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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 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) and the World
Bank. 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.
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