Maldives President and Climate Advocate Forced at Gunpoint to Step Down
Maldives leader Mohamed Nasheed, called the “world’s most environmentally outspoken president” because of his calls for drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions, was forced to resign—at gunpoint, he claimed. He had used stunts such as an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight his island nation’s vulnerability to sea-level rise.
His resignation followed weeks of protests and was apparently motivated by internal politics unrelated to his environmental views.
In 2008 Mohamed Nasheed was elected president. The coup against him was by the military and a former president.He is calling for outside intervention to restore democracy.
What is the U.S. reaction one might ask? What is "democracy promoter" Obama going to do about this?
Yeah. You guessed that right. He recognizes the new military supported dictatorship:
The United States on Thursday recognized the new government of Maldives President Mohamed Waheed as legitimate and urged him to fulfill a pledge to form a national unity government.
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Nasheed, the Indian Ocean country's first democratically elected president who has hunkered down at his modest family home in the capital Male since losing the presidency on Tuesday, has appealed for urgent foreign help.The United States is "also encouraging him, as we encouraged President Waheed that this needs to settled now peaceably through dialogue and through the formation, as the new president has pledged, of a national unity government," Nuland said.
