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Maldives NATIONAL SECURITY
Defense Forces: No armed forces but National
Security
Service of 1,800 members perform army, police, and
maritime
duties.
HISTORICAL SETTING
Maldives - Unavailable
Figure 8. Maldives: Administrative Divisions, 1994
MALDIVES IS AN ISOLATED nation and is among the
smallest and
poorest countries in the world. In olden times, the
islands
provided the main source of cowrie shells, then used as
currency
throughout Asia and parts of the East African coast.
Moreover,
historically Maldives has had a strategic importance
because of
its location on the major marine routes of the Indian
Ocean.
Maldives' nearest neighbors are Sri Lanka and India, both
of
which have had cultural and economic ties with Maldives
for
centuries. Although under nominal Portuguese, Dutch, and
British
influences after the sixteenth century, Maldivians were
left to
govern themselves under a long line of sultans and
occasionally
sultanas.
Maldives gained independence in 1965. The British, who
had
been Maldives' last colonial power, continued to maintain
an air
base on the island of Gan in the southernmost atoll until
1976.
The British departure in 1976 almost immediately triggered
foreign speculation about the future of the air base; the
Soviet
Union requested use of the base, but Maldives refused.
The greatest challenge facing the republic in the early
1990s
was the need for rapid economic development and
modernization,
given the country's limited resource base in fishing and
tourism.
Concern was also evident over a projected long-term rise
in sea
level, which would prove disastrous to the low-lying coral
islands.
Maldivians consider the introduction of Islam in A.D.
1153 as
the cornerstone of their country's history. Islam remains
the
state religion in the 1990s. Except for a brief period of
Portuguese occupation from 1558-73, Maldives also has
remained
independent. Because the Muslim religion prohibits images
portraying gods, local interest in ancient statues of the
pre-
Islamic period is not only slight but at times even
hostile;
villagers have been known to destroy such statues recently
unearthed.
Western interest in the archaeological remains of early
cultures on Maldives began with the work of H.C.P. Bell, a
British commissioner of the Ceylon Civil Service. Bell was
shipwrecked on the islands in 1879, and he returned
several times
to investigate ancient Buddhist ruins. Historians have
established that by the fourth century A.D. Theravada
Buddhism
originating from Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) became the
dominant religion of the people of Maldives. Some scholars
believe that the name "Maldives" derives from the Sanskrit
maladvipa, meaning "garland of islands." In the
mid-1980s,
the Maldivian government allowed the noted explorer and
expert on
early marine navigation, Thor Heyerdahl, to excavate
ancient
sites. Heyerdahl studied the ancient mounds, called
hawitta by the Maldivians, found on many of the
atolls.
Some of his archaeological discoveries of stone figures
and
carvings from pre-Islamic civilizations are today
exhibited in a
side room of the small National Museum on Male.
Heyerdahl's research indicates that as early as 2,000
B.C.
Maldives lay on the maritime trading routes of early
Egyptian,
Mesopotamian, and Indus Valley civilizations. Heyerdahl
believes
that early sun-worshipping seafarers, called the Redin,
first
settled on the islands. Even today, many mosques in
Maldives face
the sun and not Mecca, lending credence to this theory.
Because
building space and materials were scarce, successive
cultures
constructed their places of worship on the foundations of
previous buildings. Heyerdahl thus surmises that these
sun-facing
mosques were built on the ancient foundations of the Redin
culture temples.
The interest of Middle Eastern peoples in Maldives
resulted
from its strategic location and its abundant supply of
cowrie
shells, a form of currency that was widely used throughout
Asia
and parts of the East African coast since ancient times.
