Foundations that are not allowed to be built upon are worse than none :: Maldives News :: Dhivehi Observer

Nashid Column

Foundations that are not allowed to be built upon are worse than none

by Dr. Ibrahim Nashid - ibrahimnash@gmail.com, G. Keneree Ge, Male', 27 November 2005

According to President Gayoom the political arena in the Maldives has never been so free and open as it is today. The prisoner who is taken to Maafushi in a Dhoni on a heavy sea with his hands cuffed behind his back may feel some kind of freedom when his request to have only one hand cuffed with the accompanying prison guard is granted. The detainee who is held in a solitary confinement cell measuring six feet by six feet may feel relatively free when he is allowed to leave the cell for thirty minutes a day. But freedom of this kind is not much use because in effect it strengthens the authority's power over the people rather than giving any substantial freedom to them. On paper we may have more freedom now than before, but in practice nothing has changed. Gayoom claims that strong foundations have been laid to build institutions to protect the human rights of the citizens of the Maldives. The only institution of note that he has formed is the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives. The main reason for this was the riots in Male' in 2003 rather than any goodwill on the part of Gayoom. Since the day the commission was formed, he has tried every trick in the book to make this commission meaningless.

In 2004 when the commission visited the people detained following the disturbances of August that year, some of the detainees said they were beaten by the police. According to the last annual report of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives, when the commission wrote to the President's Office requesting an investigation into these allegations, it was told it was the job of the commission to investigate such claims and to advise the government on the action to be taken. However, when the commission announced an independent public inquiry to investigate the allegations, the president moved in very quickly to stop the inquiry claiming that there are no regulations in the Maldives to conduct a public inquiry and no body should conduct such an inquiry before the relevant laws were passed by the parliament. Needless to say, we are still waiting for the relevant laws to be passed.

Having a human rights commission that is toyed with in this manner is more damaging than not having none at all. This sort of action sends the signal to the torturers that they can act with impunity, which results in them becoming bolder in their actions. In times before the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives the torturers acted with some kind of fear of being found out, but now that fear has been completely removed. Gayoom's Human Rights Commission of the Maldives is nothing but window dressing for the international community and not there to protect the human rights of the Maldivians, as he claims.

Unfortunately for the Maldivians, Gayoom's ‘reforms' have always been targeted at the international public and not for the benefit of the Maldivians. The constant repetition of “Gayoom's sweeping reforms” like a mantra by the foreign minister in various cities of the world makes this quite clear. Perhaps the minister is hoping that if something is repeated long and often enough, those who hear it would eventually believe it. To try and convince the non-believers the foreign minister, it seems knows only one trick. Every time Gayoom has to face a more skeptical public abroad, the minister comes up with the idea of signing yet another international political or human rights convention. Either the minister is planning Gayoom's downfall himself or he is grossly unaware of the obligations of these conventions. Sooner or later the government will have to implement the requirements of the conventions they have signed. The legal changes that are required by being party to the Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol are yet to be implemented. The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives Act does not conform to the Paris Principles of National Human Rights Organisation and the commission is therefore excluded from most international human rights umbrella organistions. The judicial reforms suggested by Professor Paul Robinson are yet to be debated. The procedure of requesting the Attorney General, who happens to be a cabinet member, to take legal action against one of his government's torturers does not conform to modern standards. The victims of torture should have the right to take independent legal action against the state.

Before we can believe in Gayoom's honesty we need to see concrete changes rather than superficial ones like commissions created by presidential decree. The government should set a timetable detailing when and what changes would be made and stick to it before asking for the people's trust.

After more than two decades of deceit, the government has to make good on the promise of reform in order to get the ear of an increasingly skeptical public.

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