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US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Keith Millea - 10-02-2012
That was quick and easy...........
Published on Thursday, February 9, 2012 by Common Dreams
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed
Political protests rock the island nation as ex-president faces 'life in jail'
- Common Dreams staff
The US government has recognized the new standing government in the Maldives just days after the nation's democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was ousted in a military coup.
![[Image: maldives_4.jpg]](http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/headline_image/article_images/maldives_4.jpg)
Ousted Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed is carried by his supporters during the Maldivian Democratic Party's meeting in Male. (Photo: Reuters)Agence France-Presse reports:
The United States on Thursday recognized the new government of Maldives President Mohamed Waheed as legitimate and urged him to fulfill a pledge to form a national unity government.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said Robert Blake, the top US diplomat for south Asia, telephoned former president Mohamed Nasheed to tell him Washington backed a "peaceful resolution" of the crisis on the archipelago.
"We do," Nuland told reporters when asked if Washington recognizes the new government as the legitimate government of the Maldives. She called Waheed the president and Nasheed the former president.
Blake, the assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, will travel Saturday to the Maldives to meet with both Waheed and Nasheed, who charges he was ousted in a coup, as well as civil society.
Nasheed, according to reports, has been threatened with arrest and 'life in jail' just days after he was forced to resign at gunpoint by renegade police and military forces. The Indian Ocean island has been in tumult since Nasheed's ouster and clashes continue in and around the major cities of Male and Addu.State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said Robert Blake, the top US diplomat for south Asia, telephoned former president Mohamed Nasheed to tell him Washington backed a "peaceful resolution" of the crisis on the archipelago.
"We do," Nuland told reporters when asked if Washington recognizes the new government as the legitimate government of the Maldives. She called Waheed the president and Nasheed the former president.
Blake, the assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, will travel Saturday to the Maldives to meet with both Waheed and Nasheed, who charges he was ousted in a coup, as well as civil society.
Reuters reports today:
Mohamed Nasheed spoke to reporters at his home on a narrow lane in Male, capital of the islands renowned for their luxury getaway resorts, as rain poured and hundreds of onlookers gathered under umbrellas awaiting the arrival of police.
Nasheed, the islands' first democratically elected president, appeared to be daring the government led by his former vice president, Mohamed Waheed Hussain Manik, to arrest him after violent protests on Wednesday spread outside Male.
"The home minister has pledged (I will be) the first former president to spend all my life in jail," said Nasheed, who was relaxed and smiling and showed no signs of his reported beating on Wednesday.
He said he hoped the international community would act quickly as "the facts on the ground are that tomorrow I will be in jail".
However, there was no sign of the police by early evening. Police Commissioner Abdullah Riyaz, when asked by Reuters if and when a warrant would be served, declined to comment.
And Agence France-Presse reported earlier:Nasheed, the islands' first democratically elected president, appeared to be daring the government led by his former vice president, Mohamed Waheed Hussain Manik, to arrest him after violent protests on Wednesday spread outside Male.
"The home minister has pledged (I will be) the first former president to spend all my life in jail," said Nasheed, who was relaxed and smiling and showed no signs of his reported beating on Wednesday.
He said he hoped the international community would act quickly as "the facts on the ground are that tomorrow I will be in jail".
However, there was no sign of the police by early evening. Police Commissioner Abdullah Riyaz, when asked by Reuters if and when a warrant would be served, declined to comment.
The mayor of the Maldives' second-largest city Addu spoke Thursday of a total law and order "breakdown" following a night of violence that saw police stations attacked and torched.
"There's no law and order at all. It's a complete breakdown," Addu City Mayor Abdulla Sodig told AFP by phone, saying his wrist had been fractured when he was beaten up by a group of people who attacked him in his office.
Sodig said police were absent from the city streets, while troops from a nearby military base were focused on protecting Gan Airport -- a major conduit for foreign tourists travelling from the capital Male to luxury resort islands.
With 32,000 residents, Addu is the second-largest city in the Maldives after Male.
Violence erupted in the Maldives on Wednesday in the wake of the resignation of president Mohamed Nasheed, who later said he had been ousted in a "coup" orchestrated by opposition leaders backed by the police and army.
"There's no law and order at all. It's a complete breakdown," Addu City Mayor Abdulla Sodig told AFP by phone, saying his wrist had been fractured when he was beaten up by a group of people who attacked him in his office.
Sodig said police were absent from the city streets, while troops from a nearby military base were focused on protecting Gan Airport -- a major conduit for foreign tourists travelling from the capital Male to luxury resort islands.
With 32,000 residents, Addu is the second-largest city in the Maldives after Male.
Violence erupted in the Maldives on Wednesday in the wake of the resignation of president Mohamed Nasheed, who later said he had been ousted in a "coup" orchestrated by opposition leaders backed by the police and army.
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Peter Lemkin - 10-02-2012
No mess, no fuss....boy, I love a good coup d'etat to make my day!
I believe I found the reason the USA backed or secretly promoted [did] it!....AMY GOODMAN: We're talking about the coup in the Maldives and the ousting of the president there. In October 2009, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed held a cabinet meeting underwater in an attempt to bring attention to the dire consequences of global warming. Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers wore scuba gear and plunged nearly 20 feet into the Indian Ocean.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: We are actually trying to send our message, let the world know what is happening and what mightwhat will happen to the Maldives if climate change is not checked. This is a challenging situation. And we want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are and would like to see that people actually do something about it.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the ousted president, Mohamed Nasheed, of the Maldives. Bill McKibben, you're founder of 350.org. Talk about what has happened this week.
BILL McKIBBEN: Sure. Look, Nasheed, who I know a little bit, is a remarkable man for two reasons. One, he was thein certain ways, the first precursor of the Arab Spring, the Mandela of the Indian Ocean, you know, who really brought democracy to a country where it hadn't been before. Second, he's been the most outspoken head of state around the issue of climate change on our planet. He has provided the leadership, both symbolic and practical, that we desperately need. You know, until Tuesday, the Maldives was on target to become the first carbon neutral nation on earth. That won't save the climate, but it's the kind of thing that should shame the West into beginning to act itself. They also werehe and his government did a tremendous job of cooperating with activists around the world to try and bring attention to this most desperate of problems.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Bill, the denial of the State Department that this is even a coup?
BILL McKIBBEN: You know, it's so depressing to hear that. Let's hope that the State Department is getting new information. We're sending more than 30,000 signatures over there today that we've gathered in the last few hours from people around the world in the 350.org network who are incredibly upset at what's going on.
I was at the Maldives 20 years ago, at the height of the Gayoom thugocracy, and it was an unpleasant placepeople with machine guns on corners and things. Malé, the capital, during the Nasheed years was a very different place: open, vibrant, alive democratic, humming with people trying to make a difference in the world. It's just the saddest of thoughts to think that we might be moving backwards and that the State DepartmentI mean, one trusts that they're notyou know, that they're taking this seriously.
Clearly, in certain ways, Nasheed was a thorn in their side, because he kept bringing up the topic of climate change, a topic they're not that keen on. On the other hand, he, almost to a fault, was cooperative with U.S. efforts to try and do somethingyou know, what little we're doingabout climate change. The State Department owes him, and I hope that they take this seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me turn to a new documentary, The Island President, about Mohamed Nasheed, the one we just played a clip of, directed by Jon Shenk. This part looks at Nasheed's time as a political dissident under the old regime.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: After graduation, I came back to the Maldives. By this time, the state had become more and more repressive. So we decided that it would be good to come up with a magazine.
MOHAMED ZUHAIR: Nasheed and I and a few others began a publication called Sangu, which was a political publication.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: It was talking about two things: corruption and human rights abuse. It was very critical of the regime. One night, at about 3:00 in the morning, they came to my house. They raided my home and took a whole lot of papers.
LAILA ALI: They came in. They took him away. It was in the middle of the night. I mean, we had heard so many stories of what they were doing in the jails and all that, so it was terrifying, you know, really.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mohamed Nasheed's wife.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: I refused to give a confession. So, because of this, I was taken to a corrugated iron sheet cell. The whole cell is five feet by three feet. You had a mat. That's all.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Nasheed eventually went into exile but returned to Maldives to lead a fledgling pro-democracy movement. Here is another excerpt from The Island President.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: The Maldives was looking very much like an occupied country.
MOHAMED ASLAM: I would be lying if I tell you that I wasn't afraid. Butand he keeps telling us all the time, you know, "You must get courage from each other. So, stand by together."
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Demonstrations were taking place all throughout the country. There were huge demonstrations in Fares-Maathodaa, Thinadhoo, Kinbidhoo, Ukulhasyou know, many, many, many islands. This was spreading like wildfire. It just finally came to a point that Gayoom had to relent, and he had to allow free and fair elections.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the new documentary, The Island President. We are joined by Jon Shenk, who's its director. This newsyou have spent a good deal of time with the ousted president in the Maldives. This historyhe has been held, he has been beaten and tortured by the oustedby the former dictator. What about what's happening now, Jon?
JON SHENK: Well, thanks for having me.
You know, when I arrived in the Maldives in 2009, a few months after the first-ever democratically presidential held election there, it was ait was a very strange place. You know, on one hand, you had people who were clearly still looking over their shoulders from, you know, decades of having lived in a police state. And then you had, on the other hand, Nasheed and the new fledgling democratic government there, you know, acting in the most open, kind of democratic, transparent way that you can imagine a good government acting.
So, what is happening now, in some ways, is obviously shocking and stunning and, to those of us who know Nasheed well, very sadbut not surprising, given just the kinds of things that we heard during the making of the film, which is that, you know, it's in a small country that was ruled for so long by an entrenched dictatorship. You had so much of society, you know, sort of, quote-unquote, "in his pocket," or, you know, sort ofor at least fearful of repercussions that might occur, you know, speaking out against him.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I'd like to ask Paul Roberts, the adviser to the ousted president, Nasheed, about thisthe Maldives and the WikiLeaks documents concerning the Copenhagen climate talks. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper published an article titled "WikiLeaks Cables Reveal How US Manipulated Climate Accord." The Guardian reported that within two weeks of the Copenhagenthe climate change conference, "the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing eagerness to back [the accord]."
By February 23rd, 2010, "the Maldives' ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing, his country wanted [quote] 'tangible assistance', saying other nations would then realise [quote] 'the advantages to be gained by compliance' with the accord."
According to a leaked cable, "Ghafoor referred to several projects costing approximately $50 [million]."
Your response to those WikiLeaks documents?
PAUL ROBERTS: Yeah, sure. I mean, I was in Copenhagen with Nasheed, and I saw him battling very vigilantly to get a deal. We were very nervous at that point that there would be no deal, with this almighty row that was breaking out between America and China. And eventually we did get a deal. It was a very bad deal. It was a very poor deal. It was a compromised deal. But it was a deal. And Nasheed played an instrumental part in that and in preventing those talks from collapsing. And then, you know, we'vesince then, we've had some baby steps forward in Cancún and Durban, which seems to sort of justify his decision to keep the U.N. talks on the road. But, I mean, the last day of Copenhagen, Nasheed said publicly, and in writing, that the Maldives had writtensorry, had supported the Copenhagen Accord. So this was two months before these meetings.
But theyou know, one of the key parts of any U.N. accord is that some of the poor, vulnerable countries, like the Maldives, but like many others in Africa, have to spend an increasing proportion of their budgets on adaptations. In the Maldives, this is tens of millions of dollars on sea walls and beach revetments and stuff to protect these islands from the rising seas. So, you know, what the Maldives was saying was that, you know, if we can have some help, thenyou know, then that's great, and for other developing countries, too, that needs to be part of the accord. And suddenly there's at least $50 million worth of sea walls and revetments and water breakers that are in need of building in the Maldives alone.
But I think one thing where some of the analysis is incorrect is that somehow the Maldives kind of used money as a bargaining chip to sign on to the accord. That's not true. We had already signed on to the accord a month, months or weeks before any of these meetings took place.
AMY GOODMAN: And did the U.S.
PAUL ROBERTS: But as I
AMY GOODMAN: Did the U.S., Paul, deliver the money, the $50 million?
PAUL ROBERTS: Well, we never asked them for $50 million. If you look at the cable in detail, what it says is we have $50 million worth of adaptation that we need doing, and so, if anybody would like to help, that's great. And, you know, of course, one of the big things at Copenhagen was that there was supposed to be this transfer from the rich to the poor to help pay for these sorts of things. But no, Amy, no, they didn't deliver a cent. There's been no financing from the U.S. for any adaptation in the Maldives.
