Sending Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) ships to claim maritime territory and fighting neighbors is a dangerous move, the consequences of which will be suffered by ordinary Maldivian citizens, says former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom.
Delivering his annual address on Thursday, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu told the Parliament that his administration refuses to accept the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)’s 2023 decision on the disputed maritime area between Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago.
Shortly after, the Defense Ministry issued a statement announcing that the MNDF will be patrolling the area.
At a townhall meeting on Sunday night by Yameen’s People’s National Front (PNF), the former Maldivian leader criticized his former ally, stating that President Muizzu needs to go to international courts if he wants to reclaim the maritime territory that the former Maldivian administration ceded to Mauritius, not attempt to “wage war” against the country’s neighbors.
He accused President Muizzu of acting on impulse.
“You don’t send naval ships and attempt to fight our neighbors just because [First Lady] Sajidha [Mohamed] or Muizzu sees a dream one night. This cant be done. This is dangerous. This will be a burden the people will find hard to bear,” he said.
“If we want to get this done, we need to go to international courts. We need to go to ITLOS.”
Yameen also questioned the motivation behind President Muizzu’s sudden decision to retract a letter sent to Mauritius government by his predecessor, former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih back in 2022, acknowledging Mauritius’ sovereign authority over the Chagos archipelago, despite having been in office for over two years.
President-elect Dr Mohamed Muizzu looks on as former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom greets supporters gather outside his residence on October 1, 2023. (Sun Photo/Maahil Athif)
Yameen alleges President Muizzu is using the Chagos dispute to secure votes for the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) in the Local Council Elections slated for April 4.
“Pretending to be doing something about this suddenly with an election in sight after having ignored this issue for the last two years… There’s no goodwill, is there? These people cannot get this done. They even chose the wrong path forward. They need to be heading back to ITLOS,” he said.
Yameen also questioned who President Muizzu’s administration plans to wage war against by sending MNDF ships.
“Are we setting out to find misfortunes for ourselves? In any case, we need to abide by international law. We aren’t strong enough to flout international laws and act like America,” he said.
He drew parallels between President Muizzu’s stance on Chagos and US President Donald Trump’s pursuit of Greenland.
But this isn’t a chance for President Muizzu to follow the example of President Trump, said Yameen.
In the aftermath of the objections raised by President Muizzu last week, the British government said that the sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is a matter only between the United Kingdom and Mauritius, and President Trump dropped his earlier objection and announced his backing of the UK-Mauritius deal on Chagos.
Yameen said that this has given Indian journalists the chance to ridicule the Maldives before the international community.
“He [President Muizzu] is so impulsive. He just says whatever comes to mind. This is why everything he does backfires,” he said.
Yameen reiterated his stance that Maldives needs to reclaim the “lost” maritime territory, but criticized the path chosen by President Muizzu to do so.
He also hit back at Indian news reports claiming Minicoy, locally known as Maliku, located in India's Lakshadweep archipelago, was never a part of the Maldives and always belonged to India.
“Maliku or Minicoy or Lakshadweep as it is now called was once under the Maldives’ sovereignty. This is why the people there still speak the Dhivehi language. Maliku is a place that King Hassan IX ceded to Ali Raja of Kannanooruge in exchange for protection from the Portuguese,” said Yameen.
Chagos Archipelago. (Photo/Getty Images)
UK, which had severed the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before independence, claiming it to be a part of British-Indian Ocean Territory in the Indian Ocean, had forcibly deported over thousands of inhabitants of Diego Garcia, the largest of the 60 small islands in the archipelago, so that they could lease the island to the US for a military base.
Maldives became involved in the dispute as the country's exclusive economic zone overlaps with that of Chagos.
In April 2023, the ITLOS concluded that the 95,563 square kilometer area between Mauritius and Maldives would be divided between the two using the equidistance formula.
The ruling granted the Maldives 47,232 square kilometers, while awarding 45,331 square kilometers to Mauritius.
However, President Muizzu’s PNC has long asserted that the Maldives is entitled to the entire 95,563 square kilometers.
On Thursday, President Muizzu reiterated his assertion that Solih’s administration of deliberately surrendering part of the Maldives’ maritime territory, and announced the decision to establish a presidential commission to conduct an inquiry into the previous administration’s handling of the Chagos dispute.
For the longest time, UK refused to comply with decisions by international bodies urging the handover of Chagos Islands to Mauritius – deeming the British occupation of the islands illegal. This included the 2019 decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest court.
In a turn of events, UK agreed to Mauritius regarding handover of Chagos in November 2022, and in 2025, the UK signed a multibillion-dollar deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. The deal allowed Britain to retain control of the strategically important US-UK air base on Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease.