Beneath serendipity trouble brews in the Maldives

From Ranga Jayasuriya in Male

Serendipity of the Maldives, its sandy beaches and sea known for sea sports do not give the impression that there functions a troubled state in this tiny archipelago.

It was, indeed, hard to believe that one frail old man could control the destiny of this tiny island nation with an iron fist absolutely most of the time away from the international attention.

When my Sri Lankan Airlines flight touched down in Male, I didn't expect that there functioned a troubled state, which is effective in every measure, when it comes to crushing down political dissent. But, I had the first taste of what is in store, when I went to get visa clearance. Journalist passport was a cause for concern for the authorities there, indeed, as it later turned out, they were expecting us there.

I could notice the first sign of strength and vulnerability of Gayoom's regime. He has been successful in the same manner of the most toppled dictators of the Eastern Europe succeeded in their initial stage. An effective police state is in place and it would go to any length to crack down the dissent stemming from local opposition. Independent media is absent. Unlike his former counter parts in Eastern Europe, Gayoom is heavily dependent on the international opinion. He would be the happiest if the international media kept themselves away from his tiny island state.

Next day when the detained opposition party chairman Mohamed Nasheed sat for his trial, and when hundreds of his supporters converged in the vicinity of the court house, I could see the brute force of a police in all its ugliness gradually being unleashed on the public.

Nearly a thousand protestors who converged in support of the opposition leader in trial were kept away from the court house by the police who barricaded all entrance to the court house. Which is of course an understandable security precaution. But, within a matter of time the apparatus of a troubled state were set in motion.

Police in full riot gear were unleashed on a peaceful protest. The extent of the police control in the public life was evident in the sheer impunity with which the police arrested the protestors and dragged them into the packed police jeeps.

Police picked their victims at ease. The only offense they seemed to have committed to be in the place of protest or perhaps shouting the slogan a bit louder than the rest.

On Sunday itself police arrested over fifteen protestors.

As it later turned out, that is the typical way of the Maldivian police which has already over crowded prisons with political prisoners.

Locals as well as the United Nations have raised concerns at the increasing number of arrests of political activists which has already overcrowded the prisons.

"The UN has noted with increasing concern the escalating number of people being arrested and detained over the past few weeks, " the UN statement said last week.

One hundred and ninety nine people were arrested within a week since May 14, of which 58 had been later released, the rest still remain in detention. Early this week, eight detainees were tried and convicted in a court and in a hearing which lasted only minutes were sentenced to four months in prison.

Prof Paul H Robinson who assessed the Maldivian legal system on a UNDP funded programme in his report stated that, "the Maldivian criminal justice system systematically fails to do justice and regularly does injustice, that the reforms needed are wide ranging and that with out dramatic change, the system and its public reputation are likely to deteriorate further,"

The conduct of Anni's trial itself is a case for concern. So are charges laid against him, which most Maldivians described as fabricated and ridiculous at its best.

Mohamed Nasheed was arrested on August 12, last year, when he sat along with his MDP supporters to commemorate the second anniversary of the Black Friday demonstration. Justification for the arrest itself is ridiculous, bordering the lame excuses Burmese military junta would offer for the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Interesting enough the government said, Police took Nasheed into custody for his own protection, only to change the tune in the days to come. Nasheed, who formed the Maldivian Democratic Party along with exiled party spokesman Mohamad Latheef was later charged with terrorism and sedition.

It should not be a cause for surprise that terrorism is a common charge laid against most opposition activists. But despite such an obsession, interpretation of the word, terrorism remains blurred at its best and seems to be set at the will of the government to fit its agenda.

A delegation of barristers led by Sir Ivan Lawrence (QC) who visited the Maldives on a fact finding mission had summarised their findings into five key flows:

There is surprisingly little awareness in the authorities of the internationally approved standards of Human Rights compliance and there is too little perceived separation of the Executive and the Judiciary, says the report.

