User:FaranjiPyrard/Maldives History TimeLine from 1900

 Faranji   Pyrard   22:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

= Chronology =

Significant historical events in the Maldives from 20th Century to present.

December 1900

 * King Imadudeen VI leaves for haj
 * Demands oath of loyalty from important chiefs before he leaves. Former Chief Minister Ibrahim Didi (Bodu Doshimeyna Kilegefan) moves to Colombo and does not return until recalled by new king in 1903.

June 1901

 * King Imadudeen VI returns to Malè from haj

October 1901

 * After receiving petitions from Borah traders protesting the actions of King Imadudeen VI, British in Ceylon refuse to intervene.

December 1901

 * Second scientific expedition to Maldives led by Alexander Agassiz. The first expedition, organized by Cambridge university in UK and led by Stanley Gardiner had visited Maldives in 1899.

November 1902

 * King Imadudeen VI leaves Maldives for Egypt to marry Sharifa Hanim, the daughter of the Persian (Iranian) consul in Egypt, Abdurahman Kami Bey. They later have a daughter.

March 1903

 * King Shamsudeen III enthroned in Maldives.

April 1903

 * Governor of Ceylon refuses to recognise king Shamsudeen.

May 1903

 * King Shamsudeen and his ministers demand inquiry by British into ex-king Imadudeen VI. British Lieutenant- governor E. F. Thurn visits Malè to investigate complaints against the former king. Imadudeen VI sails to Malè but does not reach the capital until day after Thurn has completed his inquiry and left Maldives. Imadudeen VI does not land in Malè, but returns to Colombo to petition British for support. SS Umona wrecked on Maamutaa Island, north of Viligili, on northeastern Huvadhu atoll, en route from Calcutta to South Africa. Nine passengers and 500 ‘Indian coolies’ aboard were well-treated by Maldivians and transported to Colombo on the SS Umra.

June 1903

 * British governor indicates sympathy with Thurn’s report which recommends recognition of king Shamsudeen.

January 1904

 * After Imadudeen VI’s state debts and annual allowances of Rp9,125 per year have been arranged, British recognise King Shamsudeen III.

October 1904

 * Ibrahim Didi (Bodu Doshimeyna Kilegefan) appointed as chief minister, and holds this post until his death in 1925. His sons and half-brother assist him during his administration. During the following decades, half-brother Abdulla Didi reorganises and commands the militia and the palace guard. Eldest son Ahmed Didi (Kuda Doshimeyna Kilegefan) becomes royal secretary and controls the customs and post office. Second son Abdul Majeed Didi becomes treasurer and controller of revenue. Third son Abdul Hameed Didi controls customs from 1905-1908, and then transfers to Colombo to be the Maldivian Government Representative resident in Ceylon.

July 1905

 * Official British visit to Malè for the ‘Assumption of the State Sword’ (equivalent to formal coronation) ceremony of King Shamsudeen. Following an ancient tradition, the chief of Kelaa Island on Haa Alifu atoll and the chief of Isdhoo Island on Laamu atoll, as representatives of the northern and southern Atolls, give their public support and approval to king Shamsudeen. Abdul Majeed Didi is leading organiser of the ceremony.

September 1905

 * SS Crusader wrecked on Maldives. Lloyd’s Agents seek clarification of the salvage law for Maldives. British administration backs the prevailing Maldive law at that time, which gives half the salvaged items to the Maldive government and the Maldivians who save the goods, and half to the original owners.

November 1905

 * Malinge Hassan Didi (Velanage Manikfan) and his sons Mohamed and Ibrahim Didi escape to Colombo from Laamu atoll where they had been exiled for treason against Shamsudeen. British decline to assist them and warn them against political action in Maldives.

The Year  1906
Post Office established in Malè.

November 1906

 * King Shamsudeen notifies British in Ceylon that Hassan Didi and his sons had hired ‘Karachi Pathans’ at Trincomalee (eastern Ceylon) under the leadership of a soldier, Amir Khan. Arms had been collected, according to Shamsudeen, and the steamer Jaffna had been hired to transport the rebels and mercenaries from the coast of India and land in Malè at night. British police in Madras investigate the Jaffna, which is harboured there, and report nothing suspicious.

May 1907

 * Abdulla Didi and Ali Didi (former treasurer of Imadudeen VI), the brothers of Ehgamuge Ahmed Didi (Hakura Manikfan), escape to Colombo from banishment over treason charges. They tell British that their brother Ahmed Didi had been brought back from exile in Maamigili to Malè and tortured.

June 1907

 * Shamsudeen tells British that in April a conspiracy had been discovered and the traitors had been exiled. Abdulla Didi had been exiled to Huraa island just north of Malè where his brother Ali was already exiled. Shamsudeen says both brothers had escaped in a small boat at night. Captain C. S. Hickley of the HMS Highflyer is asked to make report on possible torture of Ahmed Didi. He reports on 25 June that the allegations are ‘without foundation’. Nevertheless, British warn Shamsudeen against the use of torture.

October 1907

 * After the death of Malinge Hassan Didi in Civil Hospital, Colombo, his sons Mohamed and Ibrahim Didi visit Calicut and Minicoy island, and in early October they land with armed Indian mercenaries in three northern islands in Maldives. Malè militia sails to attack them, and invaders retreat to Laccadives.

September 1908

 * British receive information that ex-king Imadudeen VI, using the alias Mohamed Iskander, arrived incognito in Bombay on 28 August with two French men. He later identified himself as the king of Maldives and then sailed to Calicut carrying valuable jewellery and accompanied by one of the French men. Imadudeen and this man were arrested by the British in Calicut, pending instructions from Ceylon. Calicut police ordered to prevent Imadudeen from traveling to Maldives and to threaten him with loss of pension and allowances if he does not return immediately to Suez.

October 1908

 * Imadudeen leaves Calicut sails for Suez via Bombay, on 8 October, after unsuccessful attempt to regain throne of Maldives.

August 1909

 * British : governor of Ceylon makes official visit to Malè.

December 1909

 * Mohamed and Ibrahim Didi, the sons of Malinge Hassan Didi, and Abdulla Didi, related by marriage to Imadudeen VI, lead armed expedition from Karachi and land in Hinnavaru island on Lhaviyani atoll. They move on to Kagi island in Malè atoll, and then occupy Bandos island just north of the capital. Indians surrender on Bandos to Malè militia, and the three rebel Maldivians are soon arrested. The Maldivians are exiled and the Indians are pardoned and returned at government expense to India.

The Year  1911

 * Ex-king Imadudeen’s Maldive wife joins him in Egypt and his total allowance is increased to Rp11,680 per year.

The Year  1914

 * At start of war, imported food and other goods increase suddenly in price. Trade in the capital is controlled by Borah’s, Indian nationals’ resident in Malè. Government in Malè sends grain to atolls to alleviate the food shortages. Famine does not occur in Maldives. Malè and other islands are full of huge breadfruit trees and in the capital there are many mango trees. papayas, sweet potatoes and pumpkins grow throughout the islands.  Construction of king Shamsudeen’s Mulee-aage palace begins. Completed in 1919.

16 April 1916

 * Historian Abdul Hakeem Hussein Manik born in Malè.

1917/1922

 * Government accounts show spending on chiefs and militia is half of total government expenditure. During WW1, a mine is washed onto the beach at Kudarikilu Island in Baa atoll. Twelve people fishing found it. One of them hits it with a stick and it explodes. The people near the bomb are blown to pieces, and pieces of skin and bone are plastered on the trunks of coconut trees.

April 1917

 * British military seaplane wrecked near Filitheyo Island on Faafu Atoll. Pilots rescued by fishing boats from Fieeali and Bileiydhoo Islands. Seaplane is with two warships, British and French, sheltering between Ari and Malè Atolls.

September/October 1917

 * German warship Wolf hides in southern atolls with a captured Japanese ship, and reconnoitres by seaplane.

January 1920

 * British present king Shamsudeen with the ‘Warrant and Insignia of Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George’. Formal presentation ceremony in Malè.


 * British administrator H.C.P. Bell accompanies the visiting party to Malè. Bell has been instructed to revise his ‘Report on the Maldive Islands’ prepared for the Ceylon government in 1881, to locate the historical records known as the Tareek in Shamsudeen’s archives, and to investigate the history and archaeological remains of Buddhism in Maldives. Bell is given only three weeks for these tasks.

The Year  1922

 * 300 Deaths from influenza in Malè

February 1922

 * H.C.P. Bell leaves Ceylon for long official research trip to Maldives (his third visit). Accompanied by W.L. de Silva and other staff. The captain and officers of the HMS Comus and Bell meet Shamsudeen, then the Comus cruises in the northern atolls for six days while Bell remains in Malè. Bell and his staff, accompanied by Haji Ismail Didi, then cruise directly to Addu atoll. Examine Buddhist remains in Gan island, and an old coral rock fort on Hithadhoo. They visit Fua Mulak quickly because Prince Izudeen wants the Comus to take him to Colombo. Bell and his staff remain in Malè while the Comus transports Izudeen to Ceylon.

March 1922

 * Shamsudeen’s son Prince Hassan Izudeen (educated in Colombo until 1920) returns to Ceylon to pay homage to the Prince of Wales during his Indian tour. Izudeen does not return to Malè until 1924.


 * Shamsudeen grants Bell use of the Maldive government schooner Fathul-Majeed, and Haji Ismail Didi accompanies the expedition again. Sails to Gan island on Laam atoll and investigates Buddhist ruins there for ten days. Moves north to Mundhoo island to examine more ruins. Across the Veymandhoo channel in Guraidhoo island on Thaa atoll, Bell sees the traditional grave of king Usman I (late 1300s). In Kolhufushi island (now joined with an adjacent island and renamed Kolhuvaariyaafushi) on Meemu atoll, Bell is shown an old rusted Portuguese sword believed to have belonged to the sixteenth century Maldive hero Mohamed Bodu Takurufan. The sword was kept at the main island mosque. Later, in Guraidhoo Island on Malè atoll, Bell examines the grave of King Hussein II who died in 1620. Back in Malè, Bell and his staff gather information for five months before they leave in September.

The Year  1924

 * Prince Abdulla Imadudeen, the eldest son of ex-King Imadudeen VI arrives in Ceylon and lobbies king Shamsudeen to allow him to return to Maldives. Shamsudeen eventually agrees.

January 1925

 * Prince Abdulla Imadudeen arrives in Malè and permitted to occupy his grandfather’s house. Prince Abdulla found to be conspiring against Shamsudeen, and his fellow plotters are exiled. Prince Abdulla is held on a boat in Malè harbour for a week and then deported to Ceylon in March. His allowance from the Maldive government ceases.

2 December 1926

 * Ibrahim Nasir is born.

The Year  1928

 * Prince Abdulla Imadudeen returns to Egypt from Ceylon.

April 1928

 * Government school Madharusathul-Saniyya opens in Malè. Arabic language studies and Islamic lessons are taught.

The Year  1930

 * Japanese survey ship visits Maldives and cruises around the atolls for months.

April 1930

 * British governor meets with chief minister Abdul Majeed in Ceylon and learns that, due to his personal behaviour, Maldives crown prince Hassan Izudeen is unacceptable as successor to his father king Shamsudeen. Majeed agrees reluctantly to improve educational opportunities for men and women in Maldives.

The Year  1931

 * Population of Maldives is around 80,000 Senior British diplomat Sir Bernard Bourdillon, who speaks Arabic and Hindi and has Middle East experience, visits Maldives and meets king Shamsudeen. He speaks with many others in Malè and argues persuasively for political reform.

February 1932

 * Chief minister Abdul Majeed ceases opposing reforms and allows a special Majlis to prepare the constitution.

14 September 1932

 * Abdul Majeed resigns from Maldive government.

22 September 1932

 * King Shamsudeen established advisory committee including Mohamed and Hassan Fareed.

December 1932

 * King Mohamed Shamsudeen proclaims Maldives’ first constitution. Chief Ministers are Mohamed and Hassan Fareed, with Hussein Salahudeen as chief judge.

The Year  1933

 * Abdul Majeed moves to Egypt with younger son and associates, and Maldives government allowance of Rp25, 000 per month. His older sons Hassan and Mohamed Fareed remain in Maldives. New government announces many changes to laws.

August 1933

 * Maldive government ceases allowances to Imadudeen’s family in Egypt. They are permitted to return to Maldives.

November 1933

 * ‘Motorboat rebellion’ occurs when the Malè militia, acting under orders from king Mohamed Shamsudeen and Abdul Majeed, attack many of the ministers, the chief judge and their property, and destroy the government set up under the first constitution.

2 June 1934

 * Second constitution proclaimed. It is based on the first 1932 constitution with amendments by Abdul Majeed.

October 1934

 * King Mohamed Shamsudeen removed from power by a sitting of a special Majlis controlled by Abdul Majeed from his home in Egypt. Majeed’s son, Hassan Fareed, becomes the dictator of Maldives.

22 February 1935

 * King Hassan Noorudeen, also known as Maajehi Palace Manipulu, is chosen to be king with ceremonial powers only.

1936
/37


 * Third constitution proclaimed with more amendments from Abdul Majeed.

September 1937

 * H.C.P. Bell dies.

29 December 1937

 * Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom is born (This is his birth date according to his authorised biography, but people close to the family insist he was born in 1932.) His father is Maafaiyge Dhon Seedi (also known as Ibrahim Maafaiy Takurufan), a Malè official and descendant of a slave trader from Zanzibar. His mother is Khaddadhi (also known as Khadeeja Moosa) from Huvadhu atoll.

The Year  1938
July 1938===


 * Formal coronation of king Hassan Noorudeen II. Hassan Fareed acts as the master of ceremonies. British report that Prince Hassan Imadudeen and his wife have returned to Egypt from Maldives, complaining that Mohamed and Hassan Fareed have forbidden foreign dress, prohibit travel abroad, prohibit marriage to foreigners, prohibit schools, prohibit foreign newspapers and journals, and exempt themselves and their families from all these rules. Bicycles are banned in Maldives.

The Year  1940

 * Rice rationed in Maldives by Hassan Fareed, one cup per person in Malè, half cup per person in other islands. During WW2, government salaries and rice rations are halved to Rp12.5 per month and just over 12 kilos of rice per month.


 * The Maldive Islands: Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy, by H.C.P. Bell (and W. L. de Silva) is published in Ceylon by the Colombo Government Printer. There is a negative reaction to the books publication by the wartime British administration and security services. One complaint raises the concern that it is ‘perhaps surprising that its publication should have been sanctioned just at this moment, when paper economy is so important’, while an officer in the Naval Intelligence Division writes, ‘I do not feel that the report contains anything which would be of much value to the enemy, but agree this type of publication should not be generally released at the present time’.

January 1940

 * A special Majlis repeals constitution.

September 1941

 * British Royal marines land on Addu atoll to establish secret Port T base. They establish coastal batteries, searchlights, signal towers, roads, camps and jetties for a naval base. Within three months, nearly a quarter of this group have to abandon their work due to sickness.


 * A British account of the 1941/42 work on Addu, published in The Times in 1945, says: ‘The climate on Addu was hot and very damp. Flies and mosquito’s and rats were very plentiful. Practically every drop of water had to be shipped to the atoll and landed across the beach. Supplies were seldom sufficient to allow for washing. The Royal Marines soon found that every small scratch immediately turned septic and developed into an ulcer that refused to yield to treatment. The humid climate favoured the growth of micro organisms that ate the skin from the flesh, while the diet of dry or tinned food with no green vegetables or fresh fruit reduced a man’ s resistance to infections. Soon a form of scrub typhus, born of the rats and their parasites broke out. While working, a man would suddenly full unconscious without having previously complained of sickness. A violent fever followed for 14 days, leaving the victim weak and debilitated. Malaria appeared in malignant form, but never became a serious menace owing to stringent anti malarial precautions. Another problem was the rapid deterioration of tinned food that caused the quartermaster great anxiety and gave rise to the occasional case of food poisoning’.

The Year  1942

 * The total population of Maldives in 1942 is 94,057 people.


 * Royal Marine Engineers arrive on Addu and construct airport with three runways on Gan island. Gan islanders are moved to adjacent Feydhoo and Maradhoo for several years.


 * Maldives dictator Hassan Fareed moves to Ceylon with his family and buys a property in Kandy with Rp60,000 intended for national food rice supplies in Maldives. Fareed’s cousin, Mohamed Ameen, rules in his absence.

January 1942

 * First convoy of five troopships, escorted by the cruiser Emerald, arrive at Addu to water and refuel.

April 1942

 * Japanese attack Ceylon, bombing Colombo and Trincomalee. Japan’s main motive was to attack the British Eastern Fleet which was commanded by Admiral Sir James Sommerville. Aware the attack was coming; Sommerville had withdrawn the entire fleet from Colombo harbour and sent them 450 miles southwest to hide at Addu atoll. Fourth constitution proclaimed in Maldives.

July 1942

 * Reports that Japanese are broadcasting in Dhivehi from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).


 * British request that the Maldive king assume emergency powers. He does so in August, sharing power with two ministers. Hussein Hilmy Didi, the Maldive representative in Colombo, assumes the powers for Addu.

December 1942

 * Bodu Store, specially built by Abdul Majeed, opens in Malè and begins buying and selling dried fish from the atolls.

The Year  1943

 * Mohamed Ameen lowers rice ration to half cup per person in Malè, and quarter cup per person in other islands.

March 1943

 * Famine leads to revolt in the northern atolls called the Northern Uprising. Thousands of people sail to Malè and demanding a Majlis meeting, reinstatement of ex king Noorudeen, private merchants be permitted to buy fish, a reduction in customs duties and freedom to visit islands whenever they liked. Mohamed Ameen handles negotiations and agrees to the Majlis meeting and grants freedom of travel. In the following days, Ameen intimidates and bribes some of the leaders and threats to shoot others. Leaders who refuse to accept Ameen’s decisions are beaten and exiled. Hassan Fareed replaces Hussein Hilmy Didi as Maldive representative in Ceylon. Commutes between Kandy and Colombo by car.

April 1943

 * King Hassan Noorudeen abdicates and becomes head of council of regency which invites Abdul Majeed to be king (sultan) of Maldives.

May 1943

 * British governor investigates activities of Abdul Majeed in Egypt. Governor has received information that Hussein Hilmy is being accused of corruption and Abdul Majeed is likely to be the new king.

June 1943

 * Majeed tells British he does not wish to be king and is happy for the council of regency to continue. British accept Abdul Majeed as an aristocrat, worthy of the throne.

July 1943

 * German U boats move into Indian Ocean and Penang in Japanese occupied Southeast Asia.

December 1943

 * British Flight Lieutenant Walker arrives in Maldives to investigate wartime food shortages and the Maldive fishing industry.

4 January 1944

 * Inquiry into Food Conditions in the Maldive Islands and Investigation into Difficulties of the Maldivian Fishing Industry released by Flight Lieutenant Walker. The report says starvation was worse in the northern islands due to a decreased fish catch. This decreased income from fish while import prices were increasing. ‘It would appear that the government has made a great effort looking to their difficulties of finance and communication, to alleviate suffering, but that a combination of many unfavourable circumstances has been too much for them’.


 * Walker’s scheme for importing more food by guaranteeing fish exports is acclaimed by some, but impeded by cabinet in Maldives. ‘They were wary that the Civil Defence Commissioner was a Sinhalese and the elderly cabinet members did not want to enter into any agreement with a Sinhalese’. This was the ‘chief difficulty’ with the scheme. The younger ones were less prejudiced. They were happy with an amendment which meant their fish guarantees were to the British commander-in-chief, and not a Sinhalese.


 * Walker comments that ‘the illness of Mohamed Ameen from malaria left the Maldivian ship of state completely rudderless’.

February 1944

 * Rebellion in Addu after two militia leaders from Malè, Buchaa Hassan Kaleyfan and Dada Kasim Kaleyfan, are stationed in Addu to prevent any food trading or transfer of items between Addu islanders and members of the British base. Buchaa and Dada Kasim’s abuse, beatings and torture, and abuse of women, led to a small revolt in Hithadhoo. Buchaa is protected by the British on Hithadhoo until the arrival of Hassan Fareed to assess the situation.

March 1944

 * British governor in Ceylon writes, ‘Abdul Majid seems not to have given any final answer to the offer to him of the throne, but he appears to keep in correspondence with the Maldivian government as a sort of distant advisor. The Council of Regency continues to function satisfactorily’.


 * Hassan Fareed assures the people of Hithadhoo that all is forgiven and there will be no retribution for the attacks on Buchaa and his men. Fareed takes Buchaa with him when he leaves. The British vessel lands Buchaa at an atoll south of Malè, and then Fareed cruises directly towards Ceylon.

31 March 1944

 * Hassan Fareed, the son of Abdul Majeed, declared dead after Japanese submarine sinks the British vessel HMS Malloy carrying him and British Flight Lieutenant Walker and others between Maldives and Ceylon. Mohamed Ameen, who has been ruling in Maldives as Fareed’s proxy, now becomes a virtual dictator answerable only to his uncle Abdul Majeed who lives in Egypt.

June 1944

 * British governor writes that ‘no representations on the food situation were received from the Maldivian Government Representative’.

July 1944

 * Mohamed Ameen visits Addu. In Malè, he has listened to Buchaa’s version of events. Enemies of Afeef’s family in Hithadhoo are also capitalising on the situation; accusations of threats and black magic rites against Hassan Fareed combine with rumours of letters between the British and Abdulla Afeef discussing Addu’s possible succession to Britain. Afeef has formed friendly relationships with the British, and when Ameen demanded to see all correspondence, he interprets Afeef’s reticence as a sign of guilt. Abdullah Afeef and other members of his family and friends are taken to Malè, convicted, tied prostrate facedown on the ground and publicly flogged with a long rod of several bound rattan canes. Chilli powder is poured into their open cuts, leaving lifelong scars. The men are then exiled to other atolls for years. Afeef is exiled for seven years.


 * Regarding the suggestion of regular inspection visits to Malè from Ceylon, the British governor writes on 26 July that ‘the government of the Maldives is extremely sensitive in regard to such measures and would not welcome the suggestion’.

October 1944

 * Fifth constitution (based on third constitution) proclaimed.

The Year  1945

 * Abdul Majeed returns briefly to Malè. First he visit Ceylon and sells Hassan Fareed’s residence in Kandy and purchases a commercial building in Colombo. Part of the rent goes to his sons Mohamed Fareed and Ibrahim Fareed.

The Year  1947

 * British give Mohamed Ameen 300,000 pounds sterling. Money is compensation from the Japanese for the families of the victims of the sinking of the Addu ship Yahunbarahu during WW2. The vessel had been owned by Ali Didi, the son of Elha Didi. Only two people escaped death on this odi, Mohamed Manikfan of Sikage house, and Ibrahim Didi, the son of Abeya. These two were imprisoned in Singapore by the Japanese after the odi was gunned and sunk. Later, when the British recaptured Singapore they were sent back to Maldives with clear details of the ship’s accounts handed to them by their British rescuers. Mohamed Ameen summoned them to the Home Ministry and ordered them to hand over the documents they’d received. Mohamed Ameen kept the money and ignored the victims’ families.


 * Sept 1947===


 * Report from the British Chief of Staff committee says, UK ‘must retain freedom of action to develop such air and naval facilities as we may require in Maldive Islands’.


 * Maumoon Gayyoom, then officially nearly 10 years old, leaves Malè for education in Ceylon and Egypt.

5 November 1947

 * Last annual tribute to Ceylon.

The Year  1948

 * British Maldives agreement confirms Maldives’ protectorate status in the British empire. Abdul Majeed travels from Egypt to sign the agreement. Majeed praises Mohamed Ameen and awards him a new title


 * Dhoshimeyna.

The Year  1949

 * During the 1940s, Ameen builds a number of luxury houses for his female lovers and male friends. These constructions inflate building prices in Malè. In the atolls, Ameen orders the construction of wide roads through the villages. Using the islanders as slave labour under threat of torture, wide roads are cleared through ancient settlements. Apart from economic losses, there are many negative social and environmental effects.

The Year  1950

 * Mohamed Ameen suffering from two chronic diseases


 * diabetes and high blood pressure. His tonsils were always infected and he often has a high temperature. Ameen regularly takes disprins and other stronger medication.

March 1950

 * Maumoon Gayyoom, officially 13, leaves Colombo for Egypt.

The Year  1951

 * Serious famine spreading in atolls and islands. Food shortages throughout Maldives and Malè.

May 1951

 * Sixth constitution proclaimed.

The Year  1952

 * British survey Gan island on Addu atoll for future military airfield development.

February 1952

 * Electricity available in Malè. King Abdul Majeed, resident in Egypt and traveling in Ceylon, dies there on 21 February. Buried in Ceylon.

April 1952

 * Referendum in Malè, instigated by a meeting of a special Majlis, decides Maldives should become a republic.

August 1952

 * For the first time, women employed as clerks, and elite women are permitted to wear saris.

December 1952

 * First meeting of the People’s Majlis. Woman elected as speaker.

1 January 1953

 * Seventh constitution proclaimed and republican government formed in Malè with Mohamed Ameen as the country’s first president. Two weeks of government sponsored celebration in Malè. Widespread famine and malnutrition, endemic since the beginning of WW2, continue in Maldives.


 * Ameen’s rule as president is a disaster. He enforces strict censorship, bans tobacco, and enforces the amputation of the hands as a sharia penalty. Hakeem Didi and three fellow conspirators from Viligili island in Huvadhu atoll are accused of murdering the Huvadhu atoll chief, and plotting the murder of Mohamed Ameen using black magic. Torture and executions follow.


 * Ameen’s misappropriation of public funds becomes common knowledge. Only families close to Ameen are receiving good food. Tainted flour is released in the general market.

May 1953

 * The Times reports ‘Maldives appeals to Ceylon for food, 7,500 bags of flour dispatched, and Rp300, 000 worth sent on loan basis.

21 August 1953

 * Mohamed Ameen removed from power and held comfortably, served by 13 attendants, in Dhoonidhoo island just north of Malè.


 * Historian Abdul Hakeem Hussein Manik writes of this time: Everyone yelled out that that there was no republican rule, no democracy and no rights for the people in the constitution. ‘The constitution was written to give Mohamed Ameen the right to do whatever he liked,’ the crowd shouted.


 * The population of Maldives has been halved from 80,000 to 40,000 by famine. Major Borah traders and shop owners are owed Rf5,800,000 and another two shops are owed Rf300,000. As well, the government owes 700,000 Ceylon rupees to the Umbuchi company. Ibrahim Ali Didi (also known as Ibrahim Faamladeyri Kilegefan) and Ibrahim Mohamed Didi are the joint leaders of the new government of ministers.

31 December 1953

 * Ameen returns to Malè and is severely beaten when he attempts to regain control. At an investigation, Ameen says, ‘I admit that I have betrayed the nation more than anyone else has in a very long time’. Twenty-four people arrested with Ameen are tried and sentenced to lashes and banishment.

The Year  1954

 * Maumoon Gayyoom’s mother Khaddadhi dies in Malè after his father marries a new wife.

18 January 1954

 * Mohamed Ameen dies of his injuries in Vihamanaafushi island (now Kurumba resort) just north of Malè.

March 1954

 * Mohamed Fareed, 53 years old (and son of the deceased Abdul Majeed), becomes king of Maldives. Ibrahim Ali Didi appointed prime minister. Ministry of Education created by the Majlis. Voting age (for men only) lowered from 25 to 21 years.

July 1954

 * Majlis rescinds many of the laws passed by Mohamed Ameen, including the ban on tobacco imports and the chopping of hands as punishment.

November 1954

 * First budget submitted to the Majlis. Debt to Ceylon is now less than Rf500,000. '''1955 April 1955 ===


 * Ibrahim Nasir, Mohamed Zaki, Ahmed Didi (Maajehige) and Kolige Umar Manik are appointed to cabinet.

July 1955

 * Majlis decides the current Maldive government has no responsibility for any crimes committed by Mohamed Ameen’s government.

The Year  1956

 * Ceylon PM. Bandaranaike refuses to allow British to stay in Trincomalee and Katunayake. British complete a full survey of proposed military project on Addu atoll. May 1956 ===


 * Municipal council formed in Malè.

June 1956

 * Ibrahim Nasir becomes minister for public order and safety.

15 December 1956

 * Without consulting the Majlis or cabinet, King Mohamed Fareed and Prime Minister Ibrahim Ali Didi sign an initial agreement with British to accept 2,000 pounds for a 100 years lease for an airfield in Gan island on Addu atoll, and a Radio Communications Station in Hithadhoo island. Soon afterwards, a British representative, Cruikshank, arrives in Malè and says the British are going to help the Maldive economy. He promises to motorise the main government ship and to provide investment in the fishing industry. Cruikshank begins a serious investigation of the economic state of Maldives and he counts the number of banknotes that have been printed. Ibrahim Mohamed Didi leads the opposition to any sharing of economic information with the British, but Ibrahim Ali Didi wants to co-operate fully with them. Ibrahim Mohamed Didi has been ill, and when he leaves for treatment in Ceylon, Ibrahim Nasir becomes treasurer and deputy police minister.

January/February 1957

 * British begin construction of military base on Gan island in Addu atoll, southern Maldives, before Maldive Majlis has ratified the agreement. The company Richard Costain Ltd moves heavy machinery into Addu. Cabinet ministers defy Ibrahim Ali Didi and refuse to sign the agreement with the British High Commissioner. Estimated cost of project is 2 million pounds. Two year contract awarded to Costain Ltd.

March 1957

 * Ceylon PM Bandaranaike, half joking, claims Maldives may be considered a dependency of Ceylon. However it is noted that the Ceylon Constitution Order in Council specifically excludes Maldives as a dependency of Ceylon. Ministry of education announces that some Arabic letters are being dropped from the Thaana alphabet and replaced with new Dhivehi consonants.


 * Allan Villiers’ account of visit to Malè appears in National Geographic. The capital has no regular steamship or air links. King Mohamed Fareed has a small automobile and there are two light trucks for handing cargo. A motorship in Malè harbour is commanded by a former German submarine commander. In Dhoonidhoo island near Malè, there is a ‘spacious bungalow, a hard tennis court (put there Villiers was told, by the staff of a Royal Air Force radio station during WW2), and the remains of an American amphibian aircraft’.

October 1957

 * Epidemic of Asian flu affects over 50% of 800-900 Gan islanders awaiting permanent resettlement.


 * Ibrahim Ali Didi faces hostile reception on Addu from 800 Gan islanders when he tells them they cannot move to their preferred new island of Gan in Huvadhu atoll. They learn they must resettle in adjacent Feydhoo and Maradhoo. Island women refuse to allow Ibrahim Ali Didi to land on Feydhoo and pelt him with water, stones and coconut husks.

December 1957

 * Ibrahim Ali Didi resigns after a Malè mob surrounds his house, and Majlis nominates Ibrahim Nasir (31 years old) as new chief minister.

The Year  1958

 * Nasir begins series of meetings in Malè to discuss the future of the Maldives fishing industry.


 * Nasir flies to Sri Lanka and gives Koli Umar Manik, and his son Ali Umar Manik, financial control over the Maldive representation in Sri Lanka. Nasir stops the practice of the Maldive representative holding the passports of visiting or resident Maldivians and controlling where they live in Sri Lanka. Nasir arranges for young Maldive women to attend tertiary education courses overseas.

January 1958

 * Gregorian calendar date system adopted from 1 January.


 * Two Feydhoo (Addu) women admit to affairs with Sri Lankan workers from Gan. Fighting breaks out between Maldivians and Sri Lankan workers. Many Sri Lankans removed from Gan and replaced with Pakistanis. Maldive government complains about the state of the 500 ton ship Addiyatal Rahman, which had been found drifting in the Indian Ocean by a Russian vessel, and then presented in poor condition to Maldives by the British.

March 1958

 * British High Commissioner arrives in Malè aboard the HMS Gambia and stays in the harbour for twenty days. Malè population considers the presence of the Commissioner’s ship is provocative. A smoking ritual is performed a group of men wearing black hold a smoking urn aboard a small vessel that travels around the HMS Gambia and Dhoonidhoo island. As it passes the Gambia, smoke is blown onto the British ship. The black magic smoke ritual is organised by Ibrahim Manik Dhon Manik of Endherimaage house, the father of Nasreena Ibrahim (Maumoon Gayyoom’s future wife), and Ilyas and Abbas Ibrahim. Abbas Ibrahim made an effigy of the British ship and moved it whenever the ship changed its mooring position. After eight days of black magic, the Gambia leaves Malè.


 * Sri Lankan carpenter murdered on Feydhoo, Addu, over affair with a Feydhoo woman. Another Sri Lankan dies in a construction accident and the government of Ceylon bans its citizens from working at the base.


 * Majlis rejects the Addu agreement with the British, and negotiations between the new Nasir government and the British, regarding the Gan base, are protracted, but work continues with full government support in Gan. Women allowed again into government jobs.

May 1958

 * Thiladhunmathi atoll divided in half for administration.


 * Dysentery epidemic on Addu begins in Maradhoo island. Twenty-two people die. British provide effective advice and medical care.


 * Towards the end of 1958, Maldive government tells British to cease work on the new base. British political advisor at Gan protests that Costain Ltd must finish within two years or Maldive government will be responsible. Nasir responds by stopping workers wages. Costain Ltd begins to secretly lobby influential men on Addu to secede from Maldives and establish a separate republic.

October 1958

 * Hithadhoo men threaten to attack Malè government office in Gan. British mount defensive operations around Gan island, and Hithadhoo mob disperses when it reaches Maradhoo.

November 1958

 * Ibrahim Nasir orders the government office in Gan to cease supplying labour for the base. 2,000 islanders working there. Costain Ltd arranges transport between Gan and the other islands, and construction continues despite problems with wage payments.

December 1958

 * Custom of paying Maldive island chiefs with a portion of their fishermen’s catch is stopped, and government salary paid instead. Fishing boats in Malè and island and atoll chiefs no longer have to pay share of fish to the king and for the upkeep of the central tomb in Malè. Fishermen now own all their catch.


 * Situation on Addu very tense. 30 December 1958===


 * Maldivian Government Representative in Ceylon, Ahmed Zaki, flies into Gan and instructs the atoll chief to introduce the new law enforcing a fishing boat tax. Revolt in Addu begins on New Year’s Eve.

