Maldives: Protesters Win Demand for Early Elections from Coup Government

[Photo: Protesters clashed with police and troops in riot gear last week, Ishara Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images]


Elected Maldives President Wins Demand for Early Elections from Coup Government

By Steven Argue

Friday, February 17, 2012. Thousands of Maldivians are reportedly protesting against the coup in the capital this Friday. Facing this pressure, reports have indicated coup President Mohammed Waheed Hassan has agreed to the demands of protesters and elected President Naheed for early elections. Reports have not indicated when those elections will be held, but statements do indicate that President Nasheed is happy with Hassan’s announcement. A week ago coup President Hassan and Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Baker both stated they were opposed to the early elections demanded by President Hassan. It seems mass protests may be having an impact.

Obama received $884,000 from the oil and gas industries for his 2008 run for president. In return Obama has attempted to do nothing real on climate change and supported the overthrow of President Nasheed in the Maldives, an elected president and outspoken world voice for real action on climate change.

Today, Obama once again showed his total indifference to the world’s environment by ordering shark fin soup. Beyond climate change with warmer rising oceans and increased ocean acidification due to CO2, both causing a coming mass extinction of species and massive human suffering, one of the next big issues in the rapidly declining health of the oceans is the elimination of sharks from the oceans through the shark finning industry. Besides causing massive environmental damage, the industry is particularly cruel and wasteful, cutting the fins off the animals alive and throwing their painful wreathing bodies back into the ocean. Obama’s a symbolic environmental indifference here is on par with Governor Arnold Schwartzeneggar’s fleet of 8 Humvees. And like Obama, Schwatzeneggar did huge damage to the environment, conspiring with the auto and oil industries to eliminate California’s electric car mandates that were placed on the auto industry, doing massive damage to present and future generations for immediate capitalist profit.

Human rights have also suffered in the Maldives due to this U.S. backed coup. In response, Maldives UN Ambassador Farah Faisal has resigned in protest saying, "I can't serve the regime which overthrew a democratic regime. They robbed the people of the vote and when I saw the brutality of the police last week, that was the final straw."

See Amnesty International reports posted at the end for more on that brutality.

Here is an Amnesty International report on the brutality of the coup government (and there are other reports of large numbers of Nasheed supporters being tied together by the police and being threatened with being set on fire).

Maldives security forces must stop using violence against supporters of Mohamed Nasheed
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/maldives-security-forces-must-stop-using-violence-against-supporters-mohame

Maldives: End use of excessive force against protesters
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/maldives-end-use-excessive-force-against-protesters-2012-02-08

Also see from Liberation News
Oppose the U.S. Backed Coup in the Maldives!
By Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/10/18707054.php

This is an article of Liberation News (not associated with the Stalinist PSL who stole our name, subscribe free
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Check out the statement of purpose of the Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP):
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2012/02/251336.php