the current call for democracy in the Middle East and the ousting of autocratic leaders.

“For the last 100 years Maldivian leaders have tried to emulate Egypt. There was Gayoom, but other leaders before him also studied in Egypt.

“What they need now are political parties. We will always support movement in any country when people want to be free – it is very important for development that countries haves strong political parties and free and fair elections.”

The uprisings had showcased that there was “no contradiction between Islam and democracy”, Nasheed said. “We are a 100 percent Muslim country and we have been able to galvanise the public for political activism, we’ve been able to amend our constitution, we able to build political parties, we have had free and fair presidential elections, parliamentary elections, local elections, we have separation of powers, we have a very vibrant independent media, we have all the fundamental rights – but all that requires space for organised political activism.”

A theocracy based around an extreme religious idea, Nasheed said, was simply “The camoflage of a standard dictatorship – except in the name of God.”

Issues such as Israel and Middle East peace issues could be more easily dealt with in a free and democratic country, Nasheed said.

“We have been able to have a number contacts with Israel now – the people have no issue with that.”

Queried by the interviewer about the widespread public anger Nasheed faced when reaching out to Israel, Nasheed claimed that “there is always organised opposition, and there should be and we can always talk about it and give our point of view.”

The uprisings had broken many Middle Eastern stereotypes, Nasheed agreed.

“Finally we will be able to show Islam for what it is – a high sophisticated intellectual life, that is highly attractive to people.”

Asked by the interviewer if he himself was “a devout Muslim”, Nasheed described himself as “practicing”, “but I don’t think that necessarily narrows my thinking or my attitude or my interactions with anyone.”

The interviewer also challenged Nasheed on how the Maldives could balance a broadly Islamic population with the influences of Western-style beach tourism.

“Traditionally we were Sufi Muslim, so therefore we were very liberal,” Nasheed said. “But in 70s we had wahabism starting to come in. Then in the late 70s Gayoom came to power, after living in Egypt.

“There was always a tendency to use religion or verses from the Quran or hadiths to justify yourself or justify your actions. Some other leader might have said “for development’. But Gayoom would say, ‘for God, so that we may attain paradise.’ What you are really saying is that you are building a school.”

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The ‘Mad Dog of the Middle East’

Former State Minister Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed recently joined a chorus of world leaders denouncing Libyan strongman Muammar-al-Gaddafi, calling him a “wicked, cruel” man.

“Wicked” and “cruel” might not be entirely out of place to describe the eccentric colonel who has ruled Libya with an iron fist for four decades, and virtually given his loyalists a free license to hunt down pro-democratic protestors, even as Human Rights groups pegged the current death toll at over 2000.

In his first interview on State-run television after the uprising began earlier this month, Gaddafi appeared wearing a hat with ear-flaps, holding an umbrella in the rain, leaning outside a vehicle resembling an armoured Tuk-Tuk outside the bombed ruins of his residence.

Thus, in a world that has seen colourful dictators ranging from Idi Amin to Kim Jong-Il, Gaddafi has steadfastly managed to hold his own, and occasionally push the envelope even further.

Addressing a loyal crowd gathered at the Green Square in Tripoli on Friday, he alleged that the revolts were sparked by youth under the influence of mind-altering pills mixed into milk and Nescafe by al-Qaeda. Fantastic claims like these have led to even traditionally timid, conservative media to label the ageing dictator outright insane.

Analysts reject any role of the al-Qaeda in the ongoing Middle Eastern democratic revolutions that has toppled long-reigning dictators in two of Libya’s immediate neighbours, and ended a two decade emergency in another.

According to Al-Jazeera, several international Libyan diplomats and military commanders have abandoned Gaddafi. On Friday, the Libyan ambassador to the US, Ali Aujali, who resigned earlier this month, hoisted the pre-Gaddafi era national flag at the Libyan Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Having already lost control of the Eastern half of his country, Gaddafi sought in vain to employ the nexus between the state and the mosque to deter protestors on Friday.