The Year  1959

 * During 1959, Abdulla Afeef and councils on Addu’s islands establish an independent administration, collecting taxes and providing education and law and order. For the first six months, islanders working at Gan are paid with vouchers for the NAAFI store, then pound sterling becomes local currency. Henveiru and Maafannu gates in Malè demolished by government order.


 * Fisheries Advisory Board established in Malè by Ibrahim Nasir. Nasir begins negotiations to remove the Borahs’ control of trade from Maldives. Mohamed Ameen’s debts were the main obstacle to agreement.


 * Maldives Shipping Line initiated by Koli Ali Umar Manik (Koli Umar Manik’s son), with permission form Ibrahim Nasir. When Nasir resigns in 1978, the Maldives Shipping Line has 34 vessels.


 * Maumoon Gayyoom, Fathulla Jameel, and Zahir Hussain (future Haveeru owner/editor) move into a flat in Cairo and remain living together in the city for 12 years. ‘Movie-going became another hobby of Maumoon and the Maldivian students, and both Fathulla and Zahir Hussain made regular visits to the cinema as a group to see the latest imported films,’ says Gayyoom’s authorised biography. ‘We always chose a good detective story,’ says Fathulla Jameel. ‘We liked stories with adventure. After seeing the movie, we would discuss it and analyse the plot. Maumoon felt that it helped develop our powers of observation. We would comment if the movie seemed too obvious. Although we were being educated in Arabic, we used to read in English. We liked English novels, especially detective stories. We bought second hand books and used to share them with each other’.

1 January 1959

 * At 8pm on New Year’s Eve, Abdulla Afeef obeys instructions from his atoll chief and reads out the tax bill for fishing vessels. The assembled crowd loudly rejects the bill and decides to move under cover of darkness and attack Ahmed Zaki at the Malè government office in Gan. Abdulla Afeef warns Zaki and escorts him to safety aboard a British naval vessel in Addu lagoon.


 * British on Gan allow destruction of the Malè government office. One Malè official is mistaken for Ahmed Zaki and beaten. Atoll office in Maradhoo is demolished. Abdulla Afeef returns to Hithadhoo and prepares for a secret evacuation flight with Ahmed Zaki. Afeef is prevented from leaving by Hithadhoo islanders who threaten to demolish his house if he does not become their leader. British political advisor Major Phillips takes part in these negotiations. Afeef agrees to lead the rebels and receives a secret letter of protection from the British.

3 January 1959

 * Delegation from Addu visits Gan and says they wish to secede from Maldives and come under ‘British protection and the British flag’. Within two weeks, on Huvadhu atoll, a revolt occurs in Thinadhoo island the stronghold of the family of former Huvadhu atoll chief Hirihamaz Kaleyfan, reputed to be the richest man in Maldives. Hirihamaz had been exiled by Ibrahim Nasir after the resignation of Ibrahim Ali Didi.


 * Support for the separatists is widespread on Huvadhu and Fua Mulak, but not unanimous.

28 January 1959

 * Malè Municipality office issues public letter: ‘It is not prohibited by the government for women, in the same way as men, to visit, for shopping and other purposes, the foreign and locally owned stores in the bazaar’.

31 January 1959

 * Group of five women go shopping in Malè after Ibrahim Nasir lifts dress restrictions and prohibition on women appearing alone in public.

March 1959

 * United Suvadive Islands Republic officially announced. Fua Mulak and Huvadhu are nominally part of this republic, but they are not represented in the republic’s People’s Council. The Maldive rufiya devalues by 80% in the south as traders link with the booming Addu economy.


 * Maldive government demands removal of British political advisor Major Phillips, and demands negotiations begin for full independence. False invasion alarm prompts heightened security arrangements in Gan base. Drill and target practice begins in April. Addu Trading Company and the People’s Bank of Addu are established in the new southern republic. Afeef organises registration of land for the first time in Maldives.


 * Ibrahim Nasir holds referendum which supports suppression of the southern revolt. Maldive government officials prevented from landing on Fua Mulak. Shots are fired from their ship, and one islander is killed and four seriously wounded.

May 1959

 * ‘Olympus’ 35mm cinema opened in Malè.

May/June 1959

 * Epidemic in Malè from 30 May to 10 June. Symptoms are high temperature, fever and vomiting. 9,000 affected. Government offices shut for nine days. Several people die. Ibrahim Nasir personally manages control of the outbreak. Ceylon sends arms shipment to Malè.

July 1959

 * Ibrahim Nasir personally leads armed expedition of hundreds of men aboard the Maldive Star onto Fua Mulak and Huvadhu atolls. Thinadhoo island attacked and homes of Hirihamaz and his son Abdulla are sacked and their large gold holdings are confiscated. Mass arrests follow, and many are tortured to death in Malè. Hirihamaz and two of his sons are believed to be among the dead.


 * On Thinadhoo, the Malè militia occupy the island, close the schools, restrict food supplies and terrorise the islanders. Women are raped.


 * Abdul Hameed Didi dies in Colombo.

August 1959

 * Two boatloads of Malè supporters from Huvadhu atoll are arrested at night in Addu lagoon. British order Cheshire regiment to Gan from Singapore. Ibrahim Nasir appointed for five year term as prime minister.

September 1959

 * Letter received in Colombo by Maldivian Government Representative from citizens’ Majlis of Addu atoll. Another boatload of Maldive intruders captured in Addu lagoon. October 1959===


 * RAF facilitates interviews with Afeef by selected UK journalists.

November 1959

 * Nasir ends midnight curfew in Malè. It had been enforced since the beginning of WW2. By end of 1959, the Maldive government and the UK were once again seriously negotiating over the Gan base.

The Year  1960

 * Black market money rates in Malè are US$1 = Rf75 and UK pound = Rf100.


 * Hulhule’ airport construction begins.


 * Malè orders establishment of island offices, eventually to have one in every inhabited island.


 * Isthafa Ibrahim Mohamed Manik joins the ministry responsible for security in Malè and begins a career which makes him the leading organiser of torture in Ibrahim Nasir’s and Maumoon Gayyoom’s administrations. He resigns in 2004 after NSS torture practices are exposed by an enquiry into the death of Evan Naseem in Maafushi jail on 19 September 2003 and the shootings at Maafushi and rioting in Malè the following day.

January 1960

 * Addu atoll formally establishes Republic of Suvadive headed by Afeef Didi in Hithadhoo. Huvadhu and Fua Mulak atoll are also nominally part of Suvadive, but the British give protection only to Addu atoll.

February 1960

 * British are granted a 30 year lease for Gan island and the Mamendu area of Hithadhoo island, and unrestricted lagoon access. Agreement confirms the sultan (king) of Maldives as the sole head of state, and reaffirms the ‘UK government’s desire and concern to promote an early reconciliation between the inhabitants of Addu atoll and the government of his highness the sultan’.


 * British withdraw Cheshire regiment from Gan. Malè government receives a ‘special grant’ of £100,000 from UK and a further £750,000 for specific projects. Addu republic writes letter to Malè agreeing to accept sultan of Maldives as head of state in Addu.

April 1960

 * Private businessmen permitted to buy dried fish. Price of fish rises dramatically along with general food prices. King Fareed persuades Nasir to re


 * introduce government fish buying and rationing.

June 1960

 * Ibrahim Nasir offers Abdulla Afeef a full pardon. Afeef and his supporters reject this proposal. Aminiya girls’ school uniform is modernised to knee


 * high dress and short sleeved shirt.

July 1960

 * Humphrey A. Arthington


 * Davy arrives in Malè.

October 1960

 * Humphrey A. Arthington


 * Davy stays on permanent basis in Dhoonidhoo island. He becomes head of a private social club called Nadi, which is later closed by Ibrahim Nasir over concerns about Arthington


 * Davy’s relationships with the club’s young male members.

===1961''

'== March 1961===


 * Aminiya girls’ school and Majeediya boys’ school begin English medium education in Malè.


 * Abdulla Afeef uses The Times of Addu Dhivehi language newspaper to publicly promote a scheme for the public to buy a fifty percent share in a Rp600,000 modern fishing boat, at four gold coins per share, with the trader and People’s Bank of Addu managing director Moosaji providing the other half of the capital.

April 1961

 * Shifting of people from Viligili near Malè to Hulhule’ completed.

May 1961

 * Arthington-Davy arrives on Addu for several days of heated and fruitless talks with Abdulla Afeef and his supporters. Arthington-Davy demands Addu establish official relations with Malè within two months.


 * Montessori school opens in Malè.


 * Kindergarten, Nasiriya, opens in Malè.

14 June 1961

 * Revolt against Malè government in Thinadhoo island on Huvadhu atoll.

19 June 1961

 * Revolt against Malè government on Fua Mulak.

22 June 1961

 * Report in The Times of Addu gives the reasons for the revolt:


 * Complete shortage of foodstuffs on Huvadu atoll, for a considerable time, ‘which led the public to face a miserable condition of life’.


 * Non-availability of other living essentials i.e. clothing, kerosene oil etc. Lighting was so poor that many families were burning coconut leaves in place of oil lamps.


 * Bad administration and corruption of local affairs by the ‘Malè Gangs’ such as punishing innocent people, raping etc.


 * Heavy taxes.


 * Restrictions on the traditional trade with India and Ceylon.


 * Restriction of trade with neighbouring atolls. 7. Monopoly of the fish trade by the Malè government.


 * Introduction of rationing, with one coconut and a small quantity of fish for each person per day.

July 1961

 * Addu sends its statement of demands to Malè. They are rejected by the Majlis, and Nasir is authorised to deal with the rebels. Malè militia led by Ibrahim Nasir attack rebels on Thinadhoo island.

August 1961

 * British repatriate Malè government captives, held by Afeef’s administration in Viligili near Gan, to Malè, and airdrop vaccines and other medical supplies on Malè to combat a typhoid epidemic in the capital.


 * Malè atoll committee formed. Decision made to have an elected atoll committee in each atoll running the activities in atolls and helping the government.

November 1961

 * Hulhule’ airport, adjacent to Malè, completed.

December 1961

 * British award KCMG to king Mohamed Fareed.


 * Lord Mountbatten describes the Gan airstrip as the best in the Commonwealth.


 * Earthquake in Malè.

The Year  1962

 * Cadet corps started by Ibrahim Nasir.

3 February 1962

 * Ibrahim Nasir aboard the Silver Crest, and leading another armed attack on Thinadhoo on Huvadhu atoll and Fua Mulak, attacks Thinadhoo. The island is leveled and population dispersed. Many people, driven from Thinadhoo onto surrounding islands, starve to death. February 1962===


 * Huvadhu atoll divided in half for administration.

March 1962

 * Maldive government stops burials in mosque graveyards in Malè The four ward cemeteries must be used.

April 1962

 * British attempt to restore Addu to Malè rule but large violent demonstration in Gan rejects any change.

August 1962

 * In Malè, Borah traders banned from doing business in Maldives. Permission to trade was first granted in 1857. Koli Umar Manik (Nasir’s business advisor) and others benefited from the subsequent exchange rate changes. The Borahs had to barter their property before they left. Large peaceful demonstration in Gan, Addu atoll, against Malè government rule.

September 1962

 * Another large demonstration in Gan against ending the Addu republic

November 1962

 * Radio telephones begin operating between Malè and atolls.


 * British send frigate to Malè without invitation, and jam wireless telegraph traffic between Malè and Colombo. British citizens evacuated from male’ after demonstrations condemning British inaction over Addu republic.

December 1962

 * Radio broadcasts begin in Malè. Traditional afternoon drumming, to ward off the Rannamari sea demon, is stopped in Malè.

