Emegency scared me: Dr. Shaheed

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed who was Chief Government Spokesman when the mass demonstration of  August 12, 13 2004 was violently cracked down and Emergency was declared, said the Emergency showed that the old guard had lost, and knew not how to handle the brewing crisis. He said so in an article published in the blog of Open Society of Maldives on 9 August,

Dr. Shaheed said he did not walk away from the Government when it declared emergency on Black Friday. "It scared me. he said. " When my boss Abdulla Shahid asked me to come to office, " I hesitated, I took time to think about it. Something inside me rebelled against the whole notion of emergency rule, especially when opposition MPs are locked up. That is a dangerous path" he said.

Shaheed went on to say however he took up the post of Chief Government Spokesman with a plan based on Huntington’s seminal work on democratisation. Huntington showed that democracy was most durable when it was achieved peacefully, and by regime transformation rather than by abrupt replacement.Democracy was a process, not an event, he said. Viewing from that perspective, Dr. Shaheed said he saw that the Black Friday was not the endgame and the reform agenda must still be pushed along.

Looking back to the fateful day Dr. Shaheed said it was one of the darkest days he had lived through. Black Friday brings uneasy memories because a lot of people suffered that day and from the events that followed. " I did my best to mitigate it. Working for 25 year old outdated and atrophied regime is a perilous task, but I kept a clear conscience." One of his main roles was to teach them how to respond to the opposition in ways consistent with international norms of democracy and human rights. " That is why I can today team up with several victims of that day" he said.

Shaheed added that few people who had a proper perspective of what he was doing were foreign ambassadors and international news media. " My role was to build bridges of understanding between the Maldives and the international community. It was neither to glorify former President Gayoom nor to demonise current President Nasheed" Shaheed
said. He explained that his friends and associates including close friends from MDP felt he was sacrificing his own future by trying to rescue a sinking ship raising a question why he he was cast in that role.

Dr. Shaheed’s reply to that question was he quit foreign service and took up the post of Government Spokesman, because Gayoom gave him credible undertaking that he would make the Maldives a modern democracy. Shaheed also said he had a clear human rights agenda and he had a credible undertaking from Gayoom that he would implement the
agenda. Shaheed said he had assured his friends that the day he comes to believe otherwise, he would quit and join the opposition.

The Foreign Minister said " On 9 August 2003, more than a month before Evan Naseem was murdered, I proposed a Human Rights Commission modelled on the Paris Principles to Gayoom and he accepted it the following day. It was I who tied Gayoom down to them. At the same time I have secured Gayoom’s approval to accede to the UN Convention
against torture".

Dr. Shaheed pointed out at least on 2 occasions he threatened to quit if he did not get his way on leniency or release for detained activists. On one occasion, 5 June 2005 he even copied to his threat to Ali Hashim that he would resign if Anni ( President Nasheed who was in detention) was not returned home before 6 pm.

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