Nasheed has to realize that there is a fine line between being humble and being stupid!

A senior police official recently told me that he supports the new president’s humbleness and the changes president Nasheed is bringing to the country. But this officer said that president Nasheed shouldn’t dispose of all the protocols!

Let’s take the case of the Number One Jetty that’s exclusively used for the state’s official purposes. Since the change of the government we have seen tourist and local vessels using the Number 1 Jetty to offload passengers. Once I saw a fisherman dragging a container full of tuna fish on Jetty 1. This jetty is a prominent landmark of Male and it would be better to preserve its image rather than open it for all sorts of uses including offloading tuna fish!

Similarly it’s ok for the president to sometimes walk instead of using the official BMW car every time. But it’s bad protocol to let the vice president or any other official to use the BMW car reserved exclusively for the president.

A friend of mine recently saw a popular character (Feyrey) coming out of the President’s Office. This friend of mine asked Feyrey what he was doing. It seems Feyrey replied that he can meet the president anytime he wants! It is good to have a humble president who has an open-door policy towards the public. But some protocols simply cannot be thrown out of the window. One should make an appointment if one wants to meet the president. You just can’t have people walk in to the office and demanding to meet the president as they wish.

It would be nice if we can have an appointment the same day we request but nevertheless we should first have to ask for an appointment before we get to meet the president. It is the responsibility of any president to preserve and hold simple protocols like this.

When president Nasheed visited Fua Mulah earlier this month, and when his delegation was leaving the island, the president had to board the official boat and wait for 20 odd minutes before the rest of the delegation came on board. This isn’t the right protocol. Everyone has to promptly board the boat before the president does. The president shouldn’t be made to patiently wait for others to come at their leisurely time!

Nasheed has to realize that there is a fine line between being humble and being stupid! He just can’t throw out all protocol and in the process trample the dignity of the presidential position just to appear humble. Many of us will welcome the humbleness of the new president but some of us have reservations about the way that the president is going overboard in trying to appear humble.

Buruma Gasim's Mudhalu Zakath and some other random thoughts…..

1. Ex-president (Maumoon Gayyoom) still holds presidential ambitions.

2. Gayyoom also has ambitions for his elder daughter (Dhunya) to one day be president (or at least vice president) of the country.

3. Gayyoom also hopes that he gets the prestigious opportunity to be head of the Commonwealth or hold a senior UN job in the near future.

4. Yamin is still delusional as to believe that the majority of the Maldivians support him and look upon him to be a great leader. (Hence Yamin continues to have presidential ambitions).

5. (Buruma) Gasim too is delusional as to believe that Maldivians will be paupers and orphans if they don’t get his help for medical and educational bills. What many probably don’t realize is that Gasim doesn’t give Mudhalu Zakath to the state – he rather spends that money for medical aid and educational aid to those who seek his help. Mudhalu Zakath is something binding on us. Not something that we give out of our generosity. Hence, since Gasim doesn’t give Mudhalu Zakath directly we can assume that whatever aid he gives to the poor is not something that can be interpreted as his generosity but rather as something that is binding on him. No one should seek popularity for doing something that he is bound to do!

6. Buruma has led Adhaalath party to believe that if he becomes president he would give a free hand to Adhaalath party to reform religious teachings in the country. It would be perhaps folly for Adhaalath party to run after this mirage, hoping that one day Buruma can make Adhaalath party the de facto leaders of the country. It would be perhaps more pragmatic for Adhaalath to grasp what they have right now and continue to work with the current government as they are quite successfully doing now.

7. Of course people such as Umar Naseer, Ibra and (Kutti) Nasheed have presidential ambitions but the top six of Maldivian-presidential-ambitious list are (1) Dr. Hassan Saeed, (2) Gasim, (3) Yamin, (4) Gayyoom, (5) Dr. Waheed, (6) Mohamed Nasheed (Anni). Of the above six, the top four would wish that the current government fails so that they could realize their ambitions sooner.

8. President Nasheed is still scared of Gayyoom and some of his cronies. Nasheed also seems to be scared of some officers within the police and the MNDF. He seems to be waiting to become his own man only after the parliamentary elections in February.

Thanks for removing the MNDF-Bodyguards provided to ex-dictator Gayyoom!

Thanks to President Nasheed for finally coming to his senses! Many Maldivians have noted that the constitution does not allow the government to give security (Bodyguards) to ex-dictator Gayyoom. A bill is currently being debated at the Majlis regarding what services the state has to provide to ex-presidents. Until this bill becomes law, the government cannot legally provide any facilities from the state to ex-president Gayyoom. It is this legality of the action that we have been questioning, not whether any facilities should be provided to Gayyoom.

Now that this MNDF-security has been officially removed, Gayyoom may not even return to the country until the pending bill is passed. I support the provision of some facilities and a pension and some sort of security to all ex-presidents (including Gayyoom). But such services should not go overboard as in the case of the bill submitted by Gayyoom-loyalist-Aneesa.

If (as Gayyoom says) he hasn’t done any harm to the Maldivian people and if (as he says) he hasn’t taken any money from the treasury through bribes or corruption, then he has nothing to fear from the ordinary people. He does not need bodyguards if that is the case. The facts that he still wants to hide behind s security fence shows that he has something to hide!

Once again I welcome the removal of the security services to the ex-dictator and I also welcome the protest that was held against the previous regime a few days ago. We have to make the ex-regime answerable to whatever crimes they may have done. Thousands of people (including senior MPs such as Reeko Moosa and senior government officials such as the State Minister for Home Affairs, Shafeeq) have in the past accuses Gayyoom and his government of crimes against humanity and corruption running into millions of dollars. The least that the government could do is to see if there is any truth to those accusations before we close this 30-year-long-chapter in the life of this nation.

I call upon Reeko Moosa to fulfill his election-promise and dig the skeletons of people from the jail that he accused Gayyoom of murdering. I call upon Special Envoy of the President Ibrahim Hussain Zaki to fulfill his election-promise and bring back the usd 80 million that he accused Gayyoom of plundering from our treasury. I also ask MDP to show us the proof that Gayyoom’s regime covered up the murder of Hussain Solah and Evan Naseem in police custody. Until these cases are properly investigated, we cannot lay the ghosts of a brutal dictatorship to rest.

But the recent protests calling for justice to all, and the removal of the illegal security provided to Gayyoom shows that the government is finally coming to its senses!

Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs!

Many of my friends ask often ask me what I think of the new government. They accuse President Nasheed of giving senior positions to questionable characters such as Kerafa Naseem. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.

When we ask this question there’s one very important point that we fail to consider. The new government is barely 30 days old. During those 30 days the new government has gone forward in leaps and bounds, but perhaps because of the speed of the changes, or perhaps due to some distractions such as appointing questionable characters to some posts, some of us fail to grasp the enormity of the changes coming to us.

Look at the efforts to decentralize governance. This is something that we have been asking for, but now that it is within our grasp, some of us are being fooled by DRP-sympathizers that this decentralisation is against the constitution and that it will not help our development. First of fall (as far as I understand) no decentralisation work will be done without consulting the Majlis. Some Gayyoom-sympathizers think that the constitution is open for interpretation according to their fancy and their needs.

I agree that some of the appointments to senior positions such as State Ministers are questionable appointments; but I believe that the general momentum and intensions of the new government are excellent. Does anyone realize that the new government has saved nearly 500 million Rufiyaa from the proposed budget for 2009, just on three items (i.e. Presidential Palace, Aarah and President’s Office). If Gayyoom was here, despite the hard financial times, we would have had to bear the responsibility of housing him in Theemuge and spending millions on Aarah and spending many more millions of the President’s Office. Put the corruption of his cronies and the deteriorating drugs crisis on top of that and this country would have been doomed if Gayyoom won the election.

Now that we have rid ourselves of the guy, we are perhaps condemning the new government for relatively minor things. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.

Of course we need to comprehensively and effectively address the issue of gang violence. Only a few days ago a young man was slaughtered in broad daylight in Male’. The police haven’t established the motive for the murder, nor caught any suspects but many believe that most of these gang fights and murders are related to drugs and perhaps even prostitution. The new government needs also address the issue of releasing all political prisoners and putting all drug-related criminals into rehab instead of keeping them in jail.

The shortage of dollars in the market also needs to be addressed. Many analysts argue that the government should legislate that all bed-tax and red-rent needs to be paid by the resorts to the government, in us dollars instead of Rufiyaa. They argue that resort operators should also be asked to keep their revenue in local banks for at least 30 days before they could export the foreign currency to a foreign bank. Such steps could solve our drugs crisis and also help our banks and the overall business environment.

My answer to my friends and any other doubters is: give the new government a chance. I’m not saying that we should stop criticizing and start over-praising. But it has to be constructive criticism. This government will be thousand times better than the parasitic regime of Gayyoom. Let’s criticize the government but let’s also be realistic. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.

Let’s have more protests against Gayyoom and his cronies!

“We want justice, not revenge,” was the theme as a relatively small but sizeable crowd gathered at the Artificial Beach Friday afternoon to call the government of Mohamed Nasheed to bring former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom to justice.

It was a peaceful protest of about 200 people. Most were holding placards calling for Gayyoom and his cronies to be brought to justice for the crimes that - the protesters allege - were committed during Gayyoom’s three-decade-long rule. Protesters expressed their dissatisfaction of President Nasheed for his decision to treat the former leader with “dignity and respect”! Referring to the President's statement to exercise calm and humility in time of victory, they were chanting that they have waited enough in humility and that they cannot do so any longer.

Some of the striking statements in the placards held by the protesters - or some of their demands - are summarized below:

1. Reopen the case where Hussain Solah was “murdered” in police custody.

2. Make public the entire report compiled by a committee regarding Evan Naseem’s murder in police custody (in Maafushi Jail).

3. Bring Gayyoom (as head of police at the time) and Adam Zahir (Commissioner of Police at the time) to court regarding the murder of Hussain Solah and Evan Naseem in police custody.

4. Investigate the alleged corruption at the President’s Office during Gayyoom’s rule (which is highlighted in the Auditor General’s report).

5. Investigate the case highlighted by the Auditor General in the audit of the Maldives Customs, wherein the Gayyoom’s running mate and former minister (under Gayyoom), Tasmeen Ali, allegedly evaded paying the import duty of two luxury speed boats.

6. Sack the deputy commissioner of police, Abdullah Riyaz (whom the protesters accused was a crony of Adam Zahir and Gayyoom).

7. Open court cases against Gayyoom, Adam Zahir, Hameed, Isthafa Ibrahim Manik, Anbaree, Ilyas, etc.

8. Open a court case against Anbaree Abdul Sattar (former Minister of State for Defense) for his alleged involvement in the Air Maldives scandal (and possible corruption).

9. Investigate the issue of the usd 80 million which the current Special Envoy to the President (Ibrahim Hussain Zaki) accused Gayyoom of taking from the state treasury.

Most of the protesters were saying that no special treatment should be given by the state to a “murderer and ex-dictator”! The message (I think) is that many Maldivians who detest Gayyoom aren’t actually looking for revenge, but rather they are looking for justice. One placard held by a protester at the gathering summarized this thought: “We want justice, not revenge!”

I believe that it’s the least that the Maldivian people deserve. The government of President Nasheed should respect the views of the people. Though there were just about 200 people at yesterday’s protest, one could expect that more people may attend such gatherings in the future and that the vocal protests calling to bring dictator Gayyoom to justice could gather more pace in the coming days. If the government disregards these protesters that would be seen as a slap in the face of many thousands of people who directly suffered Gayyoom’s brutality and a blatant disregard for a nation who suffered for there decades under the iron fist of Gayyoom and his family and cronies.

I support Friday’s protest and call for more such protests when Gayyoom returns from Hong Kong where he is supposes to be attending some conference organized by the Clinton Global Initiative. The theme of any protests against Gayyoom should be that we are not asking for or seeking revenge, but rather, we are looking for and seeking justice. As I said before, that is the least that the Maldivian people deserve. It is the responsibility of Nasheed’s government to grant the wishes of the majority! There will not be any healing as long as the ghosts of these injustices and brutality roam our streets. Let us lay these ghosts to rest once and for all.

How about Mr. Waheeduddeen as the new Home Minister?

1. Some say that Dr. Hassan Saeed could be appointed as the new Home Minister, after the resignation of Gasim Ibrahim. The justification used by such people is that Dr. Saeed holds a doctorate in Law and he has plenty of experience as an Attorney General in the previous government. But there are those who would be opposed to the idea on the basis that Dr. Saeed served as a Minister in Gayyoom’s regime. But the current Special Envoy of the President, Zaki, was also a Minister under Gayyoom. Dr. Saeed is an important member of the ruling coalition and he now holds the position of Advisor to the President.

2. Even if Dr. Saeed were offered this post, I do not think that he will accept it. There are many reasons why he may shy away from such an appointment. Firstly, as Gasim would testify, being Home Minister during this period would not be easy. It could even be political suicide for someone like Dr. Saeed who still holds presidential ambitions. Besides, he seems to be busy formalizing the registration of his own political party and also campaigning for the parliamentary elections coming up in February.
3. Whoever is appointed as the new Home Minister, that person needs to be mature in age and thinking, and also experienced enough to handle the pressures of the job.

4. It was observed by a few analysts that one reason why Gasim was disillusioned with the government was because he was put out of the loop even in matters that concerned his ministerial jurisdiction. For example Gasim does not seem to be involved in the political efforts for the decentralisation of power to the atolls. President didn’t take the Home Minister with him during the recent tours to Addu Atoll and Fua Mulah – and some say that Gasim wasn’t even consulted before the tour. Attending to affairs of the atolls without involving the atolls minister or meeting foreign dignitaries without involving the foreign minister are the sort of amateurish things that the new government should avoid in the future. The country or the government is not there to be run by just the president and the Special Envoy and the Cabinet Secretary and the Policy Secretary.

5. Though it hasn’t been formally announced, my feeling is that Ibra’s Liberal Party and Gasim’s Jumhooree Party are now disillusioned with the government. Gasim’s party would have now left the coalition if Adhaalth wasn’t in the Jumhooree Alliance. Ibra recently spoke at a public gathering against some policies of the government. Gasim’ cited some irreconcilable differences with the government as the reason for his resignation from the cabinet. These problems may not lead to the collapse of the government but with a parliamentary election coming up in February, MDP and the ruling coalition should know that things could get worse for them if they continue to disregard the current cracks in the coalition.

6. I think it is time that an experienced, mature and well-respected figure is appointed as the new Home Minister. How about Mr. Waheeduddeen of Bandos? (the former Atolls Minister). Being a philanthropist who loves the country, and who has experience as an Atolls Minister, Mr. Deen could be an ideal choice for the job. His role in formulating the decentralisation law also makes him able to handle one of the most important policies of the Home Minsitry at the moment!

I also think that Gasim and the Jumhooree Alliance should be appeased and (if Gasim is willing) Gasim should be given some other position in the government – perhaps as an Advisor to the President. And I would repeat again that it is time that an experienced, mature and well-respected figure is appointed as the new Home Minister. Deen as Home Minsiter? Why not!

Some conspiracy theories and points to ponder about the Reethirah-Fiasco!

Listening to the press briefing given by Home Minister Gasim, to explain his reasons for sending riot police to control the protest by the staff of Reethirah, I noticed the following points:

1. Gasim mentioned the Reethirah-Resort’s owner - Moho’s - name more than seven times in the press briefing! It was obvious that Gasim’s arm was either twisted by Moho or that Moho’s instructions were more important for Gasim than that of the President!!! Why else would Gasim send riot police to remove 10 staff that Moho says were sacked by the resort? He could have sent normal police personnel instead of sending riot police with pepper spray and shields.

2. Asked whether he consulted President Nasheed (who was touring Addu Atoll at the time) before he sent the riot police to the resort, Gasim said that he saw no reason why he had to consult the president on the matter. Some people argue that Gasim could be collaborating with the ex-regime of Gayyoom (and DRP) to discredit the current government of Nasheed. It is because of such collaboration, they argue, that Gasim took the “calculated” decision to send riot police to breakup a legitimate protest by a union of workers.

3. Gasim was also at a loss to explain why the Commissioner of Police (Faseeh) wasn’t present at the press briefing. It has to be noted that the current Police Commissioner (Faseeh) was a loyal supporter of Gayyoom before the change of government and that Faseeh hasn’t done or said anything that would suggest otherwise even after the change of government. So, one could assume that he could still be a Gayyoom supporter. Hence Faseeh could very well make a decision to send riot police to the resort even though any sane person cannot understand why riot police with pepper spray and shields should go to a resort to remove some staff that were protesting to get their rights under the law.

4. The resort management said that ten of those staff was sacked, and Gasim said that he was asked by Moho to remove the sacked staff from the resort. Why the rush from Gasim to grant Moho’s wish without thinking rationally or without consulting the president?

5. It has to be noted that Gasim’s relative (Abdullah Riyaz) is also a high-ranking officer at the Police. One wonders how much he was involved in the decision to send the riot police and to use force to charge, arrest and handcuff some of the protesters.

5. A proper investigation needs to be done to ascertain why the Home Minister didn’t consult the president and to ascertain what role Faseeh and Riyaz played in this.

6. It is obvious to everyone that Gasim has presidential ambitions. He could stand to achieve that ambition if the current government fails. Also, the parliamentary elections are coming up in February and any stains on president Nasheed’s government would reflect badly for MDP in the parliamentary election. Gasim’s Jumhooree Party could stand to gain from such a change of mind from the electorate.

7. If president Nasheed ignores this as a minor hiccup without getting to the bottom of this, then a bigger fiasco could unfold in the future and it may be too late to see what roles Gasim, Faseeh and Riyaz would have played in this current problem. The time is now to get to the bottom of this conundrum.