In a sermon aired on national television, the speaker was quoted as preaching “As the prophet said, if you dislike your ruler or his behaviour, you should not raise your sword against him, but be patient, for those who disobey the rulers will die as infidels.”

Ironically, Muammar al-Gaddafi himself came to power in a coup against Libyan King Idris in 1969, as a dashing, popular 27 year-old colonel.

As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by the fiery Arab Nationalist rhetoric of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and was once expelled from school for organizing a pro-Nasser student protest.

Inspired by Chinese Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong’s ‘Little Red Book’, Gaddafi also penned a three volume ‘Green Book’, with the subtitle ‘The Solution to the Problem of Democracy’, in which he outlined his philosophy of ‘Islamic Socialism’. The book was also reportedly distributed in the Maldives by former Maldivian President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

In his book, Gaddafi notes that in an ideal state, the government disappears to pave way for the rule of the people. But 40 years later, Libyans are finding it tough to convince their leader to follow his own advice.

King of Kings

Analysts have struggled to understand the unpredictable, erratic and bizarre ways of Gaddafi.

During his 42 years in power, Gaddafi has never been the President or a party leader. The title he holds is “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Revolution.”

He has reportedly accumulated a massive fortune of 60 billion dollars over the years, and exhibits a taste for flamboyant, flowing robes and aviator sunglasses.

Gaddafi’s eccentric nature made global headlines during a 2007 visit to France, when he arrived with an entourage of over 400 staff, a fleet of armoured limos, a giant heated tent, and a camel. His 40 member security detail, often called the ‘Amazonian guard’, consists of han-dpicked voluptuous virgins trained in body combat, who all sport lipstick, eye-liner and sometimes high-heels, and are trained killers who never leave his side day or night. Despite the public claims of chastity, several reports state that they frequently provide sexual favours.

In a conservative region where women are traditionally restricted, Gaddafi hails his sharply dressed female security team as a sign of women’s empowerment.

Gaddafi has also never shied away from provoking controversy or antagonizing world leaders, leading the former US President Ronald Reagan to label him the ‘Mad Dog of the Middle East’.

In what has been variously been described as choreographed buffoonery or downright megalomania, he stormed out of a 2009 Arab Summit in Doha after asserting himself as “the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa, and the Imam of all Muslims”.

In fact, a year earlier, Gaddafi did indeed proclaim himself the ‘King of Kings of Africa’, during a ceremony attended by over 200 traditional African kings and tribal leaders.

John Simpson of the BBC recounts an unforgettable interview with Gaddafi, where the Libyan leader repeatedly broke wind loudly throughout the conversation.

Gaddafi’s foreign policy is as odd, whimsical and mercurial as his personality.

Time Magazine reported that following the arrest of Gaddafi’s son, Hannibal, in Geneva for allegedly beating up two servants, he cancelled commercial flights between the two countries, withdrew $5 billion from Swiss Bank accounts and shut down local offices of Swiss companies Nestlé and ABB.

Gaddafi even submitted a proposal to the UN to abolish Switzerland and divide it up along linguistic lines, awarding the parts to Germany, France and Italy.

At various points during his reign, he expelled up to 25,000 Italians and 30,000 Palestinians from Libya, and closed down US and British military bases.

He has also converted a Catholic cathedral in Tripoli into a mosque named after Nasser.

In 1975, Nasser’s successor in Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, called Gaddafi “100 percent sick and possessed by the devil”.

In a meandering, long-winded address to the UN General Assembly in 2009, described by some Arab diplomats as ‘vintage Gaddafi’, he offered to move the UN headquarters to Tripoli, demanded an inquiry into the assassination of John F Kennedy, suggested that Swine Flu was a Western conspiracy, and reiterated an earlier demand for Israel and Palestine to be united into a single state called ‘Isratine’.

