So, was it a coup or not?

The recent change of administration in the country raises a lot of interesting questions. Already the vanquished MDP party has determined that the former president Anni was unseated by a military (or a civilian?) coup. The opposition claims otherwise. So who is telling the truth and who is lying? Or could it be that this situation has also joined the philosophical realm where both truth and falsehood are somehow intertwined?

So we leave our friends and fellow resort workers to answer these questions below. If they are pro MDP then they may answer the “If so” questions. The rest may answer the “If not” questions…

If so

1. Who are the coup leaders? A few private police boys cannot hide after doing such a big thing.
2. What were the motivation? Over work? Fatigue? Could be because there has been almost constant nightly demonstrations  prior to the fateful day.
3. Are the police and military same minded? Remember, there is only HQ for all our forces.
4. There are allegations that police and military were bribed. But they are also highly paid, so who would have financed the big bribery campaign? How much could be the tipping point for a serviceman/woman? We understand that the average monthly salary of our armed forces personnel is higher than 1000$ per month.
5. Why did it took a huge MDP congress meeting to realize that it was a coup?
6. Why did the MDP congress hastily pass a resolution to block the line of communication with the current administration and called it illegitimate?
7. Why did the police allow massive damage to their facilities in the islands? We understand that more than 9 regional police and military facilities were torched by angry MDP mobs. More than 30  police and military vehicles have also been torched in Addu alone, most of them have only recently been donated by China for the SAARC summit.
8. Did the command structure broke down after the coup? Does that happen after the military  win? After they win why did they gave command again to an unpopular president and an even more unpopular and ineffectual opposition coalition?

if not

1. Why did the police use excessive force to breakup the first strike after Anni was unseated?
2. Why did they (who?) changed the official TV channel (MNBC1) to its former name (TVM)?
3. Why did they hastily gave ownership of all government media to opposition media regulatory body MBC?
4. Why did the criminal court issue an arrest warrant for former president Mohamed Nasheed (Anni)?
5. Why is the parliament (still on vacation) uncharacteristically quiet when these massive developments happen? MDP has the majority even in the parliament now  and yet they seem to unable to cut their all important holiday short– when the country is literally burning.

Any questions?

Facts about order to close spas

• It doesn’t hold water legally according to former attorney general and renowned lawyer Husnu Suood. A spa or any place of legal business can be ordered to stop their business if evidence was discovered which implicates criminal intent. However closing all such businesses for the crime of one establishment is beyond comprehension.
• No resort has complied thankfully and hoteliers are aware about the political nature of the dictate The government’s line that this was a measure they are taking to address the demand of the big-demo on 23rd December 2011 is also not consistent as no similar dictate has been issued to remove the commemorative idols and statutes of the SAARC summit in Addu.
• One of the five demands of the big demo protesters was to close places of prostitution in Male’ which goes by names such as ‘spas’ , ‘beauty saloons’ , ‘ayuverdha clinics’ etc. There was no mention of high end spas in resorts.
• Tourism minister Zulfa’s assertion that spa’s will be reopened once the people support moderate Islam is also inconsistent with her mandate. This presupposition of people’s belief shall not be normal subject matter for a minister to decide. Peoples belief are their own and the fact is that the paranoia about Islamic extremism has been blown out of all proportions for political reasons.

Govt mulling prohibition

In an apparent swipe against the ‘mega demo’ on last Friday, the govt announced that its mulling plans to ban import of alcohol and pork. The govt’s spin doctors apparently advised the administration to put a bill through parliament to ban these products and let the MPs do the debates on the issue to point out the unworkable nature of the big-demo demands.
However the way the govt seems to approach these demands is growlingly seen as insincere and half thought-out, provoking interesting discussions across media.
The big demo’s  list of demands were

1. To forbid the sale of wine and pork and not to designate areas in inhibited islands as ‘UN-inhibited islands’ which is the only way now to be able to operate a bar in an inhibited island as the existing rules prohibit sale of liquor in inhabited islands
2. To remove the controversial monuments in Addu after the SAARC summit.
3. To apologize for Ms. Pilley’s remarks about religion
4. To revoke the decision to allow Israeli airliner  El Al to operate to Maldives.
5. To close massage parlors in Male’ most  of which are places for prostitution.

our analysis of the big-demo’s demands:

•  Sale of wine is prohibited for Muslims and a Muslim administration cannot charge royalties, apply fees and issue license etc for forbidden goods. Therefore one workable solution to this problem would be to outsource licensing and regulating of these items to a competent non-Muslim entity. As for pork we understand that several resorts actually do not import this item at all and do not even have standard permits for import of this item. Resorts run by Villa, Jresorts, and Waheedudheen are all doing fine without this item. Import duty on this item can also be waived and import and regulation can also be outsourced.
• The monuments have done lots of political damage to MDP and also there is no denying the fact that issue has been politicized beyond repair. So it needs to go and the sooner its removed the better for everyone.
• Apologizing for Ms Pilley’s remarks by the administration or by the  president is neither politically tenable nor beneficial since it wont change the facts. There is also some fact that most of what she has said, has been taken out of context and bloated for political reasons.
• The call to revoke decision to  grant operating license to Israeli airliner El Al has merits  on moral grounds as Israel continues to defy international opinion on working to establish peace in the region. This is nothing new and many countries and organizations do boycott of Israel in this line of thinking. In our situation we can afford to do this boycott because of our small size but most western countries cannot afford to confront this issue for historic reasons as well as the threat of being ostracized by the powerful pro-Zionist media .
• The big demo demand  to ban massage parlors in inhabited islands was in fact a call to ban places of prostitution which goes by  names such as massage parlors and beauty saloons etc. It definitely does not involve high end spas managed and run by resorts and its unfortunate that tourism ministry ordered to close spas at Paradise and Villa group’s resorts.