In the Maldives, exposing corruption is terrorism

Last night, Al Jazeera aired a documentary exposing corruption by Maldives President Abdulla Yameen. In retaliation, he raided the offices of local media and human rights organisations and had people cooperating with the documentary arrested for terrorism:

Authorities in the Maldives have raided the offices of a newspaper and a human rights NGO and cancelled the passports of fugitive opposition figures after an al-Jazeera documentary aired corruption allegations against the country’s president, Abdulla Yameen.

Local journalists involved with the documentary, broadcast by the Qatari news network on Wednesday evening, had already left the country in anticipation of a backlash, amid warnings by senior MPs that contributors risked jail under defamation laws.

Hours after the documentary was posted online on Wednesday, police raided a building in the capital, Malé, housing the Maldivian Independent, a newspaper accused of links to the former president Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic party (MDP).

[...]

The Guardian understands that two men, neither of them employed by the newspaper, were arrested and accused of terrorism and plotting to the topple the government. They were released but will be questioned on Thursday. The police warrant also listed possible charges of inciting discord and threatening public order.

And that's the problem with authoritarian states: if the interests of the state are identified with the private interests of those holding power, then any criticism or attempt at reform becomes subversion. If the Maldives had a robust democratic culture, this wouldn't happen. But the whole problem is that it doesn't, and any attempt to create one is criminalised.

As for Yameen, it really sounds like he should be in jail. But that won't be happening as long as he is in power - and the prospect of it happening is a reason for him never to peacefully surrender power. And so corruption feeds authoritarianism in a vicious circle.

And for a local angle, this seems to be the direction Nauru is heading in, thanks to a never-ending stream of Australian gulag money. If we don't want Australia to destroy one of our neighbours and turn it into the Maldives, that money needs to be cut off.

Climate change: we should be ashamed

Back in 2006, Helen Clark showed some vision for once and announced a bold plan to make New Zealand carbon neutral. Unfortunately, the reality didn't quite live up to the rhetoric, and the plan which was eventually released pushed the target date all the way out to 2040 and even then excluded agriculture, our largest source of greenhouse gases - but it was a start. Now, of course, that plan has been formally abandoned by the National Party, whose "ambition for New Zealand" does not extend to the environment (or even to areas we have traditionally led in such as women's rights). And now, "clean, green New Zealand" is about to be overtaken - by the Maldives.

The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will today unveil a plan to make his country carbon-neutral within a decade. The announcement comes only days after scientists issued stark new warnings that rising seas caused by climate change could engulf the Maldives and other low-lying nations this century.

[...]

The plan includes a new renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure with 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and a biomass plant burning coconut husks. Battery banks would provide back-up storage for when neither wind nor solar energy is available.

The clean electricity would power not only homes and businesses, but also vehicles. Cars and boats with petrol and diesel engines would be gradually replaced by electric versions.

This should shame us all. The Maldives is a developing nation, with a per-capita GDP around a tenth of ours, and a Human Development Index of 0.741 - about the same as Sri Lanka. And yet they're pursuing not just carbon neutrality via offsetting, but a radical decarbonisation of their entire economy. But then, they have a lot more at stake than the rest of us. For New Zealand, climate change merely means farmers suffering from a lot more droughts and a few people losing their beach houses. For the Maldives, whose highest point is a mere 2.3 metres above sea level, it means death.

"Common but differentiated responsibilities" is a key principle underlying current climate change treaties: lesser ability and lesser responsibility means that the developing world should follow, not lead. But thanks to western selfishness, that principle is in practice being reversed. Again, we should be ashamed; we are ruining the world for everyone, and we are expecting the poor to pay the price of fixing it. And that is simply not just.