No Pleasure Cruise: The Long and Winding Road from Cairo to Copenhagen

Diplomacy is about saving nations; not drowning them



Some of my cabinet colleagues weren’t sure that the Maldives should participate at the Summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt from 15-16 July. But they deferred to my opinion and allowed me to travel to Egypt. Having debriefed some of them on my visit to Sharm El-Sheikh just a fortnight earlier for a conference on renewable energy, I knew, and they knew, that it would not be a pleasure cruise.

On that particular visit, an Australian delegate and I had to race around Cairo Airport (I usually travel without an entourage), from the chaotic domestic terminal to the congested international terminal and plead with airline staff to get us on the connecting flight to which we reported with 57 minutes to go, just 3 minutes after they closed the check-in counter.

The other delegate from the conference, who spoke in an accent that was all so familiar to me, pressed on saying that it was imperative that she made the connection out of Dubai as well. I chimed in, as if a chorus would move the staff into swifter action.

The ground staff spoke to each other in a language that I did not understand, and minutes that seemed like an eternity, passed.



I did not relish the idea of having to stay behind in Cairo and come back to the airport another day. A million thoughts flashed across my mind—and I instantly blurted out to the fellow delegate if she read P. J. O’Rourke. “Yeah, Holidays in Hell,” she replied. “So you remember the bit about Cairo then?” By the time we finished relating our apprehensions to P.J. O’Rourke, and found out that we had attended the same university in Brisbane, the airline staff said that we could be checked-in!

The good news did not distract her from O’Rourke as she instantly ran carrying her Waltzing Matilda through the Immigration lines with an airline escort and proceeded to the boarding gate. I did not bandwagon or follow. Like Forrest Gump, I decided to line-up behind the nearest immigration queue.

And I ran into Murphy’s law! This turned out to be slowest line. Minutes passed. I learned that a line-up is not necessarily a queue, and a queue is not necessarily linear! While I waited, and sweated, and thought myself a Gump, I typed an sms to my Chief of Protocol, who was somewhere in Male, saying: “Lessons from near misses: 90 minutes are not enough to catch a connection in Cairo!” Then I deleted the sms when I realised that I wasn’t gonna make it in time to the boarding gate! I thought of the quarrel Maria Didi and I had on BBC a while ago over Egypt and related matters. But I turned my attention to using all my powers of persuasion to let the guys ahead of me let me pass ahead of them.

And thank God, they did! And so I made it! (And dismissed all recollections of the BBC interview!)

So when, a few days later, the Finance Ministry says that I shouldn’t go to Sharm El-Sheikh, I didn’t need any persuasion.

And I am a NAM sceptic and have been for a long time. I advised Gayoom not to go Havana in 2006, but he wouldn’t miss out on the chance to revisit Havana after 28 years! But President Nasheed heeded my advice and decided not to attend the NAM in Egypt.

But it would have been wrong for the Maldives to be totally absent from the NAM Summit. After all, even the Americans were attending the Summit—under the new Obama dispensation! And with over hundred delegations present, it would be an economically efficient way of carrying out numerous bilateral business meetings. So, P. J. O’Rourke or not, I ended up in Sharm El-Sheikh again.

The NAM meeting in Egypt has only reinforced my NAM scepticism. The Final Report comes to several hundred pages, and as I leafed through it, I was utterly dismayed by a number of equivocations. Terrorism is bad, no doubt. But NAM, in my view, can still not say, categorically, that it is wrong to kill non-combatants, or blow up women and children. NAM still does not believe that human rights are universal – it seems quite allergic to civil and political rights. And NAM is in true form when it comes to climate change and sombrely speaks about the “historical and differentiated responsibility”—yeah, that should save the Maldives, no doubt, if we quickly grow gills, as President Nasheed recently told Senator Legardo from the Philippines. But we cannot dissent from the Third World consensus!

The Melian Dialogue


So the more I read the document, the more I felt like the people of Melos. Before me were the King of Traditional Kings Qaddafi, our host Mubarak, the renowned Bouteflika, the much heralded King of Swaziland, all not out batsmen with centuries to their credit. But my mind raced passed the centurions and the centuries to the Peloponnesian Wars and Thucydides. Although my eyes were on the speech that my able staff had drafted for me, what was going through my mind was the Melian dialogue: “the strong will do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must”.

