Raajje News Blog

#Maldives: November 3rd, 2012 marks the 24th anniversary of the bloody massacre that left the blackest of stains on Maldivian hearts and history. Nineteen innocent Maldivians were slaughtered and several injured. Hundreds were held at gunpoint for hours, many later taken away as hostages. Immense damage was given to public and private property. Maldives was rescued by troops sent by Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi. The leader of the failed coup was a man called Sikka Ahmed Ismail Maniku, a man who had previous convictions for coup attempts against previous governments. The coup leader's nephew, Mohamed Nasheed, was installed as President in 2008, at the head of a political party whose top leadership comprised of family members and others involved in the 1988 November 3 massacre. Nasheed's cabinet, senior political advisors and state ministers included terrorists convicted for their involvement in the November 3 massacre. As Nasheed denounces the current government of Dr. Mohame...

#Maldives: Four senior members of former President Nasheed's administration were culpable is a MRF 24 million scam, Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim told the Parliamentary subcommittee on Finance yesterday. The individuals named included two high profile members of former President Nasheed's party Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) who had been given political posts when Nasheed came into power. They were Ahmed Assad, the younger brother of Nasheed's Housing Minister and close confidante Aslam and Abdulla Shahid (pic), one of the 11 involved in the November 3rd coup led by Nasheed's uncle Sikka Ahmed Ismail Maniku in 1988. Assad had filled the post of State Minister of Finance in Nasheed's government, while Abdulla Shahid had been State Minister of Defence. The scam involved embezzlement of state funds amounting to MRF 24 million, paid from the Ministry of Finance and Treasury for falsified invoices for services claimed to have been rendered to the National Centre fo...

Male', Maldives. Maldivians watch stunned as new President Mohamed Waheed calmly invites foreign interference in their domestic affairs, just two weeks after he ascended to power following the resignation on strongman Mohamed Nasheed. Claiming to be a national unity government, the inexperienced Waheed administration is falling over its two left feet dancing to Bollywood music mixed with European colonial lyrics. The Waheed government's capitulation of Maldivian national interests and national sovereignty is unprecedented by any Maldivian government at anytime throughout the country's long history. Throughout the annals of our history Maldives maintained her sovereignty and defended uncorrupted Islam as her religion by maintaining policies of non-interference in our domestic affairs by foreign powers. A small island state in the vast Indian Ocean, overshadowed by the looming mass of India in the North, Maldives has weathered many turbulent political storms, emerging some...

Male', Maldives. The Canarygate Scandal of political corruption, obstruction of justice and abuse of power which led to Mohamed Nasheed's resignation as President, yesterday entered a new dimension as Nasheed's Israeli connection was revealed to be Ismail Saadiq, of the FPID and 7/11 corruption scandals in the 1990s. Ismail Saadiq, at Nasheed's request, visited Israel after Nasheed's resignation, in a bid to secure Israeli support for Nasheed's come-back bid. Sources close to Nasheed report that Saadiq's visit was to request Israel to pressure the US to support Nasheed's call for an early election. Saadiq and Nasheed's ex-Chief of Staff, Ahmed Mausoom, were in the process of setting up a joint venture for supplying STO Maldives with Israeli oil when Nasheed resigned on February 7th. Saadiq, a Maldivian trader engaged in various corrupt activities, first leapt to local prominence in the late 1970s when he spilled the beans on Kandi Ahmed Maniku...

Male’, Maldives. Maldivians are increasingly disillusioned and bitter as they and their country people are ridiculed and torn apart by international media following the resignation of Mohamed Nasheed as Maldives President after the Canarygate Scandal. The Canarygate Scandal is the final series of events leading to the end of the three years of Nasheed’s rule on February 7th 2012, a rule earmarked by abuse of executive powers, obstruction of justice, contempt and lockdown of the Legislature and Judiciary, corruption, graft and nepotism. Canarygate gets its name from Nasheed's family name, Canary, so named because of the countless evidence of nepotism, cronyism and corruption during his rule. While western commentators and the neighbourhood strongman India dismiss Canarygate as just a political fisticuff between Nasheed and his predecessor Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Maldivians call upon the new Government for justice, for the Maldivian people and for democracy in Maldives. They ask ...