In one frenzied moment, Gaddafi tore up a copy of the UN Charter, refuted its legitimacy – and referred to the UN Security Council as a ‘terror council’.

Gaddafi’s own translator reportedly collapsed from exhaustion towards the end of his speech, which is the third longest speech in UN history – but still modest in comparison to Indian ambassador Krishna Menon’s eight-hour marathon address in 1957, whose official transcript runs into 160 pages.

During an August 2010 visit to Italy, he upset his hosts by declaring that “Islam should become the religion of all of Europe”, and gave each member of his hired audience a copy of the Qur’an.

Last Bedouin

Gaddafi loathes Islamic fundamentalists. Nearly 50 religious seminaries were reportedly shut down in the late 1980s. His harsh crackdown on radical Islam forced the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups in Libya to go into exile.

Nevertheless, in the past, Gaddafi has reportedly financed numerous militant groups, including Black September, which behind the attacks on Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In 2003, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, which killed all 270 people on board.

In a volte-face during the last decade, however, Gaddafi started making amendments with the West, even opening up his weapons facilities for foreign inspectors to dismantle.

In the wake of the popular revolutions, however, the West appears to have decided it is time for Gaddafi to go.

The UN Human Rights Council has unanimously suspended Libya’s membership. The US has imposed sanctions, the Swiss have frozen his assets, and France has begun investigations in the Gaddafis’ finances.

Former Libyan Justice Minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abud al-Jeleil, reportedly said that he believes Gaddafi would ultimately choose to commit suicide like the vanquished Hitler, than surrender power gracefully.
Indeed, this week, Gaddafi has defiantly vowed to arm his supporters to ‘cleanse’ Libya– a move that Angela Merkel of Germany has equated to a declaration of war against Libyan people, signalling more bloodshed.

But as former ally Hosni Mobarak could tell him, declaring war upon one’s own people is often a futile exercise.

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Q&A: Former UK MP for Salisbury Robert Key talks democracy in the Maldives

Robert Key was the UK’s MP for Salisbury between 1983 and 2010, and member of cabinet during Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s administration. He was responsible for bringing the Maldives to the attention of both the British parliament and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. He has supported the country’s path to democracy ever since current President Mohamed Nasheed walked into his constituency office and made his case.

Minivan News spoke to Key during his first visit to the Maldives.

JJ Robinson: Was it difficult to visit the Maldives while a serving MP, given its image as a holiday destination?

Robert Key: No it’s not difficult, because there are organisations that do it such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association – they all do organised visits, with a political purpose.

But to be completely free of politics and party and able to take a more academic interest in it – I was a teacher for 16 years before I was a politician – has been a great privilege.

In five days I have had a political reeducation. Because a lot of the aspirations I have taken for granted as a British politician do not necessarily apply in the culture of the Maldives.

JJ: What sort of aspirations?

RK: Aspirations towards human rights, for example. In my political life in the UK, human rights have always been an important issue on the political agenda, have has always been seen as virtuous and necessary, and have always been pressed for by the electorate.

I have to realise this is not the case for all people in the Maldives, who have come across human rights only in the last year or two. It’s a new and challenging idea for them, and they are not quite sure what it means. I’ve had to understand that. Even though I’ve been a British politician for 27 years, I certainly don’t have all the answers.

JJ: How did you originally become aware of the Maldives?

RK: Of course I have been aware of the Maldives for many years as a desirable holiday destination – islands in the sun. But it was really the arrival of President Mohamed Nasheed in my constituency office in Salisbury with an agenda of issues for which he needed the assistance of the local member of parliament.

He walked in through the door with his school-friend David Hardingham (Nasheed attended Dauntsey’s school with the founder of the Salisbury-based Friends of Maldives NGO), and said “I have problems. I have problems with visas, I have problems with police, I need some advice from police about how to protect my little office in Salisbury” – all these sorts of issues.

There were bigger problems: such as how to engage the British government ministers and the Commonwealth with what was happening in the Maldives. He quite rightly, as a good democrat, used the democratic system in the UK to pursue answers to his problems.

JJ: This was before the founding of [Nasheed’s] Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)?

RK: Absolutely. It was when he was setting up the party in a room above a shop in Millford street in Salisbury. That is where he was writing for Minivan News, that is where he was broadcasting on the Internet to Germany, and uplifting the shortwave to the Maldives.

JJ: Can you describe that first meeting?

RK: It was quite an extraordinary meeting. Over my many years I’ve realised you never knew what was going to hit you next as an issue. You never knew who was going to walk through your office door with what sort of problem. It might be a regular sort of problem – housing or taxation – but just sometimes there was an issue that really gripped me as really important. This was one of those.

I saw a young man with great vision and enormous energy and determination, who wanted to change his country. I’d had only one or two similar experiences in Salisbury, with other people who had equally great ambitions, interests and determination, but I recognised this particular young man as someone who I could not ignore, indeed who I wished to promote, because I believed he had all the right instincts as a democrat.

It was an extraordinary impression he made at first. He was very nervous, and very apprehensive. He didn’t know if he could trust me. Trust is the big issue in democratic politics, and I think he had one or two rebuffs from other politicians.

I took it at face value, and we took it from there. I met him a number of times in Salisbury, and I never ceased to believe in his own vision and his motives, and his motives appeared to me to be all correct.

I know nothing about all the party politics of the Maldives, but I do understand a good democrat when I see one.

JJ: What motivated you turn that meeting into a push for democracy in the Maldives? Wasn’t it a far-reaching project for the member for Salisbury?

RK: Not really, because I’d always believed in the Commonwealth and international development issues. I had worked for Chris Patten when he was Secretary of State for International Development, both as his parliamentary secretary and later as a minister, and I understood his view of the world. He left politics to become governor of Hong Kong where he oversaw the hand-over of Hong Kong back to the Chinese government, and I was close to that process.

So I always believed that British politicians had a duty to other Commonwealth countries. And that was why I believed it was more than worthwhile – it was my duty – to assist in this process.

At that stage I knew nothing about the politics of the Maldives – I had no reason to. But if what [Mohamed Nasheed] said was true, he had a strong case.

That was why I needed to take the case to Ministers in the British government, to seek their involvement.

JJ: What was the reaction from British ministers when you presented this story to them?

RK: I think it was always positive, always open-minded, waiting for the evidence to emerge. I think the British government never sought to interfere with political processes, but it did wish to ensure democratic processes were possible in the Maldives.

That was why the Westminster Foundation for Democracy – which is an all-party Foundation – was willing to supply funds and people to advise.

JJ: When did the Westminster Foundation become involved and what support did they provide?

RK: In the year or so before the 2008 presidential election a number of people came out to the Maldives to give advice based on their experience from other parts of the world – the Commonwealth in particular – on what was going on and what was possible. It was completely even-handed and fair-minded, and it was not taking up a party political stance.

JJ: A version of the story told here is that Westminster Foundation funded and trained the MDP.

RK: No no, the Westminster Foundation is completely non party-political. That is why the leaders of all parties are trustees of the Westminster Foundation. It is absolutely not party political. It operates in a whole range of countries, for example Macedonia and other countries of the former Yugoslavia. It acts exactly the same way in any given circumstance anywhere in the world.

JJ: It often stated here that the MDP was strongly supported by the UK Conservative Party. What was the extent of that relationship beyond yourself?

RK: It simply started with me because I was the local MP and happened to be a Conservative. It may equally be true that if it was a Labour Party constituency it might have been the Labour Party that took up the cause. But that wasn’t the issue.

At no stage did I ever discuss party politics with President Mohamed Nasheed. He never asked me anything party-political and I didn’t offer it, any more than I have [during this visit]. I’ve seen both political parties, both party headquarters.

JJ: One of the accusations the former administration threw at both yourself and David Hardingham was that you were Christian missionaries out to subvert Islam in the Maldives. How did you deal with that?