How can I say that to this so-called august body? Tiny Maldives must not ruffle the feathers of the big birds. But we are going down to drown, unless global carbon emissions are cut back quick enough for the emissions to peak within the next decade or so. Diplomacy is about saving nations, not drowning them.

NAM boasts about collective security. But the first principle of collective security is the protection to the weakest members. But in the climate change negotiations we have so far seen nothing that would save the Maldives from drowning. We can ban water-boarding of individuals (and we should!) but endorse water-boarding a whole nation—now that’s a line for PJ! Every time I saw Copenhagen 2009 written in the speech, it read back at me as Munich 1938. The Maldives is the new Sudetenland.

Obviously, NAM isn’t going to save the Maldives.



Maldives Delegation to Make a Splash at Copenhagen

So I came out to do what I effectively came here to do. I met the Bangladeshi’s and gave them the heads up that we might be forced into a maverick position if nothing good was going to come out of Copenhagen, that we might even stage a walk out from Copenhagen. But more urgently, I wanted to obtain some emergency pharmaceuticals from Bangladesh, needed for hospitals in the Maldives; and sought their support for the V-10 Summit in the Maldives.

With several others, mostly from the Caribbean and Pacific, I lobbied for support for the resolution that the Maldives was tabling at the UN designed to insulate the Maldives from the shocks of graduation from LDC status.

With the Australians I discussed deeper engagement with the democratic Maldives and collaboration at the Commonwealth and the UN.

With everybody, covering all regions, I lobbied for support for the Maldives candidature to the Human Rights Council. I paid particular attention to Timor Leste, not merely because the Foreign Minister Zacarias was in the same political position as I am in a coalition government, but because I am keen to obtain the endorsement of Timor Leste, a possible competitor, to our candidature to the Human Rights Council.

From Portugal, I ensured critical support to safeguard our claim to the maximum continental shelf in the Indian Ocean, and from Mauritius I learned more about the potential for us to benefit from the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the Indian Ocean Commission.

From Djiboujti I learned how we could keep tabs on the potential threat to the Maldives from Somali piracy, and a few lessons about warding off militant Islam.

From a number of countries, whose names I do not wish to reveal yet, I pursued how the Maldives can reclaim monies that have been lost to corruption over the past thirty-years, chalking up an operational action plan on how to identify and pursue the missing funds. Indeed, even if no one else wants to track down the embezzled funds, I am on a crusade to get them, and President Nasheed is aware of that. I am not one to ride a corrupt tiger, for, as Kennedy said, “history shows that all those who rode tigers ended up inside them”.

Indeed, as I proceeded to return to the conference hall, Robert Mugabe began to preside over the conference. I decided to wait until someone else took over the chair.

As I waited, a former High Commissioner from the SAARC region in the Maldives walked up to me and said, I still think you should not be in politics! I told him that I had not forgotten his advice, and that is why I am so attached to the OSA, and told him that I was not going back in until Mugabe left the chair. “It’s more that politics had joined me than me joining politics,” I tried to make light of it. We traded a few quips about the post-Westphalian state, the Wars of the Roses and how DRP lost the election last year, and jumped from topic to topic, from Kerensky to Trotsky, and the possibility of joint representation in Moscow. Yes, I agreed: it would be a good idea for the Maldives to be jointly represented in Moscow, teaming up with a SAARC partner.

And when Mugabe finally left the Chair, I returned to my seat and re-worded my draft speech to include a call on NAM countries to accede to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and urged them to seek effective caps on carbon emissions so that the rising seas will not exceed beyond 0.8 metres within the next 100 years.

The Maldives statement may not be music to many ears. But that is because the cries of help from a drowning person are never musical; did the last dodo sound like Dido?

And tomorrow I head out to Cairo. Once bitten twice shy, I have allowed myself some 6hours of transit time!

But I leave Sharm El-Sheikh hopefully having done enough to satisfy the Finance Minister.

I also had the opportunity to discuss at length the rise and fall of Maurice Bishop and the Grenada Revolution, a most stimulating intellectual discussion with the Foreign Minister of Grenada, on politics in small spaces, on Archie Singham’s “Hero”, on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, on Gerhard Casper’s “Caesarism” or in Bishop’s language, “One-Manism”.

Meanwhile friends from as far away as Australia and UK kept texting me about the disputes and disturbances in Male on Wednesday. Politics in small spaces-- but that is another story for another post.

Submitted by Ahmed Shaheed for OSA

Runnymede or Stampede: How to Avoid a Mob Over Magna Carta in the Maldives

Sultan in Procession, 1940s

Last Monday, President Nasheed invited me to join him for lunch at the UK House of Lords. To my left sat Baroness D’Souza, Convenor of the Crossbench in the UK parliament; to her left sat President Nasheed and on his left was our host, Lord Bilimoria. To my right was Baron Desai, with whom I chit chatted about the respective merits of Marx and Chicago School and their relevance to the Maldives and how the Maldives could benefit from his Lordship’s expertise as an Economics Professor at LSE. To his right was Minister Aslam and to his right High Commissioner Farah.

Soon enough my attention was drawn to the conversation on politics that was going on to my left between the Baroness and the President. At an appropriate pause in their conversation, I decided I would join the political discussion, especially when I learned that the Baroness was soon going to meet Her Majesty the Head of the Commonwealth and discuss themes for the upcoming Commonwealth Heads Meeting in Trinidad.

“History has a way of repeating itself, and if that is the case, in 2014, the people of the Maldives will again take to the streets,” I said half-jokingly, and President Nasheed, who actually conceals how much of an intellectual and scholar that he really is, gave a knowing smile.

The Baroness, with a little shock, as I might have expected, asked me why I said that. “We have a strong tradition of that, and an observable regularity in the timing of these events, the people took to the streets in 1933, in 1953, in 1974, in 1993, in 2004 and therefore quite possibly in 2014,” I continued. And I briefly explained to her what these dates were, careful not to upset anyone at the table.
But after doing that, I also told her that a mob in 2014 was not a foregone conclusion.

“There are very clear ways to avoid that—what I am saying is that, if democratic consolidation does not make good progress, by 2014, the people will again express their frustration with the way they are being governed, especially if their aspirations for a proper democracy remain unfulfilled,” I quickly added.

“I hope that by democracy you don’t mean electoral democracy,” the Baroness said.

“That’s exactly the point,” I concurred. “What we have in the Maldives since autumn is a democratically elected government, but we are still a long way from liberal democracy. I expect the people to give us 5 years to consolidate democracy, but they are unlikely to usher in 2015 without enjoying the fruits of liberal democracy,” I explained.

2015 will be a watershed year. The Millennium Development Goals are to be met by that date. We may or may not measure up to all the targets.

Magna Carta 1215


But, more than the MDGs, 2015 is also a key year for reformists in the Maldives, particularly for MDP and all those who, like me, support the MDP. Why? 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. It was in June 1215, at a place called Runnymede that King John signed the Magna Carta.

The Maldives be represented at Runnymede in June 2015 – and none more appropriate than President Nasheed to be there. But we would not like to go to Runnymede merely as an electoral democracy—we will want to be a proper democracy, with working institutions and real people power. And I wouldn’t want to miss out on that event, if I am alive and kicking, and neither will MDP.

I told our hosts about the time President Nasheed and I spent in the UK, him at Liverpool and me at Aberystwyth (and I didn't have to explain to her why I went to read Strategic Studies at Coleg Prifysgol Cymru!), and how we identified with the British traditions of democracy, although local circumstances had necessitated, in my judgment, ushering in a US-style presidential system in the Maldives.

View of Old College, Aberystwyth

I then went along to explain to the Baroness about the challenges that still remain in terms of consolidating democracy in the Maldives. President Nasheed, who had made a very good impression on the Baroness with his keynote address at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Conference on Climate Change at Portcullis House in the morning, agreed.

I cited Professor Larry Diamond at the Stanford University, and his concept of a predatory society as opposed to a liberal democracy. I stressed the need to increase horizontal accountability mechanisms, such as the judiciary, the anti-corruption commission, parliamentary oversight, the rule of law and the right to information.

