:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

Time to save the Dhivehi people

By a Friend of the Dhivehi People, 29th Sept. 2004

Dictators love darkness. They want to hide prisoners and do things under the cover of darkness. What President Gayyoom is showing us with all the machine guns and the NSS is that he is ready to shoot his own people and destroy his own country. What kind of human being is he? He doesn’t have a heart. He is ready to kill Dhivehi people to keep his fancy way of life.

He is using NSS like a personal attack dog. Instead of calling it the NSS, we should call it GSS, Gayyoom’s Secret Service. Let’s quit looking at the uniforms and see the faces of people who have mothers and brothers and sisters and friends. There are hundreds of young people who have to work there because of the lack of jobs and when they graduate they kick them into the NSS whether they want to or not. Everyone of you is just like us, you all have a heart and feelings and you must not shoot your own blood relatives. Young NSS recruits put down your weapons and refuse to fight Dhivehi people. When President Gayyoom leaves the country he won’t be inviting you to come with him. Your home is here. And the talk of more Hulhumale’ flats is just one more attempt to bribe us. We’ll do better without him stealing millions.

Lie after lie to whole world. He should respect the Dhivehi people. How and when is all of this going to END!

Three weeks ago my friend found out he has lung problems and he went to India to check with the doctors there. He found out he has lung cancer. He needed immediate surgery. But he didn’t have enough money, so he came back to Male’ to find some money, asking for bank loans and help from the government. Well, he got a little bit from the government, less than 10% of what he needed. And it couldn’t even cover the airfare. What irony! The person we all know would help him, he himself is arrested and locked up by the President.

Dictators fall, sooner or later. It is easy in hindsight to identify the moment when the fall began, the moment when it was clear that this is the beginning of the end. Indeed, these moments become the fateful events that every new political movement ties together to weave their story.

The Maldives has a number of such stories. Governments in the Maldives have historically been individuals, and individuals tend to get changed violently. Until recently, there were very few murders in the Maldives, the only murders in living history being the removal of dictators. Any powerful individual not backed by popular will must be concerned that his garudiya will be poisoned, or that his enclave will be stormed, or that his country will be completely reclaimed while he is away.

Other dictators in other countries (the Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia) were able to leave before being violently overthrown. One hopes for this solution. In each case, there was one act that was irrevocable. One could not simply go back to “business as usual” after such an act.

The heavy-handed treatment of the islands: one could overlook that. The lack of development everywhere but Male’: one could overlook that. The poverty of people trying to live in Male’: one could overlook that. Even torture in the prisons, one could say the same happens in the U.S., in Iraq, in South Africa. But murder in the prison? And then imprisoning the grieving mother? One cannot overlook that. Arresting government representatives? One knows that is the beginning of the end. And arresting the greatest friend of Maldivians, Mr. Qasim, and torturing him, and watching him suffer: that one cannot overlook.

The outside observer sees that after such acts, there is no going back. There is no going back to business as usual. The only question is, how will this end? The longer the conclusion takes, the more suffering the Dhivehi people will have to endure.

This is a difficult time for all of us, for Dhivehi people, for Dhivehi blood, may Allah bring peace and justice to the land. Allah will answer all our prayer. Ameen.