RK: Well I recognised it as a political ploy. But we had to take it seriously as a threat because that was how it was presented – that Salisbury Cathedral might become a target for some kind of activity. It was very specific.

The actual threat was that Salisbury and Salisbury Cathedral were trying to convert the Maldives to Christianity. Which was absolute nonsense but had to be taken seriously, because quite obviously in the Maldives that would be seen as a significant threat in a country that is 100 percent Islamic. I understood that straight away.

It was not true, and therefore we had to say “It is not true.” The Dean of Salisbury Cathedral understood the issue, she took it at face value, and we sought security advice as necessary. But it was never a serious threat. It was a juvenile political ploy.

JJ: Were there any difficulties you faced with the cultural differences of the Maldives? What has your experience been like?

RK: This is my first visit. I was always very keen that people would see my concern for the Maldives as completely impartial and in the interest of good government in the Maldives. That is why I am here, and that is the message I have given to the civil servants I met [on Monday].

The turnout included 14 permanent secretaries – not bad for a retired backbencher. If they are prepared to take me seriously as an impartial supporter of the Maldives, I hope everyone else will.

JJ: What was your reaction when you heard that Mohamed Nasheed had won the 2008 Presidential election?

RK: Astonishment. And delight – in that order. But then I should have recognised that the people are right. As a good democrat I shouldn’t have been surprised. I should have been delighted that he has become President, for the right reasons, doing it the right way, playing it by the rulebook, to make sure his view of good government in the Maldives has prevailed.

He’s now finding out how difficult democracy really is. But that should not deflect him from his vision – of course its difficult, of course the issues are intractable. But, as long as his motives remain completely clear, then I think he will stand again as president, with honour. He clearly has the backing of his party and I wish him well. It’s up to the people of the Maldives.

JJ: Are you aware that when the cabinet resigned Nasheed came under a lot of international pressure for detaining one of the MPs, People’s Alliance (PA) leader Abdulla Yameen, allegedly outside what the constitution permitted?

RK: I’m not aware of that at all. I had just retired [in July 2010], I was away on holiday.

JJ: Have you followed the Maldives since Nasheed’s election? What is your assessment now you’ve seen it first-hand?

RK: I haven’t seen everything, I’ve seen a sample. It’s extremely interesting. I have an agenda of things to go back and do in the UK and contacts to make. I compared notes with the new High commissioner to the Maldives (John Rankin).

I had a fascinating meeting about the importance of statistics to good government. I pointed out that even the British government has only for one year had an independent office of national statistics that everyone can trust – journalists, taxpayers and politicians. And no-one can say “You’re massaging the figures minister” because they are independent.

JJ: Why did this meeting jump out at you?

RK: Because of their anxiety to maintain independence, and their sense of the collective wisdom of the government of the Maldives. In other words, the mark of any good civil service. That was hugely encouraging – their desire not to be party political, or be seen to be party political. All of these are virtuous aspirations on behalf of a civil service determined to serve the people well.

They were asking questions like ‘How do you educate ministers?’ A very important question.

I explained how it worked for me, and how influential civil servants ulitimately are in shaping a government and having limits beyond which they will not go – at which point the cabinet secretary has to see the prime minister to talk about it.

JJ: One of the major economic issues here is that the Maldivian civil service employs a substantial percentage of the population. How do you pare down a civil service while maintaining its integrity and keeping it clear of party politics?

RK: I was asked directly what happens when a government comes in committed to cutting the size of the civil service, and what difference did that make.

I pointed out that is exactly what I had to do during Margaret Thatcher’s government, when as Local Government Minister I was charged with introducing policy that took delivery of public service out of the hands of political and civil servants, and put it in the hands of agencies and contractors, while maintaining services to the public.

It was a painful process – and by and large it worked – but sometimes you had to admit you were wrong. To be able to say, “No, this has failed, stop it and don’t waste any more money. Change the policy.” And that was the advice I gave.