Middle
Eastern seafarers had just begun to take over the Indian
Ocean
trade routes in the tenth century A.D. and found Maldives
to be
an important link in those routes. The importance of the
Arabs as
traders in the Indian Ocean by the twelfth century A.D.
may
partly explain why the last Buddhist king of Maldives
converted
to Islam in the year 1153. The king thereupon adopted the
Muslim
title and name of Sultan Muhammad al Adil, initiating a
series of
six dynasties consisting of eighty-four sultans and
sultanas that
lasted until 1932 when the sultanate became elective. The
person
responsible for this conversion was a
Sunni (see Glossary)
Muslim
visitor named Abu al Barakat. His venerated tomb now
stands on
the grounds of Hukuru Mosque, or miski, in the
capital of
Male. Built in 1656, this is the oldest mosque in
Maldives. Arab
interest in Maldives also was reflected in the residence
there in
the 1340s of the well-known North African traveler Ibn
Battutah.
In 1558 the Portuguese established themselves on
Maldives,
which they administered from Goa on India's west coast.
Fifteen
years later, a local guerrilla leader named Muhammad
Thakurufaan
organized a popular revolt and drove the Portuguese out of
Maldives. This event is now commemorated as National Day,
and a
small museum and memorial center honor the hero on his
home
island of Utim on South Tiladummati Atoll.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch, who had
replaced
the Portuguese as the dominant power in Ceylon,
established
hegemony over Maldivian affairs without involving
themselves
directly in local matters, which were governed according
to
centuries-old Islamic customs. However, the British
expelled the
Dutch from Ceylon in 1796 and included Maldives as a
British
protected area. The status of Maldives as a British
protectorate
was officially recorded in an 1887 agreement in which the
sultan
accepted British influence over Maldivian external
relations and
defense. The British had no presence, however, on the
leading
island community of Male. They left the islanders alone,
as had
the Dutch, with regard to internal administration to
continue to
be regulated by Muslim traditional institutions.
During the British era from 1887 to 1965, Maldives
continued
to be ruled under a succession of sultans. The sultans
were
hereditary until 1932 when an attempt was made to make the
sultanate elective, thereby limiting the absolute powers
of
sultans. At that time, a constitution was introduced for
the
first time, although the sultanate was retained for an
additional
twenty-one years. Maldives remained a British crown
protectorate
until 1953 when the sultanate was suspended and the First
Republic was declared under the short-lived presidency of
Muhammad Amin Didi. This first elected president of the
country
introduced several reforms. While serving as prime
minister
during the 1940s, Didi nationalized the fish export
industry. As
president he is remembered as a reformer of the education
system
and a promoter of women's rights. Muslim conservatives in
Male
eventually ousted his government, and during a riot over
food
shortages, Didi was beaten by a mob and died on a nearby
island.
Beginning in the 1950s, political history in Maldives
was
largely influenced by the British military presence in the
islands. In 1954 the restoration of the sultanate
perpetuated the
rule of the past. Two years later, Britain obtained
permission to
reestablish its wartime airfield on Gan in the
southernmost Addu
Atoll. Maldives granted the British a 100-year lease on
Gan that
required them to pay £2,000 a year, as well as some
forty-four
hectares on Hitaddu for radio installations. In 1957,
however,
the new prime minister, Ibrahim Nasir, called for a review
of the
agreement in the interest of shortening the lease and
increasing
the annual payment. But Nasir, who was theoretically
responsible
to then sultan Muhammad Farid Didi, was challenged in 1959
by a
local secessionist movement in the southern atolls that
benefited
economically from the British presence on Gan
(see Maldives, Armed Forces in National Life
, ch. 6). This group cut ties
with
the Maldives government and formed an independent state
with
Abdulla Afif Didi as president. The short-lived state
(1959-62),
called the United Suvadivan Republic, had a combined
population
of 20,000 inhabitants scattered in the atolls then named
Suvadiva--since renamed North Huvadu and South Huvadu--and
Addu
and Fua Mulaku. In 1962 Nasir sent gunboats from Male with
government police on board to eliminate elements opposed
to his
rule. Abdulla Afif Didi fled to the then British colony of
Seychelles, where he was granted political asylum.
Meanwhile, in 1960 Maldives allowed Britain to continue
to
use both the Gan and the Hitaddu facilities for a
thirty-year
period, with the payment of £750,000 over the period of
1960 to
1965 for the purpose of Maldives' economic development.