AMY GOODMAN: So what's going to happen now, Paul Roberts? You know, we go back to different attempted coups. In Venezuela, Chávez refused to sign a resignation letter, which seemed very important to the coup makers. He remained in office. President Aristide in Haiti was being pushed to sign a resignation letter by theone of the U.S. officials from the U.S. embassy before he was ousted the second time. He did sign, and he was ousted and could not return. What's going to happen now to your president, as we wrap up?
PAUL ROBERTS: Well, we're very concerned. We thinkyou know, the new regime have got thethey already hadthey always had the judiciary in their pocket. They've now stormed the state TV, so they havethey basically have most of the fourth estate in their pocket. They now have the executive in their pocket. And they'll probably be able to get the legislature in their pocket, as well. The only thing they don't have in their pocket is the fact that Nasheed is still extremely popular, then likely to win any new election. But this is where I think there's another insidious thing going on. I think they are trying to arrest him. They've said they're going to have 14 cases for his arrest. And I think what they will do is they'll try and charge him with anything, with something, so he'll have a criminal record, and that will prevent him standing in any future election.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we thank you very much for joining us, Paul Roberts, adviser to the Maldives. Can you say where you are?
PAUL ROBERTS: I'd rather not. There's been arrest warrants out for all of Nasheed's former aides.
AMY GOODMAN: As well as yourself?
PAUL ROBERTS: I believe so.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Roberts, speaking to us from an undisclosed location, an aide to the ousted president, Mohamed Nasheed, of the Maldives. Jon Shenk, thanks for being with us. His new documentary film, The Island President, has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Before we go, Jon, what will you do with this film now? It seems this is the point, more than ever, to get this information out.
JON SHENK: Yes, absolutely. You know, the film is being distributed in the U.S. by Samuel Goldwyn Films, and we're moving ahead with our release next month, and obviously trying to get the word out. I think that, you know, one remarkable thing about the film is that it really is an unprecedented look at a sitting head of state. To my knowledge, no other project has ever followed a head of state with such transparent access. So I think, just by the nature of watching the film, I think people will get a sense of who the real Nasheed is. It's kind of undeniable that he approaches his presidency, and pretty much everything he does, with just, you know, honesty and openness and a can-do attitude.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Shenk, director of The Island President. And Bill McKibben, thanks very much for being with us, founder of 350.org, among his books, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Magda Hassan - 10-02-2012
Keith Millea Wrote:That was quick and easy...........Yes, but clearly they had the 'wrong' kind of democracy there just like they did in Chile in the early 70's. Everyone knows that only the Americans can bring Democracy to a place that needs it and it comes via the military.
Published on Thursday, February 9, 2012 by Common Dreams
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Magda Hassan - 25-02-2012
The purpose of U.S. soft power themed revolutions: Disunity and power projection
By Wayne MadsenPosted on February 20, 2012 by Wayne Madsen
A U.S. "alphabet soup" agency-sponsored themed revolution in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean comprising twenty-six atolls, stands to plunge the nation, heretofore considered a tropical paradise for tourists, into the same kind of chaos and civil unrest now seen on the streets of Libya, Egypt, and Syria.
Maldives is smaller in comparison to the nations of the Middle East where the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), and George Soros's Open Society Institute (OSI) have sponsored themed revolutions that have all resulted in civil unrest and an entrance of extremist Wahhabi Salafists into political power. However, the small size of Maldives provides a much clearer picture of how the aforementioned Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored "soft power" aggressors managed to turn paradise into another center of unrest in the Muslim world.
In the case of the Maldives, the road to civil strife began in 2005 when USAID- and OSI-sponsored democracy" manipulation groups took root in the country upon the legalization of opposition political parties by the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Serving as president for thirty years, Gayoom was seen by the international human rights network of non-governmental organizations as a dictator ripe for removal. The Western-sponsored NGOs settled on Mohamed Nasheed, a Maldivian opposition leader who had lived in exile in Britainwith the support of the British governmentand Sri Lanka and who returned to Maldives in 2005, as their favorite candidate for president.
In preparation for the first direct presidential election for president in 2008, outside "democracy manipulators" descended on Maldives, a country that had become popular with the Soros network because of global climate change. Maldives, which is threatened by rising sea levels, became a cause célèbre for the carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade advocates.
