Last week the Maldives was thrust into the media spotlight as its former president, Mohamed Nasheed, convicted on terrorism charges, toured the TV studios of London while on medical leave from prison. For many Maldivians huddled around computers or TVs, the former President’s terms of his release seemed to have been hijacked by a vigorous set of media engagements – multiple interviews and a press conference ensued as his international lawyers, including Mrs. Amal Clooney, celebrated his arrival.
The whole episode was tightly controlled — his American PR advisors, in an email to our embassy in London, flatly rejected the prospect of an official attending. And as his lawyers opened up questions to the waiting press pack, the live feed on Nasheed’s own website was cut. So much for transparency and openness.
In today’s world of 24 hour news channels, social media and celebrity, it is easy to be swept up in a wave of hysteria – from the passing of a rock star or a breaking news event. But when it involves something more substantial, like attacking a government, undermining the citizens of a country or rewriting a nation’s recent history, the manipulation of the media for political gain takes a more unpalatable turn.
The events in London saw Mr. Nasheed wrapped in proverbial cotton wool. But as the paparazzi camped outside his lawyers’ office, it became obvious that both Mr. Nasheed and Mrs. Clooney were going to exploit their carefully crafted public personas to spin a fantasy tale. The protestation of a man’s innocence is unsurprising from his lawyers. Yet their misrepresentation of the facts borders on unethical.
Throughout the last week, Mr Nasheed was cast as the “deposed” President. In a widely circulated article in the Guardian last year, Clooney wrote that his presidency was “cut short in February 2012 when he was forced to resign at gunpoint.” Comparisons to Nelson Mandela have also been repeatedly made – extraordinary given the three month nationwide protests that followed the arrest of a senior judge on Nasheed’s instructions, his purging of members of his own party that challenged his leadership, or his calls to “let loose” his young supporters on the police as his presidency dissolved away in a wave of popular protest.
So what are the facts? Well a commission of National Inquiry found no truth in the claim he was deposed in a coup. This commission was not led by a party apparatchik with insidious political incentives. It was a former judge of the New Zealand Court of Appeal. The claims of being coerced at gunpoint came conveniently after, as the story changed 24 hours later. The Commission however, was damning. It reported Nasheed had become politically isolated, lost the support of his own coalition and that there was “no illegal coercion or intimidation nor any coup d’état.” Their conclusion was emphatic: “The commission received no evidence supporting or to substantiate these allegations.”
This is one of a litany of falsehoods spun to give the former president a chance of a political resurrection, of a return to an office in which he spectacularly misjudged not only the electorate, but also the very political allies that kept him in power.
Yet even more uncomfortable is the righteousness with which these claims are made. You can almost forgive a politician as isolated as Nasheed to manipulate the facts for his own ends. But the distortion of the truth by his international legal team is more troubling.
While all people deserve the right to a legal defence, Nasheed’s high profile lawyers have morphed into international lobbyists. They speak in grand terms, using often clichéd legal speak to enforce their point. They continue to call for sanctions against the Maldivian leadership – attempting to punish a government that was democratically elected into power in an internationally recognised election. It is an unprecedented move and one that tramples over the fundamental notions of democracy and sovereignty.
This brings us back to the facts, all publicly available. Mrs. Clooney has sat on a moral pedestal, yet, along with her colleague Ben Emmerson QC – also Nasheed’s lawyer – she has represented extraordinarily wealthy clients accused of the most heinous of crimes. These facts make Emmerson’s claim last week that lawyers have a choice when choosing international cases laughable.
This narrative sadly goes on and on. Mr. Nasheed’s most vociferous international lobbyist, Jared Genser, paints the broadest strokes of all, and has even begun childish attacks on government lawyers or supporters via social media. This does not add to the debate at all. In fact it diminishes the challenges facing our country, and turns this debate into a soap opera. Issues that matter deeply to Maldivians have become the plaything of foreign commentators, whose careers supercede the concerns of the people they claim to represent.
Anyone that has worked in government will describe a hard, tough and complex job. The hours are long and the responsibility to the voters great. Crucially, your goal is to serve the people who voted for you. As a government, we are getting on with our jobs to the best of our ability and to deliver on our promises. So much has already been achieved by President Yameen’s government. Yet in the last week we have seen the story of the Maldives reduced to an over simplistic TV drama, rooted in hypocrisy.
Hiding the facts behind a blinding wall of camera flashes has it limitations. As a government, we will continue to reassert the truth behind Mr. Nasheed’s presidency and the crimes for which he committed. As Jawaharlal Nehru, a great leader from our close neighbour India, once said: “Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.”
Dunya Maumoon is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives