POLITICS-MALDIVES: Riots May Hamper Opening Up of Island Nation

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Sep 25 2003 (IPS) - The unprecedented rioting over the weekend in the Maldives, triggered by custodial deaths there, may only serve to hamper the opening up of the remote Indian Ocean island republic, which has acquired an unsavoury reputation for repression, say regional experts. This reputation is linked to the 25-year long stint of unbroken and absolute power by Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the archipelago of 300,000 people.

”I would be really surprised if Gayoom opens up now,” Prof S D Muni at the School of International Studies told IPS.

Gayoom, who is already Asia’s longest-serving elected leader, is favoured to win unopposed a sixth term in power and get another five years as president in forthcoming elections. Nominations for the poll were announced Wednesday. The riots in the capital Male followed the deaths in custody of two prisoners at the notorious prison on Maafushi island and injuries to at least 20 other prisoners as prison guards opened fire on them. They have marred Gayoom’s smooth passage to a sixth term in office.

The fact that Gayoom found it necessary to order the suspension of five members of the National Security Service (NSS), which acts like police, army and praetorian guard rolled into one, would indicate that the ageing leader has been unnerved by the rioting in Male and the uprising at the Maafushi prison. Said a Maldivian student in the Indian capital who declined to be named for fear of reprisals on his family: ”The NSS is best compared to the Tonton Macoute (that once propped up a repressive regime in Haiti) for its extremely brutal methods of hounding out dissidents and torturing them.” ”I don’t even want to think of what is going to happen to those brave people who have been rounded up for the riotsà I find it chilling that the President has announced punishment for those who damaged government buildings, including the Election Commission,” the student said. According to un-bylined reports appearing on the website Maldives Culture, which is based in Australia, Saturday’s rioting in Male began after a large crowd of several thousand people prevented the hasty burial of a dead prisoner Hassan Eemaan Naseem, whose body was brought in by the NSS from Maafushi. The unrest fuelled further trouble in Maafushi, where prison guards used assault rifles to quell rioting prisoners, seriously injuring several of them and killing at least one of them. Websites were quick to pick up and display photographs of Abdulla Amin, who died of gunshot injuries and whose burial on Sunday attracted large crowds of Male’s residents.

In an emergency speech in the native Dhivehi language to appeal for calm, broadcast on Saturday night, Gayoom referred to Hassan Eeman Naseem’s death in custody at Maafushi prison but took care not to link the riots in Male with events at the prison.

But Gayoom also threatened punishment for those who had taken part in the riots and vented their ire on the Election Commission building, a couple of police stations and vehicles belonging to the NSS. The web newsletter ‘Maldives Culture’ charged the president with refusing to ”act against widespread police brutality, ignoring letters that Maldivians have written to him about torture and unjust imprisonment” while his government has ”condemned Amnesty International reports as lies”. Amnesty, in a comprehensive report released on Jul. 30, spoke of dozens of politicians and journalists who have been arbitrarily detained and convicted over the last decade as part of policy that it says denies the right of freedom of conscience and expression. ”Intellectuals have continued to be subjected to severe retaliatory measures on suspicion of opposing or for expressing views considered to be critical of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom,” the Amnesty report said. The report called for the release from prison of journalists Mohammed Zaki, Ibrahim Moosa Luthfee, and Ahmed Ibrahim Didi who were sentenced to life imprisonment in July last year for writing for the Internet magazine ‘Sandhaanu’ considered to be ‘insulting’ to Gayoom. A woman journalist, Fathimath Nisreen, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing ‘false information’ in the Sandhaanu and assisting – forwarding by e-mail articles in the ‘Sandaanu’ – the others who were convicted. Amnesty noted that none of them were allowed the services of a lawyer. The situation was such that anyway lawyers were reluctant to provide legal assistance to prisoners for fear of being implicated in an alleged crime, it added.

The only prisoner of conscience who has ever been allowed to appeal in the High Court or have access to a lawyer in the last 10 years is Mohammed Nasheed, writer, politician and member of Parliament who has been advocating reforms. But even Nasheed was not allowed to have the lawyer represent him in court on an obviously trumped up charge of petty theft, for which he was arrested in November 2001 and finally released in August 2002. He continues to be denied his parliamentary seat. Given the chilling accounts of arbitrary detentions and maltreatment in prison outlined by Amnesty, the fears expressed by Maldivian students here for the victims of mass arrests ordered by Gayoom after the riots seemed justified. According to reports appearing in ‘Maldives Culture’ on Tuesday, among at least 100 people arrested in Male were Jennifer Latheef, a popular film actress and Ilyas Hussain, a senior civil servant who signed a petition asking to register a political party in 2002. Muni said the Gayoom government beefed up the NSS after an attempt was made to oust him in a coup led by two Colombo-based Maldivian businessmen, who had the support of 80 mercenaries belonging to the Sri Lankan Tamil militant organisation People’s Organisation of Tamil Eeelam (PLOTE). The takeover bid, attributed to clan feuds, was foiled after Gayoom requested help from India, which promptly obliged by flying in a task force of 1,600 commandos backed by the navy. Since then, New Delhi has enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Gayoom government and scrupulously refrained from commenting on what it considers the internal affairs of a friendly neighbouring country. (END/IPS/AP/IP/HD/RDR/JS/03)