Freedom for Maldivian opposition chief after one-year detention

MALE- Mohamed Nasheed, chairman of the path-breaking Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), was freed from house arrest on Thursday as promised by the Maldivian government but it came as a surprise to the archipelago’s most famous prisoner.

Two days before his release after more than a year in detention, Nasheed, better known as ‘Anni” by most Maldivians, told The Sunday Times at his residence, “I don’t think they would release me. I hope they would. Let’s wait and see.”

The young political activist, who has led an underground political movement into stardom and acceptance by the majority of Maldivians, had expressed reservations about whether he would be released given “President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s ability to go back on his promises.”

The release is part of a pact during ‘peace’ talks between government and MDP representatives in Colombo at the British High Commissioner’s residence. The Westminster House Agreement, widely known in Male as the WHA amongst political activists, was clinched during four rounds of talks at the Colombo residence.

MDP officials said in Male that a roadmap has been laid out for political reforms to take place which includes the enshrining of a new constitution before multi party polls in mid 2007. The MDP is pushing for a non-executive presidency and full governance by parliament around democratic structures being envisaged in the Maldives.

The MDP says it hopes the next round of ongoing discussions between the two parties would be held in Male and would take up the more substantive issues of ‘quicker’ elections and early constitutional reforms.

A two-day trip last week to the Indian Ocean archipelago is insufficient to make a frank assessment of substantial changes taking place there. But there was enough evidence for journalists like me who regularly covered the Maldives during President Gayoom’s heyday in the 1980s to 2000 period to show that rapid change is indeed happening – more through youth demands than government sincerity.

A massive public rally on a Male beachfront -- a stone’s throw from the once-dreaded National Security Service (NSS) headquarters -- on Tuesday to mark the third anniversary of the killing in police custody of Evan Naseem, a 19-year-old youth arrested for a minor offence, went off undisturbed, something that would have never have been attempted of even ‘dreamt of’ about three to four years ago. Imagine speaker after speaker – 10 years ago -- openly accusing Gayoom and his close aides of torture, killings in custody or arbitrary arrests?

It was Naseem’s murder that partly dramatized the demand for political reforms and brought an underground movement out of the closet to formal recognition as a political party seeking an end to Gayoom’s dictatorial regime. (Await a fuller overview of the situation in the Maldives by the writer in next week’s The Sunday Times).