Nasheed was the 2008 presidential candidate of the Maldivian Democratic Party against President Gayoom's Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party. In the first round of voting, Gayoom received a little over 40 percent of the vote to the 24 percent of Nasheed's and his vice presidential running mate, Mohammed Waheed Hassan. To defeat Gayoom in the second round, Nasheed, obviously with the encouragement of his foreign "democracy" advisers, sought and received the endorsement of four other opposition parties, including the Saudi- and United Arab Emirates-financed Salafist Adhaalath (Justice) Party. Adhaalath is an ideological partner of the Muslim Brotherhoods of Egypt and Syria. In the second round of the election, Nasheed, with the support of the other four opposition presidential candidates, defeated Gayoom 54 percent to 46 percent.
Nasheed was immediately embraced by the world's glitterati community of NGOs and celebrities, including carbon tax-and-trade advocate Bill McKibben of 350.0rg and the crowd who gathered at the Sundance Film Festival to view a sycophantic film about Nasheed, called The Island President. Nasheed was called the "Mandela of the Maldives" by those celebrities whose knowledge of Maldives did not extend beyond the nation's Wikipedia entry. In October 2009, Nasheed and his Cabinet pulled off a pre-Copenhagen climate change conference publicity stunt by holding the world's first underwater Cabinet meeting. Nasheed and eleven of his ministers, wearing scuba gear, convened the meeting twenty feet under the surface of the Indian Ocean. Nasheed was a huge hit among the celebrity contingent at the December 2009 Copenhagen summit.
Nasheed was selected by Time magazine at the top of their "Leaders & Visionaries" list of "Heroes of the Environment." The United Nations awarded Nasheed its "Champions of the Earth" award. Foreign Policy magazine, co-founded by the late Samuel Huntington, a chief ideologist for the neoconservative pabulum of a "Clash of Civilizations" between the West and Islam, named Nasheed as one of its top global thinkers.
Nasheed took on as his close adviser and communications assistant Paul Roberts, a British national. In what alienated his Salafist supporters, Nasheed also opened diplomatic relations with Israel, invited Israeli surgeons to Maldives amid fears they would begin harvesting human organs for Israeli clients, met with Israeli government officials, agreed to allow direct air links between Israel and Maldives, invited Israeli trainers into Maldives to advise Maldivian security forces, and failed to ensure that Maldives voted for Palestine's full admission to the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the organization's general assembly meeting in Paris on October 31, 2011. Maldives was absent from the vote.
Maldivian opposition parties, particularly the Salafist Adhaalath Party which left Nasheed's coalition, did not buy Nasheed's government's weak explanation about the Palestine vote. By the end of 2010, the four other political parties in Nasheed's Cabinet had left and Nasheed's government was accused by the opposition of lacking transparency. The trademark yellow neckties and shirts worn by Nasheed and his supporters and the yellow Maldivian Democratic Party flags waved by Nasheed's supporters were yet another indication that Nasheed's "revolution" was another "themed revolution" concocted by the Soros/NED network of NGOs and think tanks in Washington, London, and New York.
Just as other Soros/NED-installed regimes began to violate the constitutions of their respective nations, including Georgia and Ukraine, Nasheed was no different. On December 10, 2010, the Maldivian Supreme Court ruled that Nasheed's cabinet ministers could not serve without the approval of parliament. Nasheed responded by declaring the Maldivian courts were controlled by supporters of ex-president Gayoom and on January 16, 2012, Nasheed ordered the military to arrest Abdulla Mohammed, the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court.
Counter-protests were organized by Maldives opposition parties and were backed by the police. After the military clashed with the opposition protesters and police, several military members defected and joined the protesters.
Faced with the opposition and police/military uprising, Nasheed resigned the presidency on February 7. Later, Nasheed and his British adviser Roberts claimed that Nasheed was ousted in a coup d'état. The U.S. State Department demanded that Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who assumed the presidency and opposed the arrest order of the Chief Justice, form a government of national unity with Nasheed's supporters. Hassan refused and India, which, in the past, has intervened militarily in Maldives to put down attempted coups, remained silent. The Soros/NED global glitterati, including the Soros-funded "Democracy Now" program hosted by Amy Goodman and partly funded by Soros, featured Roberts on an interview in which Gayoom was described as a thug and who was trying to reassume power. Of course, the Soros propaganda program made no mention of Nasheed's repeated violations of the Maldivian constitution.
As with the destabilization of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, the first target for alleged Islamist radicals after the ouster of Nasheed was the destruction of priceless museum artifacts. Unknown men broke into the Chinese-built Maldives National Museum in Male, the capital, and smashed the delicate coral and limestone preIslamic Maldivian Buddhist statues on display.
The rise of Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood adherents in the new Maldivian government parallels what occurred in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia after their themed revolutions.
The Maldives were destabilized by the West at the same time that the Egyptian government charged 43 CIA-linked NGO personnel, including Americans, Britons, Serbs, and others working for IRI, NDI, and NED, with possessing a secret plan, including maps, to divide Egypt into an Israeli-dominated Sinai state, a Coptic state extending from Alexandria in the north to Asyut in the South, a Berber-dominated Islamic state based in Cairo, and a black African Nubian state in the south.
There now may be an attempt by the West to split up Maldives. In 1957, the British established the Gan airbase on the southernmost atoll of Addu and insisted on 100-year base rights on Seenu Atoll. After Maldives Prime Minister and President Ibrahim Nasir adopted a nationalist foreign policy, the British backed a secessionist movement in the southern atolls where the British bases were located that declared the short-lived United Suvadive Republic in 1959. After the collapse of the secessionist republic in 1965, the British bought the southernmost atoll in the Chagos-Laccadive chain of atolls from Mauritius and established the British Indian Ocean Territory. The inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago island of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to Mauritius and other Chagos islands and the United States established its strategic military base on the island of Diego Garcia. Maldives never recognized Mauritian claims over the Chagos atolls or the British Indian Ocean Territory. With neocon interference in Maldives now coming to fruition, secessionist movements in the southern atolls may, once again, gain ground to ensure unfettered U.S. and British control over Diego Garcia and expansion of U.S. and British military facilities to the Addu Atoll and, perhaps, further north in the Maldives chain.
This article originally appeared in Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal.
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Magda Hassan - 30-03-2012
Video here
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, ousted in a coup last month, joins us in studio along with Jon Shenk, director of "The Island President," a new documentary about Nasheed's rise to power and his climate activism. The tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives remains in a state of political turmoil seven weeks after Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president, was ousted in what he has described as a coup at gunpoint. He had become an internationally recognized leader on climate issues, urging the world to do more to save small island states from rising sea waters. Nasheed criticizes the Obama administration's quick recognition of the coup government, calling it "shocking and deeply disturbing." He also discusses his commitment to environmental activism, saying, "Climate change is a real issue, and it is happening now. It's not something in the future. ... We feel that we have to advocate, that we have to try and get the message across that there has to be better understanding and international agreement on reducing carbon emissions."
US Recognizes Maldives Government That Ousted Democratically Elected Nasheed - Peter Lemkin - 30-03-2012
JUAN GONZALEZ: The tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives remains in a state of political turmoil seven weeks after the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was ousted in what he has described as a coup at gunpoint.
In 2008, Mohamed Nasheed beat the longtime ruler of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the country's first free and open election. Prior to the vote, Nasheed was a longtime pro-democracy activist who was jailed for six years. At the time, he was described as the "Mandela of the Maldives." Nasheed now insists the February 7th coup was led by supporters of the former dictator.
The coup became news across the globe in part because Nasheed has become an internationally recognized leader on climate issues, as he urged the world to do more to save small island states from rising sea waters.
AMY GOODMAN: Ousted Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed once held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the Maldives. He also pledged to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country and installed solar panels on the roof of his presidential residence.
President Nasheed's rise to power and climate activism is the focus of a new documentary called The Island President. It's just opened at the Film Forum here in New York. This is an excerpt.
MOHAMED NASHEED: If we can't stop the seas rising, if you allow for a 2-degree rise in temperature, you are actually agreeing to kill us. I have an objective, which is to save the nation. I know it's a huge task. I've been arrested 12 times. I've been tortured twice. I spent 18 months in solitary.
We won our battle for democracy in the Maldives. A year later, there are those who tell us that solving climate change is impossible. Well, I am here to tell you that we refuse to give up hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Nasheed, the ousted president of the Maldives, joining us here in studio in New York. Also with us, Jon Shenk, the director of this new documentary called The Island President.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! President Nasheed, I last saw you at the U.N. summit on climate change. That is where you've become famous around the world. But talk about what happened, the date, the time, and what took place in your country, in the Maldives, that led youyour forced departure from the presidency.
MOHAMED NASHEED: Thank you very much, and good morning.
As you know, in 2008, we had our first multi-party elections. I was fortunate to be elected then, and we were able to beat President Gayoom, who has been in power for the last 30 years then. It'sone of the things that we are now coming to understand is it's easy to beat a dictator, but it's not so much easy to get rid of a dictatorship. The networks, the intricacies, the institutions, and everything that the dictatorship has established remains, even after the elections.
On the February 6thon the February 7th, ratheron the 6th, on the night of the 6th, I asked the military to restrain 200 riot police who were rebelling. These 200 riot police has beenthey were established in 2005, specifically to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations of the Maldivian Democratic Party at the time. When we came into government, we, in a sense, fired them, or rather, we stopped using them, and we had them scattered across the islands and in other islands, as well, because we had no use to use so much force. But unknowing to me, they werethe opposition, or rather, the dictatorship and the elements connected to it were talking to these people.
And on the 7th, they staged a rebellion. And they were sitting on thethey were sittingthey were protesting on the Republican Square. And I asked the military to restrain them. I asked them at 11:00 in the evening that day. By 5:00 in the morning the next day, the military wasthe military still hadn't done that. So I went to the military headquarters. And then, there, I found that sections of the military had also joined with the rebellion, and they were refusing to restrain the police. Then, around early that morning, about 9:00 in the morning, the generals started asking me to resign, and they told me that if I did not resign, they would resort to using arms. They would use arms on me, and they would also use arms on the people. Then, I had no choice, really, because sections of the military who were in the headquarters were with the rebellious police, and also I saw more than a hundred other soldiers coming from the other barracks in Malé and also another hundred soldiers coming from another barracks near Malé. And so, at the end of the day, it was about 500 soldiers and policemen against about a hundred or so soldiers who were loyal to the government and to the constitution.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And the reaction of theof others in your government, and the one who then assumed the presidency?
MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, the vice president assumed the presidency, but the vice president had been, we understand now, talking to them throughout the month before that, and they had these understandings that after my forced resignation, the vice president would take over, and then to seemingly make it look like a usual resignation and for him to take over.
But after I was forced to resign and after the announcement of my resignation, again, I was incommunicado for more than 24 hours. I was only able to get in touch with the British high commissioner roundabout evening that night. Then again, it was not me. It was my secretary. The British high commissioner rang my secretary and wanted to speak to me. I told my secretary that I'm surrounded by the police in myin the presidential residence. They were really sacking the residence and going through everyall of my personal belongings and so on. So I said, "I can't speak." That was the only telephone conversation or only message that I was able to bring to the outside. Otherwise, I hadI was there in the presidential residence.
But then, later that night, I still had some loyal soldiers who were there. So with their help, I was able to slip out from the president's residence and go to my family home. As soon as I went home, I almost fell, because I hadn't slept for two nights by then, by this time, and I'd been very, very abused and pushed around and bruised. So I slept that night. The next morning, I spoke to our party members, and we decided that we should go out on the streets and tell the people that this is not on, and here is a coup in every sense, and we would want towe would want reinstatement, and we would want investigations into the coup.
AMY GOODMAN: At this time, I wanted to play what the Obama administration was saying in the midst of this coup, with the coup in the Maldives. Within a day of your ouster, the State Department here in the United States defended the ouster and confirmed the new leadership had been in contact with the Obama administration. This is State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, who was questioned in February about the U.S. stance and diplomat Robert Blake's visit.
REPORTER: Are you going to withholdI mean, are you taking any position on the suggestions that it might have been a military coup? Are you going to investigate that? Is Blake going to check that out? Or do you think that that's not a sort of a reasonable suggestion here?
VICTORIA NULAND: Well, obviously, we are talking to all parties. That's why we're sending our folks down. But that is not the information that we have at the moment. But Assistant Secretary Blake will have a chance to be there and talk to everybody on Saturday. But in the interim, we are urging calm, we're urging dialogue, we're urging thePresident Waheed, as you know, has committed to forming a national unity government, and we think that will also be an important signal to political factions across the Maldives.