JJ: What reaction did you get whenever you did that?

RK: Huge relief, not least from the Treasury. Because if a policy is not working, it’s wasting money. For example the [UK] poll tax – it was generally recognised politically, but it didn’t work. It was massively expensive, and every time there was another protest, the government had to spend more money to get themselves out of a hole. The only sensible thing to do was put your hands up and say “It hasn’t worked”, and change it. We abolished the poll tax and introduced the council tax in the UK, which is still going strong. Now I can say, “Hey, I got it right.”

JJ: There’s a sense in the Maldives that while everyone agrees on the constitution, not everyone is working in the spirit of it. If you have a situation where the international community is piling on pressure to respect the constitution, how, as a leader and a President, can you work within the boundaries of the constitution when you are dealing with people who may not have its best interests at heart?

RK: I don’t know, because Britain doesn’t have a written constitution. Which is why Britain works!

I have read the Maldivian constitution online, and I recognise some very, very very difficult issues in the constitution which are at loggerheads with the expressed policy of the government over, for example, human rights. Which is very difficult to handle. I don’t know the answer and I’m certainly not going to tell the government how to do it.

But I recognise, and I’m sure they do, that if you have a written constitution, you ought to either abide by it, or change it. But you shouldn’t try to do either too quickly. As I said today, don’t do too much too quickly. Some things you have to do quickly – you have to tell the truth – you have to tell the electorate what your intentions are. But you can’t do it all at once.

It took Margaret Thatcher 11 years to get anywhere near where she wanted to be, before she resigned – or was forced to resign, to be honest.

JJ: In your reading of the Maldivian constitution, what were some of the things that jumped out at you as contradictory to government policy?

RK: I think the clash between human rights and 100 percent Islam is a really difficult issue. I’m a religious person – I therefore respect the Islamic tradition very much, and I’m certainly not trying to convert anyone in the Maldives to Christianity.

But that would be difficult for any government when they are signing up to the UN declarations, which are all about religious freedom and liberty, while at the same time trying to respect a constitution which says “Absolutely not. 100 percent Islam.”

There is a difference in my mind, in my understanding as a Western democrat, that there’s a difference between saying that as a citizen of a country you must belong to a particular faith and, as in Britain, saying: “This is a broadly Christian country, but any other religion is tolerated.”

How you square that circle politically is going to be really difficult to carry out by any government of any complexion, and it’s more likely to take 50 years than five.

JJ: A recurrent observation from the liberal side of debate here is there is a conflict between human rights and Islam. Do you think this then is more a conflict between human rights and the constitution?

RK: No – I think the Maldives will find that it goes through an age of Enlightenment, just as Europe did in the 18th century, when the certainty of a particular interpretation of a particular faith is questioned.

It is not denigrated, it is not abandoned – it is simply talked about. People ask questions. That was the great break in European civilisation – the age of Enlightenment. When science became respectable, when creationism was abandoned, by all but a few.

It didn’t shake the faith, it didn’t abandon the faith, it learned how to question it, and live with the consequences of being a mature democracy. I think the Maldives will go through a similar process.

It will take a long time – if you have a culture which has not been questioning, for hundreds of years, hasn’t seen the need to, and then suddenly the world moves on, that is a big challenge for any government.

JJ: If many of the issues in an emerging democracy will take time to resolve, is there a risk of losing perspective when you are dealing with five year political terms?

RK: Some of the consequential policy changes are going to be difficult if they are done too quickly. But one of the most interesting features of my visit to the Maldives this week has been what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa – and the sense that if the Maldives hadn’t come as far and as fast as it has since the last presidential elections, they may well have found themselves in the situation of one of the North African or Middle Eastern states. Where younger people in particular decided that enough is enough of a particular regime.

The Maldives can hold its head high, and say “We have led the way. We have blazed a trail here in promoting democracy and empowerment of the citizen, with all the difficulties that presents.”