It also said that there was too small a body of lawyers equipped to protect the interests of the individual accused of crime and there is too little perceived independence of the legal profession from Government.

At long last it noted that there is no proper and available body of law and procedure governing criminal trials.

As for the trial against Nasheed, the delegation also said that trial of opposition leader falls a long way short of international standards of justice that President Gayoom had promised the international community he will abide by.

Closest evidence related to charges laid against Nasheed is a speech he was supposed to have delivered in a campaign rally in a island, where he had said, referring to the history of the Maldives, past leaders of this country had a violent death and that it would be very sad if the same thing happened to Gayoom.

As most Maldivians show the trial is only a show case to silence the opposition, the trial is politically motivated and charges are fabricated, they claim.

Only President Gayoom can decide the fate of Nasheed,but even Gayoom himself is in a dilemma. Faced with growing international concerns at the country's judicial system, the President himself is aware of the international, perhaps even local backlash of a summery conviction of the opposition party chairman. But, failing to punish the opposition party leader could severely compromise his control over the local public.

In the government's propaganda machinery, Gayoom is still the reverend figure, resemblance to all things big and beautiful and from whom all knowledge stems. The public opinion has changed dramatically during the last two and half years, since the first large scale public protests against the custodial death of Evan Naseem in September 2003. When I landed in Male, I had my own worries. Till I came across dozens of opposition activists, I did not believe the country's emerging opposition movement to be moderate.

The world has seen radical islamic doctrines thriving in the vacuum of political dissent in many parts of the Muslim world. Set against religious fanatism victoriously emerged with the collapse of despots in the middle east, understandably Gayoom would look sad.

I am now prepared to shed my illusions. Maldives' seems to be exceptional case, at least till this point, I could feel a coloured revolution is in the making in these tiny atolls.

When the Gayoom regime cracked down on initial protests in 2003, one version was that the demonstration was incited by fundamentalists.

Last week, in the street protests and a party rally and later at the party office and at the house of detained Jennifer Latheef's house, I could see no women in burqa. Only a handful were even wearing hijab.

The conviction of Jennifer, the daughter of the founder of the MDP, Mohamad Latheef who lives in exile in Colombo is further evidence of the impunity with which the government act against the opposition.

Jennifer was arrested in Black Friday demonstrations in September 2003 and released and rearrested on numerous times, before she was tried and convicted on terrorism - one charge related to her is throwing a stone at police. In October 2005 she was sentenced to ten years in prison.

She has been transferred to house arrest later and now awaits the permission from the government to come to Colombo for her medical treatment. Jennifer says the doctors at the Indira Gandhi hospital in Male had been forced not to issue her a certificate recommending medical treatment abroad, thus keeping her at home, leaving her in intense back pain, complication of assault during her arrest. Such is the political play of the Gayoom regime.

Meeting with Nasheed, I could listen to a politician in the making. He was an exception to the political wilderness in the Maldives.

The man is sanguine and pragmatic. I could sense his pragmatism when a colleague of mine, naively asked how his party would make the Maldives an economic power house.

"Maximum we could achieve is to be a good city," he quipped. And listening to him outlining his party's foreign policy, one could sense a diplomat in the making.

"I can say in clear terms, an MDP government would not maintain diplomatic relations with military regimes like Burma, " he said, while stressing the need to have strong ties with India and Sri Lanka.

But, the romance of this young politician- who was educated in Colombo- with South Asia has its limits. He made it clear when he said that family ties or nepotism had played a strong role in South Asian political culture, which his party does not need to have in a post-Gayoom's Maldives.

For his part, Gayoom has made the Maldives a economic success story during the last decade, But the country is locked in its feudalistic, perhaps tribal political and judicial system, which no longer command the respect of Maldivians.

Street protests in Katmandu ended a monarchy in Nepal. How long it will take Nasheed and his colleague to do that in this tiny island nation, greater the international attention on their cause, sooner will be the emergence of pluralistic Maldives.