I also highlighted the need to strengthen vertical accountability mechanisms such as issue-based NGOs, a vibrant and independent media, and elections that were free of intimidation and corruption.

I emphasised the need for transitional justice, and lamented the fact that yesterday’s corruption was yielding tremendous political gains today—and how therefore corrupt gains made yesterday were subverting democracy-building in the Maldives today.

Professor Larry Diamond



Whenever I meet diplomats and other stakeholders, I often repeat to them lessons from our history. The point of it all is to impress upon them the need to assist the government to consolidate democracy and strengthen constitutional rule.

The history of the Maldives is replete with instances of the people deposing governments they didn’t like and installing governments of their choice. In that sense, people power has always been part of the political life in the Maldives.

Tradition has it that the Sultans ruled at the pleasure of the “Havaru”, loosely translated to mean the people of the wards of Male. The oral history of the Maldives, as told by Buraaru, frequently refers to the summoning of the Havaru to depose and install Sultans.

The generally lengthy reigns witnessed since the 19th century somehow had eroded this function of the havaru, but people power returned with the introduction of constitutional rule in 1932, as an extra-constitutional means to exercise people power, and always exposing the weakness of our governance systems.

Thus, in 1933, at the instigation of the Sultan, the people took to the streets and tore up the Constitution, and dispatched the authors of the Constitution to the British Governor’s mansion in Colombo. (The Westminster House talks of 2006, which President Nasheed, then under house arrest, and I, as Foreign Minister had set up, took place with one of the grandsons of one of those dispatched to Colombo in 1933!)
Twenty-years after that crisis, on 31 August 1953, the people again took to the streets and mobbed and killed the first president of the Maldives.

The people were back at it, albeit in unsuccessfully, on 13 June 1974, to depose President Nasir, who walked away four years later.

In 1993, a similar event nearly took place, but the Bimbi Force was pre-empted by the intervention of foreign soldiers brought in by the government to carry out a military exercise. Many will recall that as MPs were voting on a candidate for the presidency, there was a climate of fear induced by the treatment meted out to the potential challenger, Ilyas Ibrahim, and by the echo of gunfire in parts of Male.

But the people came back with a vengeance in 2003. I remember telling a nervous government in July 2004 that protests to depose the government will take place between 21 and 31 August – because Gayoom was scheduled to be in China and because the period coincided with the arrest and subsequent mobbing of Amin Didi.

As it turned out, the events took place slightly earlier, on 12-13 August.

Of course, the most successful display of people power happened in 2004, setting in train events that culminated in the installation of a new government in 2008.

Of course, there are some who think that the current drive for democracy has already failed—those who expected the country to go from darkness to light in one day. But I reckon that most people understand that democracy-building is a process and not an event, and will have the patience to wait till 2014.

Now, the new target date for an irrepressible display of people power is 2014- one year after the next elections, and one year ahead of the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

And it does not matter who wins the next elections: whoever who heads this country by 2015 must either be celebrating in Runnymede or be running away on a stampede! In short, it is democracy or bust!

Memorial to Magna Carta at Runnymede, Berkshire


And so what should be the message to Her Majesty?

My instant response was to stress the need to give some real teeth to the CMAG—the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which now acts only after a government is toppled in a coup. I told the Baroness about the frustration since 2004 of the Maldives pro-democracy movement over the CMAG and its inability to pressure the government of Maldives to expedite reform.

“Today, 2 out of 3 countries in the world have democratically elected governments, and the ratio is higher in the Commonwealth; the Harare Declaration must be enforced, the Millbrook Action Programme must be implemented, the CMAG must be given a wider mandate to promote democracy and censure illiberal democracies: you will be surprised by how much dictators loved to be loved and therefore how much they hate to be hated, and the CMAG must be empowered to condemn dictators and embrace democrats,” I said to her.

“Democracy today is a universal value, and the Commonwealth must not be coy about promoting democracy,” I said with all the seriousness that I could muster.

“The CMAG must respond not just to breaches of the constitution but must help to strengthen constitutionalism in countries, like the Maldives, where the government and the people alike aspire to do so,” I added.

Ahmed Shaheed for OSA