There will be leaders in North Africa who will be wishing they had listened to the Maldives, had done what the Maldives chose to do in 2008.

JJ: What role do think international community can continue to play to ensure the Maldives does see the benefits of democracy?

RK: There is an enormous international role and responsbility. For example in strategic defense planning. The head of military told me about the reorganisation of the military into different heads and commands, and that was an important strategic review that needed to be carried out. It does need to be said that the Maldives’ neighbours, not only India – which is currently providing a helicopter, but the wider international community – should take some responsibility. For example: over this issue of the 37 Somali pirates currently in the Maldives, presenting a huge legal problem for such a small country.

The UN should take the lead in this, and I think there’s a way through this to resolve it internationally. There are other issues of security in the Indian Ocean in terms of everyone’s safety – surveillance of the seas, but also in terms of environmental conservation. I would also like to see the Maldives one day able to lead other emerging democracies down the path of democracy.

JJ: One of the problems civil society organisations have faced here is that because the MDP campaigned strongly on a platform of democracy, freedom of speech, independent media and so forth, suddenly these values and organsiations promoting them have been politicised by association. How does a country separate these values from politics?

RK: It’s not easy, and it takes time, and it’s not the first time this issue has arisen. 10 years ago the Labour Defence Minister asked me to go with him and stand with him in Slovenia in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, to convince them that democracy needs an opposition as well as a government – because they were inclined to shoot the opposition.

The Minister took me with him to Slovenia and I sat beside him in a meeting with the group that had obtained the greatest number of votes, and said “Don’t shoot the opposition. You need them to work with you in a democracy.”

Here it is not as extreme. There is not a war in the Malidves. But having talked to both parties I have noticed that there is a very young shoot of democracy here, and it’s going to need time to mature. The political parties are going to both have to see the best in each other and their leaders as well as the worst.

There is no love lost between the political parties here, and in my judgement things that should not be politicised are being politicised. That is the mark of the new democracy. It is a strange idea, it is difficult to handle. But as political thought matures, as the electors get used to democracy, they will encourage their leaders to be more constructive over policy differences. I am not dispirited by this – I think it is competely normal and natural, and part of growing up in a democracy.

We have been at it for a thousand years in England – we take too much for granted. We have politicians slagging each other off, and we yawn. I’m quite sure that is a position people will reach in the Maldives when they want their politicians to get serious about policy issues, and not keep blaming each other for what has happened in the past – and above all, not to seek revenge.

JJ: There is an almost post-apartheid dichotomy between revenge and reconciliation in the Maldives, and a ‘head in the sand’ approach in the hope it will go away. Do you think that is a reasonable position to take, or do old wounds fester and contaminate this discourse you are encouraging?

RK: I think the Maldives should probably seek the advice of Nelson Mandela, who post-apartheid set up the truth commission as a way of learning and forgiving, rather than seeking political revenge. But that is a decision for the Maldivian people – not for me.

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Male’ will not survive without resolving housing, congestion and fuel challenges: President Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has said that Male’ “will not survive without some solution to its housing, some solution to its congestion, some solution to the amount of oil that we are importing everyday.”

Nasheed was speaking at a press conference yesterday to launch the second phase of the Gulhi Falhu development project, attended by the Danish Ambassador Freddy Svane.

The first street of the US$600 million Gulhi Falhu development project, intended to reduce the congestion of Male’, will be called Copenhagen Avenue.

The project involves the reclamation of 40 hectares of land on which will be constructed 2500 housing units. The new landmass will be connected by bridge to Villingili on completion of the second stage of the project and eventually, Nasheed said, joined to Male’ via a bridge from the tsunami monument to Vilingili.

“We have one long stretch of road that starts from the tsunami monument in Male’, and ends at Thilafalhu, which is right next to Giraavaru, which is very far away,” he said. This road would be called Copenhagen Avenue, in recognition of the support of the Danish government.