REPORTER: Does that mean that a determination on whether this was an unconstitutional change in power is going to wait until after Blake's visit?
VICTORIA NULAND: Well, our view, as of yesterdayand I don't think that that has changed; obviously we'll collect more information going forwardwas that this was handled constitutionally.
AMY GOODMAN: So that was Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, saying that the coup was constitutional already, talking about the new president, who was the Vice President Waheed. President Nasheed, what is your response?
MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, it was really shocking and deeply disturbing that the United States government so instantly recognized the former dictatorship coming back again. We were hoping that they would look into the facts and understand what was happening on the ground. And we would still hope that they look into it and urge the dictator, or urge Dr. Waheed, the former vice president, to resign and, therefore, to allow for fresh elections in the Maldives. We have to have democracy back on track in the Maldives. It's very young. It's a very young democracy. We only were able to have our first multi-party elections in 2008. And it was only three years down the line, and suddenly there was a very well-planned coup, and Dr. Waheed has been installed as a facade, and Gayoom is back. We were shocked that the United States acted so swiftly in recognizing the new regime.
Especially disturbing was, all throughout our last three years, we worked very closely with American ideals, with democracy. We wanted to have better relations with Israel. We wanted to have a more moderate Islamic country in the Maldives. And we've been fighting for all the civil liberties and all the human rights, fundamental rights of the people. And therefore, it's deeply, deeply disturbing that your government has not been able to understand what was happening in the Maldives.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, what's even more disturbing is that we've seen this script so many times now in recent years, whether it's in Haiti with President Aristide or in Honduras with Manuel Zelaya Salaya or with Chávez in Venezuela. The U.S. government seems always to jump in immediately, as the coup is occurring, to support the coup plotters rather than the legally elected officials. And so, on the one hand, I understand your shock, but on the other hand, it's amazing how it keeps happening, and no one seems to say anything about it here in this country. But I'd like to ask Jon Shenkyou had unparalleled access to President Nasheed's administration, in terms of being able to chronicle or document what it is that he was trying to do. And if you could talk about the film and how you managed to get that access?
JON SHENK: Yeah, well, The Island President, as far as I know, is just ais a unique documentary. It's really the first-ever documentary that gets a kind of no-holds-barred access to a sitting head of state. And, you know, now, sitting, you know, weeks after this coup occurred in the Maldives, I have to think back ofyou know, on the film as really an example and proof of President Nasheed's penchant and desire to have transparency in government. And, you know, the Maldives had a dictatorship for 30 years, and the type of press that would come out of that dictatorship was highly controlled by a state-run television. You know, that was the only station in the country with programming that was, you know, sort of only blessed by the president himself. And then, as soon as Nasheed stepped into office, there's instantly several independent television stations. The state-run media was privatized and made independent. And, you know, this film is really just an example of what can happen when there truly is a commitment to transparency. And the camera went to places that, you know, cameras have not gone before, not only to his strategy meetings and behind-the-scenes sessions, but also to bilateral meetings in the international climate debate, which is just, you know, fascinating and highly dramatic.
AMY GOODMAN: The film is playingplayed at the Film Forum last night, going national around the country. Is it there this weekend at the Film Forum?
JON SHENK: Yeah, it started at the Film Forum last night. We had sold-out crowds. And it's opening in San Francisco tomorrow and L.A. next week, Washington, D.C., etc.
AMY GOODMAN: President Nasheed, in this part of the conversation, we're going to continue it and post it online at democracynow.org. Your final comments about the importance of climate change and why you think it is that you were ousted?
MOHAMED NASHEED: Climate change is a real issue, and it is happening now. It's not something in the future. If youfrom Jon's film, you would be able to see how precarious and how vulnerable the Maldives is. Any imbalance to nature will have very, very huge impacts on the low-lying Maldive islandsand not just simply the Maldive islands, but also all coastal regions around the world. I think about a third of the population of the world lives on coastal areas. And they will be seriously challenged if we are unable to do something about climate change in the next few years. We feel that we have to advocate, that we have to try and get the message across that there has to be better understanding and international agreement on reducing carbon emission.