On July 26, 1965, Maldives gained independence under an
agreement signed with Britain. The British government
retained
the use of the Gan and Hitaddu facilities. In a national
referendum in March 1968, Maldivians abolished the
sultanate and
established a republic. The Second Republic was proclaimed
in
November 1968 under the presidency of Ibrahim Nasir, who
had
increasingly dominated the political scene. Under the new
constitution, Nasir was elected indirectly to a four-year
presidential term by the Majlis (legislature). He
appointed Ahmed
Zaki as the new prime minister. In 1973 Nasir was elected
to a
second term under the constitution as amended in 1972,
which
extended the presidential term to five years and which
also
provided for the election of the prime minister by the
Majlis. In
March 1975, newly elected prime minister Zaki was arrested
in a
bloodless coup and was banished to a remote atoll.
Observers
suggested that Zaki was becoming too popular and hence
posed a
threat to the Nasir faction.
During the 1970s, the economic situation in Maldives
suffered
a setback when the Sri Lankan market for Maldives' main
export of
dried fish collapsed. Adding to the problems was the
British
decision in 1975 to close its airfield on Gan in line with
its
new policy of abandoning defense commitments east of the
Suez
Canal. A steep commercial decline followed the evacuation
of Gan
in March 1976. As a result, the popularity of Nasir's
government
suffered. Maldives's twenty-year period of authoritarian
rule
under Nasir abruptly ended in 1978 when he fled to
Singapore. A
subsequent investigation revealed that he had absconded
with
millions of dollars from the state treasury.
Elected to replace Nasir for a five-year presidential
term in
1978 was Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a former university
lecturer and
Maldivian ambassador to the United Nations (UN). The
peaceful
election was seen as ushering in a period of political
stability
and economic development in view of Gayoom's priority to
develop
the poorer islands. In 1978 Maldives joined the
International Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary)
and the
World Bank (see Glossary).
Tourism also gained in importance to the local
economy, reaching more than 120,000 visitors in 1985. The
local
populace appeared to benefit from increased tourism and
the
corresponding increase in foreign contacts involving
various
development projects. Despite coup attempts in 1980, 1983,
and
1988, Gayoom's popularity remained strong, allowing him to
win
three more presidential terms. In the 1983, 1988, and 1993
elections, Gayoom received more than 95 percent of the
vote.
Although the government did not allow any legal
opposition,
Gayoom was opposed in the early 1990s by Islamists (also
seen as
fundamentalists) who wanted to impose a more traditional
way of
life and by some powerful local business leaders.
Whereas the 1980 and 1983 coup attempts against
Gayoom's
presidency were not considered serious, the third coup
attempt in
November 1988 alarmed the international community. About
eighty
armed Tamil mercenaries landed on Male before dawn aboard
speedboats from a freighter. Disguised as visitors, a
similar
number had already infiltrated Male earlier. Although the
mercenaries quickly gained the nearby airport on Hulele,
they
failed to capture President Gayoom, who fled from house to
house
and asked for military intervention from India, the United
States, and Britain. Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi
immediately dispatched 1,600 troops by air to restore
order in
Male. Less than twelve hours later, Indian paratroopers
arrived
on Hulele, causing some of the mercenaries to flee toward
Sri
Lanka in their freighter. Those unable to reach the ship
in time
were quickly rounded up. Nineteen people reportedly died
in the
fighting, and several taken hostage also died. Three days
later
an Indian frigate captured the mercenaries on their
freighter
near the Sri Lankan coast. In July 1989, a number of the
mercenaries were returned to Maldives to stand trial.
Gayoom
commuted the death sentences passed against them to life
imprisonment.
The 1988 coup had been headed by a once prominent
Maldivian
businessperson named Abdullah Luthufi, who was operating a
farm
on Sri Lanka. Ex-president Nasir denied any involvement in
the
coup. In fact, in July 1990, President Gayoom officially
pardoned
Nasir in absentia in recognition of his role in obtaining
Maldives' independence.
Data as of August 1994
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