The houses built by the project’s Global Projects Development Company will be constructed in an environmentally-friendly manner, in partnership with US company Red Dot. Red Dot will construct a solar park which will provide electricity to the new residential and industrial districts.

Nasheed also said that a campus for the recently inaugrated Maldives National University would also be constructed on Gulhi Falhu.

“[Gulhi Falhu] is our showpiece development, our showpiece community and we are quite confident that we will be able to use the land by, hopefully end of next year or early 2013,” President Nasheed said.

Development, the President added, was not measured in concrete.

“During the last two months, I have visited more than 130 islands and very often I am given a shopping list. ‘President; we need a harbor, we need a sewerage system.’

“They [say they] need a water system and they also like a lot of concrete. I have been consistently trying to tell everyone that development is not measured in concrete. It is measure by what we know and what we understand. It’s a phenomenon that happens to a person, not to a country. If we want to develop, we will have to develop our minds. We will have to broaden our minds. We will have to be able to think outside the box, find solutions and fix problems.”

Projects such as Gulhi Falhu would not save the world, Nasheed said, “but we like to think that if we can become an example, the rest of the world can have a look at it and people can actually see and understand that it is working. So in very many senses, this whole project is a green project, and at the centre of it is a green park.”

Nasheed thanked the Danish government for its support of the undertaking.

“If all goes wrong in the Maldives, of course it is an issue for the Danes,” Nasheed said. “All of us are interconnected. If things go wrong in Denmark it’s going to have huge effects and impacts on us. We must be able to look after each other. That doesn’t mean that we should be asking for aid and grants. No, we are asking, seeking for trade. This is a very good example of trade collaborations and also a very good example of how a friendly country can actually back a flourishing or a democracy that is in the process of making.

Danish Ambassador Svane expressed gratitude for Nasheed’s “tremendous job” in Copenhagen at the COP15 summit, saying that the Maldives was setting a benchmark for global efforts to fight climate change.

However he also agreed that development was as much a state of mind as it was physical infrastructure.

“We can build up all these fancy buildings, towers and so forth, but we need to change the mindset of people,” he said, adding that President Nasheed had played an important role in changing the mindset of many people all over the world.

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Immigration Controller to exchange roles with National Disaster Management chief

Immigration Controller Ilyas Hussein Ibrahim is to trade roles with head of the National Disaster Management Centre Abdulla Shahid, also Minister of State for Housing and Environment.
Minivan News understands that the official letters of appointment have not yet been delivered but are awaiting the President’s signature, after news of the decision was leaked.

Ilyas told Minivan News that the Haveeru report was the first he had heard of the proposal: “No one’s shared it with me yet,” he said.

The move may have a political dimension, as Ilyas is one of the few remaining members of the Vice President’s Gaumee Itthihaad Party (GIP) in government, which was dropped as a coalition partner by the ruling Maldivian Democractic Party (MDP) last year after Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan publicly criticised the government for sidelining him.
The supposed reshuffle also comes a month after President Mohamed Nasheed called on the Immigration Department to postpone the roll-out of the Nexbis electronic border control system for the Maldives in accordance with concerns by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) over the project’s selection process.

The President’s Office previously confirmed to Minivan News that Nasheed has requested that the Department of Immigration and Emigration adhere to the ACC’s guidance until it rules over the next step for the project, with no appeal expected to be heard on the current decision.

Nexbis has meanwhile said it will be taking legal action against parties in the Maldives, claiming that speculation over corruption was “politically motivated” in nature and had “wrought irreparable damage to Nexbis’ reputation and brand name.”

The project is intended to curb illegal immigration by tying biometric data to an individual at point of entry, thus reducing the reliance on potentially forged paper documentation. Labour trafficking in the Maldives is thought to be worth at least US$42 million a year and up to US$200 million, according to the former Bangladeshi High Commissioner.

Both positions – Immigration Controller and head of the National Disaster Management Centre – share the same rank.

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