January 1963

 * Maldives Free Port Act comes into effect in Malè, and remains until January 1980. September 1963===


 * British agree to return Addu to Malè control by the end of 1963.


 * British political advisor Rounswaite actively lobbies Addu businessmen against Afeef and his administration. Britain plans to establish a new and more powerful BBC short wave relay station on Maldives to serve Asia and East Africa. Regiment from Butterworth in Malaysia ordered to Gan, and Rounswaite orders the Maldives flag to be raised in Maradhoo. Afeef and his supporters agree to end their revolt.

30 September 1963

 * Abdulla Afeef and his family taken to Seychelles aboard HMS Loch Lomond.

October 1963

 * Butterworth regiment return to Malaysia. Ibrahim Nasir demands independence as a further price of the Addu facilities.

November 1963

 * Maldives joins Colombo Plan. Eleven survivors in a drifting Maldives vessel are rescued off the coast of Sumatra. Nine people had died of exposure and starvation on the vessel.


 * After promising amnesty for all Adduans, Ibrahim Nasir now demands six months exile for Abdulla Afeef and other Addu leaders.


 * Vandalism attacks begin on fuel and facilities in Hulhule’ and anti-British trouble on Addu. Independence talks delayed.

December 1963

 * Malè government officials encourage strike action against the base on Addu.

The Year  1964

 * Women permitted to vote in Maldives.


 * Girl Guides established in Malè.

January 1964

 * Sustained anti-British campaign in Malè and Addu.

March 1964

 * Arthington-Davy complains to Nasir about the delay in establishing a BBC relay station on Addu

April 1964

 * Hulhule’ airport unusable after sabotage. PA system first used for call to prayer in Malè.


 * British resident in Malè target of loud and abusive demonstration. Vegetation on Dhoonidhoo island is vandalised. British withdraw plan for BBC relay station and agree to revise 1960 agreement.


 * Malè newspapers announce that Abdulla Afeef’s amnesty has been withdrawn.

May 1964

 * British resident confined to Dhoonidhoo, but in Addu, restrictions are lifted on British base.


 * Changes made to Maldives constitution.

June 1964

 * British resident evacuated from Dhoonidhoo with Nasir’s permission. Restrictions are placed again on British in Addu.

July 1964

 * First motorised fishing boat built in Maldives in Hulhule’ boatyard.


 * New Addu atoll chief Moosa Ali Didi bans visits to the islands by British medical and hygiene teams. Resentment in the atoll increase against Moosa Ali Didi when he trades secretly with the base for personal items.

August 1964

 * Revolt among Hithadhoo workers who attempt to kill Moosa Ali Didi after Non-payment of share capital in the Addu Trading Company. Atoll chief uses remainder of Gan base workforce against the Hithadhoo islanders, and 78 people in Hithadhoo are arrested.


 * Independence talks with UK begin in Colombo.

September 1964

 * Hithadhoo prisoners taken to Malè and sentenced to 5 years jail.


 * Riot in Gan as Maldivians attack the base.

October 1964

 * Malaria increasing in Addu. Malè government forbids spraying by British teams. November 1964===


 * Russian research ship Vityaz anchors in Addu lagoon without protest from the Malè government. First eye operation (removal of cataracts) performed in Malè.

The Year  1965

 * Maldives recognises Israel.

February 1965

 * The practice of reading the verses of the hadith as the kateeb enters the mosque for the Friday prayer ceases.

March 1965

 * Spraying equipment from Gan base given to Addu atoll chief. British still forbidden to enter the islands.


 * Feydhoo/Maradhoo people are permitted to collect subsistence rice again from the Gan base. 300 sacks issued immediately.

May 1965

 * Anti-malarial spraying by British starts again on Addu.

June 1965
===10 Aminiya girls sit for the Royal Society of Arts Ordinary Examination.

July 1965

 * Maldives becomes fully independent republic.

September 1965

 * Cinema supplied by the RAF opens in Hithadhoo.


 * First radio telephone link between Malè and Addu.


 * Maldives joins UN and UN Development Program.

October 1965

 * Typhoid outbreak in Malè. RAF permitted to inspect and advise on the situation. November 1965===


 * Maldives joins WHO.

The Year  1966

 * Maumoon Gayyoom completes MA degree in Egypt at Al- Azhar university. His tertiary work is in Islamic Studies and Law. Dr Mohamed Kamal Abdul Ghani, a friend of Maumoon’s from primary school in Egypt, says: ‘Maumoon obtained his BA and MA in Islamic Sharia and Civil Law, with the degree of Excellence with Honours. In addition to his MA from Al Azhar university, he obtained a second Master’s degree in the same field from the American university in Cairo which demonstrates his mastering of the English language’. Maumoon also found time to ‘sit for and obtain a GCE (the English General Certificate of Education) at Ordinary and Advanced levels from the British Council in Cairo’.

January 1966

 * Maldive embassy opened in Colombo. Abdul Sattar Moosa Didi becomes first ambassador for Maldives.

April 1966

 * Hulhule’ airport opens and Air Ceylon flight makes first commercial landing.

August 1966

 * Inhabitants of Thinadhoo island, dispersed by Ibrahim Nasir in 1961, are officially permitted to resettle on their home island, and planning and reconstruction is done at government expense.

The Year  1967

 * National Company (formed by Mohamed Ameen), Maite Company, Orchid Company and Cinema Company, which were dominating trade in Maldives, are abolished and the Athiri Maafannuge Trading Account, ATA, run by Ibrahim Nasir, takes over.


 * Ameena Didi, Mohamed Ameen’s daughter, and her husband Mahir, are exiled by Nasir. Ameena is working as Nasir’s private secretary when she and her husband are accused of plotting against him.

January 1967

 * Seven Majeediya boys and four Aminiya girls sit for the London O Level Examination. February 1967===


 * Maldives joins International Telecommunications.

April 1967

 * Ex king Hassan Noorudeen dies.

May 1967

 * Maldives joins the future International Maritime Organisation.

August 1967

 * Maldives joins Universal Postal Union.

October 1967

 * In Malè, the Government hospital is opened with British assistance. Renamed the Central hospital, and now known as ADK.

November 1967

 * Majlis votes for republic.

January 1968

 * People who find ambergris and similar things in the sea, now own what they find without tax from the government.

March 1968

 * Shifting of Giraavaru people to Hulhule’ begins. Later, they are moved from Hulhule’ to reclaimed land in Maafannu ward, Malè. Referendum held. Over 90% support formation of republic.

November 1968

 * Ibrahim Nasir becomes President of Republic of Maldives.

May 1969

 * Ex.king Mohamed Fareed dies in Malè.

The Year  1970

 * Sifain militia renamed the National Security Service (NSS).

September 1970

 * Land in Malè is now permitted to be bought and sold with a legal title.

July 1971

 * Maumoon Gayyoom returns to live in Maldives after being resident overseas, mainly in Egypt, for 24 years. Nasir appoints him to teach at Aminiya school.

The Year  1972

 * Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka.


 * Importation of (dried) Maldive fish banned in Sri Lanka.

March 1972

 * British queen Elizabeth II visits Maldives. Ibrahim Nasir awarded the KCMG.


 * Tourism industry begins in Maldives. President Ibrahim Nasir soon owns resorts and opens a travel agency. Bandos and Kurumba are developed quickly. Mohamed Umar Manik and Champa Hussein Afeef are among the pioneers of the industry. 1,097 tourists visit Maldives in 1972, and 3,790 in 1973.

July 1972

 * Maumoon Gayyoom, Fathulla Jameel and Zahir Hussein summoned to meet President Nasir at his office. He invites them to write new Friday sermons for the mosques. Later Maumoon Gayyoom is appointed as manager of the government shipping department.

March 1973

 * Ibrahim Manik, Abbas Ibrahim and Maumoon Gayyoom are arrested for ‘treacherous talk’. Gayyoom has claimed that selling alcohol, a mainstay of the tourism industry, is against Islamic law. Gayyoom placed under house arrest.

May 1973

 * Gayyoom banished for four months to Makunudhoo island on Maamakunudhoo atoll. October 1973===


 * Gayyoom permitted to return to Malè.

The Year  1974

 * Maumoon Gayyoom becomes director of telecommunications department, and teaches Islam, Arabic and English in the afternoon.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim, a trained clerk and accountant, becomes a retail shop manager for the government Bodu Store (later to become the State Trading Organisation, STO).

February 1974

 * State Bank of India opens branch in Malè. First bank in the capital. Ibrahim Nasir had put Ahmed Hilmy in charge of negotiations with Indira Gandhi to bring the bank to Maldives. 13 June 1974===


 * Big Thursday (Bodu Burasfathi). Koli Hassan Manik was arrested before this Thursday and revealed details of a plot to overthrow President Ibrahim Nasir, Moosa Fathy and Koli Ali Manik on Friday 14th, and replace them with Prime Minister Ahmed Zaki, Ibrahim Fareed and Maumoon Gayyoom . On Thursday 13th, crowd gathers in the main square protesting rising food prices and restrictive living conditions. Ibrahim Nasir picks up Ahmed Zaki at his house and personally drives him around Malè while the minister for public safety, Abdul Hannan, orders his men to fire guns into the air to disperse the demonstration. People are arrested at the main square and in their homes. Zaki is released 14 days later.

July 1974

 * Gayyoom arrested and questioned about Big Thursday. Held in small cell for 50 days and then released without charge. Returns to work as secretary to the prime minister. September 1974===


 * Engines now available for private fishing boats in Maldives.

October 1974

 * Air services begin with a HS 748 turbo-prop aircraft leased from the Sri Lanka Air Force.

The Year  1975

 * President Ibrahim Nasir rules with a circle of close advisors including Mohamed Zahir, Zaheer


 * Nasser, Umar Zahir, Ilyas Ibrahim and the feared home minister Abdul Hannan. India finances the establishment of fish canning factory in Maldives with a grant of Rs4 million. January 1975===


 * Ibrahim Ali Didi (Ibrahim Faamladeyri Kilegefan) dies in Malè. Receives state funeral.

6 March 1975

 * Little Thursday ( Kuda Burasfathi ). Prime Minister Ahmed Zaki is dismissed, arrested and sent to Dhoonidhoo, and then exiled to Fua Mulak.


 * Gayyoom appointed deputy ambassador to Sri Lanka. Visits United Nations in New York. Nasir closes embassy in Colombo after Sri Lankan government asks questions about US$ cash flows through the Maldives embassy.

September 1975

 * Exchange rate is US$1 = Rf45.50

The Year  1976

 * Pakistan based Habib Bank opens branch in Malè. British decide to abandon Gan base on Addu atoll, 10 years before their lease expires.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim establishes his own company with US$2,000 capital.

June 1976

 * State Trading Organisation, STO, established.

September 1976

 * Gayyoom appointed by Nasir as Maldives permanent representative to the UN in New York until January 1977.

The Year  1977

 * Russians offer US$1 million to Maldives for use of Gan base by their fishing fleet. President Nasir calls the only cabinet meeting held between the end of March 1977 and November 1978. At that meeting, the Russian offer is rejected.


 * During the year, Nasir attempts, unsuccessfully, to change the Thaana script to Roman letters.


 * India assists Maldives to establish Maldives International Airlines through a lease agreement with India Airlines, and to modernise Hulhule’ airport.

February 1977

 * Community school opened in Eydhafushi island on Baa atoll.

March 1977

 * Gayyoom appointed to cabinet as minister of transport.

May 1977

 * Wireless communication, organised by Cable and Wireless, begins from Malè. Enables direct communication between Nasir and Maldives representatives in UN.

September 1977

 * Foreign affairs protocol officer Hassan Haleem, traveling on a diplomatic passport, is stopped by Sri Lankan customs at Colombo airport and 385 expensive digital watches are found in his suitcase. Nasir makes sure Hassan Haleem is fined and banished for six months when he returns to Maldives, and his passport is confiscated.

October 1977

 * President Nasir gives first interview by a Maldives leader to foreign journalist Elizabeth Colton.

The Year  1978

 * Cholera epidemic in Malè. Early in the outbreak, Ibrahim Nasir takes charge and manages the emergency and prevention measures. He personally helps set up tents for the infected. People were treated at government expense. Vaccine was brought from India and those who tried to refuse, were vaccinated by force. Koli Ali Umar Manik donates 25,000 capsules of tetracycline.


 * Maumoon Gayyoom and Moosa Fathy preach on the radio.


 * At the end of Ibrahim Nasir’s presidency in late 1978, Maldives has 17 tourist resorts with 1300 beds.


 * Total student enrolments are 15,032, and only one government school operates outside Malè.


 * Ranvikka Ali Manik is head of the NSS when Nasir resigns in November 1978.


 * Maumoon Gayyoom’s brother in law Ilyas Ibrahim’s bank account balance with State Bank of India in Maldives is Rf1, 817. Ilyas was senior secretary to President Ibrahim Nasir, and under-secretary of the audit office.


 * Ilyas’s wife Nasira, the sister of Ibrahim Nasir’s vice-president Koli Ali Umar Manik, is receiving her brother’s government pay cheques in her State Bank of India account which stands at Rf23,400.

February 1978

 * Felivaru fish canning factory opened as joint venture with Japanese Nippon corporation. March 1978===


 * Television broadcasts begin in Malè. New international airport project begins in Hulhule’.

June 1978

 * Majlis nominates Ibrahim Nasir for the presidency. Three votes go to Maumoon Gayyoom. Due to ill-health, Nasir, aged 56, declines the nomination. At the next Majlis ballot on 16 June, Gayyoom receives 27 votes and needs President Nasir’s consent to secure the nomination. Nasir meets privately with Gayyoom but makes no public decision.

November 1978

 * Maumoon Gayyoom wins over 90% support in presidential referendum (he is only candidate). Ibrahim Nasir allows him to become the new president of Maldives.


 * Gayyoom leads the prayers at the ancient Friday mosque, the first time a president had led the prayers.


 * The day he is made president, Gayyoom transfers airport director Anbaree Abdul Sattar and school teachers Mohamed Zahir and Adam Zahir into the National Security Services (NSS). Gayyoom had secretly recruited a number of people for the NSS through his brothers-in law Ilyas Ibrahim and Abbas Ibrahim. Adam Zahir was a drinking buddy of the younger members of the Koli clan. Gayyoom’s new recruits are promoted immediately to high rank and become leaders of a new batch of younger NSS officers as many of the old guard are quickly retired. In the following years, NSS receives help and training from Iraq, Libya and Kuwait, and then from USA, UK, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, New Zealand and the Philippines.


 * Fathulla Jameel (close friend of Gayyoom), appointed foreign minister in 1978 by Ibrahim Nasir, retains that portfolio under the new president.


 * Ilyas Ibrahim (Gayyoom’s brother-in law) put in charge of government trading, the ministry of defence, and much of the budget. In a single year to 11 November 1979, Ilyas’s personal account balance with the State Bank of India increases from just under Rf2,000 to Rf96,754. He also has another Rf50,000 paid to him by Koli Ali Umar Manik.


 * Abbas Ibrahim (Gayyoom’s brother-in law) becomes director of Radio Maldives.


 * Despite allegations of misappropriation of government funds, Ibrahim Nasir is permitted to leave Maldives and he settles in Singapore.

The Year  1979

 * Gayyoom establishes a military-style system of surveillance and institutionalised abuse and torture of detainees and prisoners in Maldives. Using one of Nasir’s defence department officials, Isthafa Ibrahim Mohamed Manik, Gayyoom orders and conducts a ceaseless campaign of brutal treatment and torture of all his opponents and rivals. While Gayyoom’s associates have complete immunity from prosecution for any offence, Senior NSS officers such as Anbaree Abdul Sattar, Adam Zahir and Mohamed Zahir, and defence official Isthafa Ibrahim Mohamed Manik and Ilyas Ibrahim, when he becomes minister of public safety and then defence, place their torture orders in ‘Punishment Books’ which amount to five 400 page notebooks by the early 1990s. At that time, Maumoon Gayyoom realises the punishment books could be used as evidence of human rights abuse and they are sent to Adam Zahir’s house where they disappear.


 * Gayyoom places relatives and friends of former President Nasir under constant surveillance. They are followed wherever they go, and guards are posted outside their houses. Elizabeth Colton writes in her 1995 thesis and study of Gayyoom’s political methods, The Elite of Maldives: Sociopolitical Organisation and Change: ‘In Maldives, there are no political parties, no open opposition, and great fear of political discussions. Yet people are always aware of the opposition and often the government creates an opposition by its action against the group of families it is against, from ancient envy and desire for revenge... Elite Maldivians are so fearful that they might stand accused of collaborating with another person that the primary greeting on the streets, if given at all, is a quick raise of the eyebrows. Usually people walking or bicycling down the street are given no greeting by the people watching them in silence from behind their house walls’.


 * First of many Atoll development programs begins.


 * In the coming years, Sri Lankan teachers familiar with English medium education are hired for private and government schools, and Japanese government funds construction of Atoll Madharusaa.


 * International Development Association (IDA) loans accessed by Maldives for the first time.

January 1979

 * Council for Research on Maldivian Language and Literature established in Malè. February 1979===


 * Council of Research on Maldivian History and Culture established in Malè.

March 1979

 * first government primary schools outside Malè opened in Manadhoo island Noonu atoll and Kulhudhufushi, Haa Dhaal atoll.

April 1979

 * Island reclamation work (dredging sand onto bare and submerged reefs) begins around Male.

September 1979

 * Gayyoom attends anniversary of the September revolution celebrations in Libya. Yasser Arafat flies from there with Gayyoom to Cuba for a Non-Aligned Summit.

November 1979

 * Majlis elections. Due to ‘incidents contrary to the regulations’ elections are held again in Addu atoll and Kulhudhufushi island on Haa Dhaal atoll.


 * During the coming decades, any members of the Majlis who are critical of President Gayyoom’s government are blacklisted and most are imprisoned and tortured. Island chiefs and mosque keepers critical of the government lose their jobs.

The Year  1980

 * In Malè, Gayyoom orders government led mob activities against alleged traitors. The political witchhunts begin in April/May 1980 and continue into 1981. Everyone connected with ex-president Ibrahim Nasir’s relatives and former close advisors (Ilyas Ibrahim, Gayyoom’s brother-in law was exempted) became suspect and subjected to harassment and violence.


 * Basic Education Project begins in Malè. Later,


 * UNICEF and UNDP fund Atoll Education Centres. President Gayyoom visits Iraq and begins close personal friendship with President Saddam Hussein.


 * Maldives embassy in Sri Lanka re-opens after being closed by Ibrahim Nasir in 1975.


 * Maldives participates in 57 international conferences in 1980.


 * European Commission supplies Maldives with 1,500 tons of rice valued at 239,000 euros.


 * Per capita income in Maldives is US$307, up from US$158 in 1977.


 * People of the Maldive Islands by Clarence Maloney is published in Bombay by Longman.

February 1980

 * Alleged plot to use British mercenaries (former members of the British Special Air Service, SAS) to capture NSS headquarters in Malè. Gayyoom later says he was warned of the plot by Koli Ali Umar Manik in a phone call from Singapore. Alleged leaders of the plot are tried in February 1981. In his biography of Maumoon Gayyoom, Royston Ellis has an account of the alleged coup attempt in chapter 13,

‘The Dogs of War Bungle It’.: The sun was shining brightly that morning in February 1980 when the burly Englishman chatted to the sentry on duty outside the National Security Service (NSS) headquarters. The building is the nerve centre of the paramilitary force responsible for the country’s defence, coast guard, fire-fighting and police duties. Like a fortress, it overlooks the waterfront where visitors from the resorts land for sightseeing walks around Malè. ‘Can my mate take a photograph?’ the Englishman asked, putting his arm around the guard’s shoulder. ‘Make a nice holiday snap for my kids. Here, let me hold your gun’. The tourist’s companion had his camera ready but the sentry was not impressed by the joke. He tightened his grip on his AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifle and scowled. Another man came over and shouted angrily at the tourist. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ The tourist quickly stepped away from the sentry. Then he and the man with the camera hurried off towards the jetty, followed by the third man. ‘I wanted to see how much ammunition was in that AK-47,’ the Englishman said, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. ‘This place has more security than we reckoned’. Although it reads like a something from a paperback thriller, the men spying on the NSS building were not characters from a best seller. They were the advance force of a group of British mercenaries hired to capture the NSS headquarters. Their target was the president. There were nine of them. They were registered as guests at Kurumba, the island resort only 10 minutes from Malè by speedboat. They were supposed to be on a diving holiday but, according to the Sunday Times, ‘the presence of a bunch of brawny Englishmen, none accompanied by a wife, was causing comment among the German and Swedish families on holiday’. The Sunday Times, published in England, carried its long story in May 1980 with the headline ‘The Laurel and Hardy Dogs of War Bungle It’. The story was triggered off by a statement to the Citizen’s Majlis by Maumoon that nine foreigners had been hired to mount a coup against him. The article, which appeared to be well researched but managed to call the Maldives, Maldavia, described how most of the mercenaries were former members of the British Special Sir Service (SAS). ‘The nine mercenaries are all experienced professional soldiers... They were shown a simple sketch of an island with only four guards. The fee, payable on completion of the contract, was UK£10,000 per man’.

The report continues:

‘On February 3, most of the strike force were collected from their homes and taken to Gatwick. Their bullet proof vests were in suitcases. After they were airborne, each man was briefed. The destination was Malè (of which most of them had never heard) and the objective was to take over the state armoury and to seize President Gayyoom before calling in his successor’. The group stayed a few nights in Colombo where further briefing took place. They were shown a plan of the NSS headquarters and told that the element of surprise would be with them. ‘A second target would be President Gayyoom’s residence about half a mile away’. After the group arrived at Kurumba, the reconnaissance at the NSS headquarters by some of the group, and the comments they heard from Maldivians about the government, led to doubts about the viability of their mission. The Sunday Times reported: ‘It was apparent to the mercenaries that their initial intelligence was appallingly inaccurate. The sentries were frequently changed and were clearly alert. An office which should have held only two people was occupied by 25. When... diving equipment was brought to Kurumba with only tiny .22 pistols hidden inside the air bottles, no one on the team was enthusiastic’.


 * The memory of the bungled coup still causes Maumoon much anguish, tempered with astonishment that it was ever contemplated. He learned about it from Ali Maniku who telephoned him from Singapore with information that he had received. The tip-off was confirmed by Maumoon’s own sources in Colombo. Security was increased. Then, because they realised it was a crazy assignment, the mercenaries quietly departed without doing anything and flew back to England.


 * Unhappy that they had been lured to the Maldives on false pretences, since it was quite obvious the islands were not under an unpopular, oppressive dictatorial regime, some of the mercenaries volunteered information about the proposed coup. One returned to the Maldives from England to give evidence during the investigation.


 * Maumoon is relaxed now when he recalls the incident, but at the time it was a great shock. ‘The mercenaries were given information that the President was a dictator, but they asked Maldivians in casual conversation and learned that I wasn’t that hated by the people’. Maumoon smiled. ‘They learned I was not such a dictator’.


 * Maumoon had correctly understood the mood of most Maldivians. As he said later, ‘I didn’t really think anything of this magnitude would happen. I had the feeling that people liked me. During my travels, the people I met were supportive. ‘


 * After the attempt was foiled, the news was made public. The popular response was very encouraging. People rallied round me, and I got a lot of confidence to go forward. I suddenly realised I had the support of over 90% of the people. So maybe the coup attempt was a blessing in disguise’.

April 1980

 * Gayyoom signs cultural and scientific accord with Russians. Gayyoom denies the Russians are promising help with communications technology and tourism. A few months later, Gayyoom accuses a Russian research vessel of spying and orders it to leave Maldives.


 * Ilyas Ibrahim says the Maldives government was warned in late February that an internationally planned coup attempt was being made, and commented that only Nasir had the money to afford it. Elizabeth Colton comments in her 1995 thesis that Ilyas Ibrahim ‘did not point to his own lianoo (brother-in law), Ali Manik, the country’s chief financial supporter, as the Maldivian who did have such money. Not until they forcibly obtained a confession from Naseem, however, were they able to pin it on anyone so strongly’.


 * In a televised meeting with the Majlis, Gayyoom gives details of a coup attempt against him in February. Gayyoom says that Naisr’s brother-in law Ahmed Naseem (a founder of the tourism industry and former fisheries minister in Nasir’s government) had confessed to National Security interrogators that he had devised the plot, which included hiring foreign mercenaries to execute it.


 * For five weeks after Gayyoom’s speech, there are daily demonstrations in favour of Gayyoom and against Nasir, organised by Gayyoom’s brothers-in law Abbas Ibrahim and Ilyas Ibrahim. Pictures of the ex-president are burnt. Mobs stay outside Naseem’s family house chanting and sometimes hurling stones through the windows. In Singapore, Ibrahim Nasir publicly denies the charges made by Gayyoom, and although Gayyoom’s government later alleges that Nasir had masterminded the plot, when Naseem is tried in 1981, there is no mention of Nasir’s involvement. Much later, Nasir is tried in absentia and found guilty of embezzlement, collection of illegal taxes, and the banishment of his prime minister Ahmed Zaki. All charges are unrelated to the alleged coup attempt of February 1980.

May 1980

 * The government sponsored witch-hunt and harassment campaign against Nasir’s relatives and associates continues throughout May. Besides howling mobs around the houses of the accused and those under suspicion, Gayyoom orders lights and loudspeakers installed in front of the houses and keeps amplified obscene verbal attacks blaring all night. 3 May


 * Haveeru publishes article claiming that Kuvaa Mohodhey (also known as Mohamed Manik) is part of an ‘evil conspiracy’ to smuggle weapons into the country with Ahmed Naseem who has confessed to being a traitor. Mohodhey is already in exile for his alleged involvement in the alleged coup attempt in February, however Haveeru says although he has already been found guilty, the latest confessions of Ahmed Naseem mean that Mohodhey ‘should not be let go so easily’. The report includes a photograph of Mohodhey being brought back to Malè from exile with his head down and jostled by the surrounding militia as he is abused by a government


 * sponsored mob.


 * Haveeru also carries an advertisement for a cassette of songs about Ibrahim Nasir. These songs name the ex-president as the mastermind of the alleged coup plot in February. Nasir is accused, along with Kuvaa Mohodhey, of importing tear gas into Maldives for the coup. ‘They will finish in it’, one song promises. It lists names of alleged co-conspirators and their roles. The government-sponsored song says Champa Afeef ‘chartered the boat’, Maizan Ali ‘obtained the pistol’ and Ahmed Naseem ‘was going to fire it’. The song accuses Saleem of saying, ‘They are going to fire tommy-guns’.


 * 16 May President Gayyoom personally leads a massive, hour’s long demonstration against Ibrahim Nasir and his ‘crowd’.


 * Elizabeth Colton writes in her thesis, ‘Gayyoom and the other leading orators, all by then open opponents of former President Nasir, including some of his former ministers (all masters of the double game), spoke to crowds of between 15,000 and 20,000 (the population of Malè was then about 35,000) and discussed their views of how Nasir came to power, telling how he had been one of the leaders in the overthrow of the first president (Mohamed Ameen in 1953) and how he had allegedly mishandled government money’.


 * The campaign against Nasir was directed at Naseem’s household, the parents and relatives of Nasir’s wife Naseema, and the parents and relatives of Nasir’s wife’s best friend, Moomina.

June 1980

 * MPs stage walkout from Majlis meeting.


 * Asian Development Bank officials meet ADB Maldives governor Fathulla Jameel and other officials including STO director Ilyas Ibrahim. They discuss the final report of the Inter Atoll Transport and Communication project. Haveeru reports Adam Zahir sent to Switzerland on special assignment by Gayyoom, officially to investigate the alleged coup attempt in February.


 * In an interview with the Financial Times, Gayyoom says he is ‘trying vigorously to liberalise our political and social systems. Many things have already been achieved during the short period of 18 months... many Maldivians are not yet ready to accept liberalisation beyond a certain degree’. Gayyoom says that Islam is often misunderstood. ‘They forget the beauty and truth of its values tolerance, compassion and human brotherhood’. Commenting on the alleged coup against him by foreign mercenaries in February, Gayyoom says, ‘Investigations are taking place both in Malè and in Colombo. Before these investigations are completed and we know all the people involved both in this country and abroad it will be hard to say whether a threat still exists or not’.


 * In Haveeru newspaper next day, the Libyan embassy in Malè announces it will hold a public meeting at Majeediya school to mark the 10th anniversary of the removal of American imperialists from Libya and the rise of Gadhaafi, and to express the Libyan government’s solidarity with the government and people of Maldives following the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the lawfully elected government, masterminded by the ex-president Ibrahim Nasir, his brother-in law Ahmed Naseem, and other loyalists’. A few months earlier, the Libyan government had gifted ‘two health boats, and three speed launches, not to mention other financial and technical assistance’ (including a primary school).


 * First mosque opened under the Atoll Development scheme, at Gulhi island on Malè atoll.


 * First celebration of the new Martyr’s Day, commemorating the death of king Ali Rasgefan who was killed fighting vitually alone in defence of his crown by an invading Portuguese/Maldivian force from Goa in 1558. In the coming years, Gayyoom uses the new Martyr’s Day to re-inforce ideas of nationalism and martyrdom, and anti


 * western and anti-Christian prejudice among Maldivians.


 * Sun newspaper in Sri Lanka reports that the alleged coup in February was hatched ‘mainly in London’, and ‘many Englishmen are among the terrorists hired by Nasir’s brother-in-law Naseem to overthrow the legal government in Malè’. The Sun says Scotland Yard is investigating. The Daily News in Sri Lanka says ‘mastermind behind the plot’ is a ‘Swiss gun


 * runner’, and the Sri Lankan authorities are trying to discover ‘the various travel dates of the gun runner who would have made several trips from Switzerland to Malè via Sri Lanka’.


 * Haveeru claims a cheque for US$40,000 signed by Ahmed Naseem and given to a Malè travel agency was meant to be used to pay the travel and accommodation expenses for the mercenaries’ coup attempt in February. Haveeru says the cheque bounced. A Swiss national allegedly involved in the plot is named as Wallmeyer


 * Singapore gifts a telephone exchange to Malè.


 * Haveeru editorial 20 and 21 June English front page in two parts (anonymous, but likely to have at least been edited by Gayyoom) justifies the government-led mob demonstrations and violence in Malè against Nasir’s family and friends:

We, after 21 years of silence, have a voice now with which we can condemn the terrible past, so that the world may hear. Now we are free to express our opinions. Several pro-Nasir Maldivians among us frown disapprovingly on the mass whose thoughts and feelings find expression in the form of rallies, poems, songs, drawings and writings. They pass comments like ‘Isn’t it time all the nonsense stopped?’ or ‘I think they are going too far in this’. All I can say is that several weeks or even several months will not be sufficient to express thoughts and feelings held in check for years... The rallies and demonstrations... have gradually died down. The people were satisfied that they were able to come out and reveal their absolute loathing of the tyrant-traitor and his fellow conspirators. While the demonstrations were going on, the still blind and stubborn Nasirites were condemning the gatherings. They were trying their utmost to rationalise an irrational phenomenon. Collective or crowd behaviour lacks logical standards. Hence it pays little or nothing to stand on the sideline and mock the demonstrators with comments like ‘All your hysterical shouting and raving will not bring the superman back’. or ‘It’s absurd to make such a do about a man who is not even present here’.Such collective behaviour cannot be subject to analysis from a straight distance. It defies all analyses.

The Haveeru editorial continues,

‘A society, if it is to experience change must have as one of its components, people who are alert and awake to what is going on around them and who are actively influenced by the political and social climate of the time instead of sitting passively reminiscing about the good old days when they could be counted among the elite haves of the nation. They grudge and envy the present happiness of the have-nots of the Nasir era. If Nasir had brought any changes for the better in the lives of Maldivians, he had done it only for himself and two or three families in Malè... That is where his services begin and end. Consequently the living standard of this elite group rose incredibly high. They had the pleasure of enjoying everything money could buy. They were the cream of society then. The ordinary man on the street stood amazed and open.mouthed as certain members of the chosen group flashed past in expensive cars or were whirled to nearby tourist resorts draped in the latest fashions from Europe. Everything was provided, they only had to help themselves, without so much as a ‘by your leave’, to the bounties of the nation. Nobody dared to question, even to themselves. Their actions were not accountable to anyone. They were above every law. These people were ignorant of, or refused to acknowledge, how the other half lived. Surrounded by all the good things in life, they could not care less about the poor, the hungry and the deprived masses. This elite existed in a world that was beyond the comprehension of the average Maldivian. When the great change occurred and the tables were turned, they lacked the perserverence and strength of character to face the other side of life. Fretting for the days when the whole nation was at their feet, they began plotting and scheming their evil designs. They did not have the scruples to face a change. The gang leader Nasir had brainwashed Maldivians in Malè (the rest of Maldives had no existence for him) to place a monetary value on everything in life. The whole pattern of their cognition was set in accordance with profit and loss. Quality was sacrificed for the sake of quantity. Nasir’s legacy was one of materialism and terrorism. He trampled, without a single downward glance, on the people’s rights, freedom and dignity. To halt all change and to amass a still more immense fortune, and to regain absolute power, Nasir was willing to stop at nothing, not even murder. Several innocent lives counted nothing with him. It would have served well, if we care to learn a lesson from those recent happenings. It is our responsibility and duty not to let another rapacious and abominable Nasir ominously darken our bright horizon’.


 * Reclamation work on Malè has been occuring for 14 months at an average rate of 2,659 sq. ft. per day.


 * Government announces a plan ‘that will enable everyone to get sugar,’ Haveeru reports. Sugar coupons will be handed out and sugar will be for sale to coupon holders from 1 July. The coupons are only available to Malè residents holding Malè registration, islanders residing in Malè as employees and students, and foreigners attached to government services. Islanders residing in atolls will have to submit a form in order to receive coupons for sugar.


 * Regarding the pre-Ramazan sugar shortage and high price of the product, Gayyoom says in an interview, ‘The question is not the scarcity, but the price’.


 * Health service conducts survey in Baa atoll, measuring students’ heights, weight and other health indicators.

July 1980

 * Senior Asian Development Bank officer arrives in Malè to work with the national planning agency. WHO sends two doctors to Malè to work controlling malaria and filaria.


 * Atoll chiefs appointed by the government are now to meet together annually, but the northern and southern atoll chiefs are to meet separately.


 * Radios are to be issued to all schools, trade centres and dignitaries in the atolls and the schools in Malè, reports Haveeru . ‘On handing over the radios to repective (owners), certain hints and advice will be given, in order to maintain the rules and regulations that should be observed by all’.


 * Gayyoom’s cabinet has 4 hour meeting on the lucrative dried fish trade with Sri Lanka, which employs many women in the atolls. The Sri Lankan government is seeking to restrict the trade due to foreign exchange concerns.


 * Maldives joins UNESCO.


 * Medicines from an Iraqi ship that arrived in Malè on 14 June, are to be distributed free.


 * Independence day celebrations attended by foreign dignitaries and delegations from each atoll.


 * Answering a question regarding the Maldives Shipping Line in an interview with Haveeru, Gayyoom says, ‘Financial aid, in the form of loans, is unstintingly made available for the purchase of more ships’.

December 1980

 * Special Majlis established to review the constitution of Maldives. It deliberates for nearly 17 years.

The Year  1981

 * Japan makes first of regular food donations to Maldives. Gayyoom attends Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia, and over the coming decades he attends each Islamic Conference held in various countries.


 * Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) established. Bank of Ceylon branch opens in Maldives. Koli Ali Umar Manik invites Ilyas Ibrahim to Singapore. Manik opens two accounts for Ilyas in Singapore and pays US$500 into each account from a subsidiary, the Seaward Shipping and Trading Company (SSTC) of the Maldives Shipping Line. After his return to Maldives, Ilyas establishes a system of over- purchasing by the State Trading Organisation (STO) where the surplus invoice payments and commissions are credited to his Singapore accounts. After pre-selling annual tuna fish supplies from Maldives in Bangkok, the funds raised are used by the Maldives Shipping Line and then credited to Ilyas Ibrahim’s accounts at SSTC. By 31 December 1986, Ilyas Ibrahim has $(Sing)3,988,601 in his SSTC account, and over US$2.5 million in his other Singapore accounts. On 31 December 1993, Ilyas Ibrahim holds $(Sing)269,444 in the Chung Kiaw Bank Singapore, which has an office in the International Plaza where Koli Ali Manik resides. On 31 December 1995, the Maldives Shipping Line subsidiary SSTC owes Ilyas Ibrahim $(Sing)1,141,958.

February 1981

 * Ahmed Naseem, brother of ex-President Ibrahim Nasir, and others are charged with treason over the coup plot of February 1980. At their trial during 1981, they are not told the names of the people who give evidence against them ‘because it would hurt national security’. Two former British SAS mercenaries, paid by the Maldives government, give evidence against them.

April 1981

 * Life imprisonment sentences for the accused coup plot leaders.

May 1981

 * Bank of Ceylon opens branch in Malè.

June 1981

 * Golden jubilee of Maldives Majlis. Foundation stone laid for new Majlis building. Construction is not started until 1995 with assistance from Pakistan, and it is eventually completed in 1997.

July 1981

 * Maldives Monetary Authority established with Maumoon Gayyoom as governor.


 * In late 1981, the alleged coup plotters are sentenced: Naseem, Nasir’s brother-in law, was imprisoned for life. Another brother-in law sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. Saleema, their sister, banished for life.


 * Mohamed Kaleyfaan, their father (then in his 70s) banished for 10 years. Hikifinifenmaage house which contained two other families, a mother, and children, was cordoned off from the rest of Malè.


 * Mana, Naseem’s wife, banished for five and half years. Kandi, the husband of Mana’s sister


 * Moomina, banished for 11 years. Moomina, banished then pardoned, left Maldives in self


 * imposed exile.


 * Abdul Hannan, head of the security forces under President Nasir, banished for life.


 * Maizan Ali Maniku, former director of Radio Maldives, sentenced to life imprisonment.


 * Kuda Sika, Director of Telecommunications under Nasir, banished for 10 years.


 * Kuwa Mohamed Maniku, a businessman and friend of Naseem’s, banished for 5 years.


 * Mohamed Haleem, brother of Hannan and Moomina, banished.


 * Hussein Haleem, only sibling of Nooraanee house not banished, sent to work in the United Nations and placed under surveillance when in Malè.


 * Ahmed Nasir moved to Sweden after being refused new Maldivian passports in Singapore.


 * Naseema Mohamed moved to Australia. Ex-president Ibrahim Nasir stayed permanently in Singapore.

November 1981

 * Attempted coup in Seychelles by foreign mercenaries.

The Year  1982

 * Cholera epidemic in Malè.


 * Gayyoom’s father Maafaiyge Dhon Seedi dies in Malè. He is 85, and during his lifetime had 25 children with 8 different wives. Before his death, Gayyoom’s father predicts that the rule of his son will end in bloodshed.


 * Ghazee Building completed in Malè. Used by many government departments.


 * Science Education Centre, funded by the UNDP, opens in Malè.


 * First regional hospital opened in Kulhudhufushi island, Haa Dhaal atoll.


 * Bank of Maldives opens.

May 1982

 * Majlis endorses plan promoted by Gayyoom to join the Commonwealth. Gayyoom immediately flies to London and meets PM Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth. This is the first official visit by a Maldives ruler to a western country.

The Year  1983

 * NSS budget is Rf19 million. Education budget is Rf15 million. Gayyoom makes official visits to Egypt, Bangladesh and North Korea.


 * Tourism Advisory Board established and work begins on first ten-year master plan for the industry. From 1979 to 1983, an average of seven new resorts have opened each year.

April 1983

 * Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir officially visits Maldives.

July 1983

 * President of Bangladesh H. M. Ershad officially visits Maldives.

August 1983
===47 of the 48 Majlis members select Gayyoom as the sole candidate for the presidential referendum. Only one member does not support him.

September 1983

 * King of Nepal officially visits Maldives.

October 1983

 * Gayyoom gets official vote of 97% in the referendum.

The Year  1984

 * Gayyoom makes official visit to Sri Lanka, China and South Korea.


 * National commission for protection of the environment established in Malè.


 * As part of general intimidation of returning students, Anbaree Abdul Sattar and Isthafa Ibrahim Manik question Ilyas Ibrahim late at night in the police station about an article he had written for the Maldives student association in Pakistan, ‘The strengthening of a democracy under a leader’.

June 1984

 * Gayyoom speaks at his first Commonwealth engagement in UK.

July 1984

 * South Asian foreign ministers’ conference held in Maldives. Yasser Arafat visits Maldives.

November 1984

 * Islamic Centre and Grand Friday mosque, designed by Malaysian architects, opened in Malè. Wood carvings and Arabic calligraphy done by Maldivians. Malaysian PM Mahathir attends.

December 1984

 * Majlis elections. Election repeated on Alifushi island, Raa atoll.


 * Sultan of Brunei makes private visit to Maldives.

The Year  1985

 * From commissions alone, Ilyas Ibrahim collects over US$4.53 million in his Seaward Shipping and Trading Company (SSTC) account in 1985. Ilyas Ibrahim invests in Koli Ali Umar Manik’s Universal company and buys condominiums in Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Manila. In the coming years, Ilyas rents these condominiums and other services to President Gayyoom and his family for their state visits and shopping sprees, which occur over a dozen times per year. Gayyoom pays Ilyas from government funds for these trips, at a rate of US$100

==150,000 per visit, or at least US$1.5 million each year.

July 1985

 * Gayyoom establishes first President’s Consultative Council.

September 1985

 * Gayyoom visits PM Mahathir in Malaysia for opening of the Islamic Centre there. Commonwealth finance ministers conference held in Maldives. Attract many high


 * level officials and leaders.

October 1985

 * Gayyoom makes state visit to France, visits UN in New York and addresses General Assembly. Then moves on to Bahamas for a Commonwealth meeting.

December 1985

 * Gayyoom attends first SAARC summit, held in Bangladesh, and subsequent meetings over coming years.

The Year  1986

 * Gayyoom begins publication of a weekly Islamic newsletter from his office. Each Friday, Gayyoom writes the Editor’s Note.


 * India and Maldives sign a five year agreement under which India provides assistance of Rs210 million. Part of the package is the Indira Gandhi hospital, which India continues to support throughout Gayyoom’s rule. The hospital is one of India’s largest projects under its foreign assistance scheme.

April 1986

 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim registers Villa Shipping and Trading Co. Ltd. (known as Villa). July 1986===


 * Committee formed to advise government on control of narcotic drugs.

September 1986

 * Gayyoom attends Non-Aligned Summit at Zimbabwe.

31 December 1986

 * Ilyas Ibrahim (Gayyoom’s brother-in law, and minister for trade and defence) has $(Sing)3,988,601 in his Seaward Shipping and Trading Company (SSTC) account, and over US$2.5 million in his other accounts with Chung Kiaw Bank and the Philippine National Bank (PNB) in Singapore. Later, Koli Ali Umar Manik transfers 20% of Universal shares to Ilyas Ibrahim and his wife Nasira (Koli Ali Umar Manik’s sister). Universal uses all MSL funds and SSTC cash funds interest


 * free to finance their resorts and renovations. The Maldives Shipping Line promptly loads and delivers goods for Universal to Malè but delays deliveries for other competitors.

The Year  1987

 * Surfacing of roads begins in Malè. International direct dialling services begin in Maldives. Established on all the atolls by 1997.

April 1987

 * Maldives struck by tidal storm surges, and Malè and Hulhule’ bar brunt of the damage. June

September 1987

 * Southern atolls experience tidal storm surges. Gayyoom lobbies UN and Commonwealth for economic assistance to combat rising sea levels.

The Year  1988

 * Telecommunications joint venture established between Cable and Wireless of Britain and the Maldive government company Dhiraagu.


 * Malè sewerage project completed.


 * SSTC receives over US$12 million in payments from STO in the four years from 1985 to 1988.


 * Maldives Shipping Line makes last payment to the Maldives government. Later collapses owing millions. In 2004, the Maldives Ministry of Finance is paying off MSL loans amounting to US$23 million. Other MSL related shipping debts in 2004 are US$10 owed to Singapore suppliers and US$3 million owed to Iraq.

April 1988

 * Society for Health Education (SHE) established in Malè. SHE becomes active in screening for thalassaemia, a chronic hereditary blood disorder common in Maldives. August 1988===


 * Gayyoom nominated for president by 46 out of 48 Majlis members.


 * Later at the referendum, he officially receives over 96% support.

3 November 1988

 * Malè NSS fort attacked at 4 a.m. by Sri Lankan mercenaries led by Abdulla Luthfee and Sagar Ahmed Nasir. The attack is co-ordinated by three of the mercenaries, Vasanthi, Farooq and Babu. Despite attempts by the rebels to disrupt communications, the telephone system functions throughout the attack. Gayyoom rings the US ambassador in Sri Lanka for assistance and is told Washington has decided the Indians will act.


 * Lacking public support, the rebels seize hostages including the then minister of transport Ahmed Mujutaba and his Swiss wife, and Ismail Naseer. They leave Malè harbour aboard a government ship, Progress Light. That night, India lands 1500 paratroopers in Hulhule’. At sea, Progress Light is captured by the Indian navy, with six dead from the ship. 19 Maldivians are killed in the coup attempt, including eight members of the NSS.

December 1988

 * Gayyoom visits India and Pakistan.

The Year  1989

 * NSS force doubled after November 1988 coup attempt.


 * Women’s Affairs Department established.


 * National environment action plan developed.


 * Gayyoom commutes death sentences passed on four Maldivians and 12 Sri Lankans for their part in the November 1988 coup attempt.

February 1989

 * Gayyoom visits Japan

November 1989

 * Indian forces, 160 men, leave Maldives after occupying Malè for one year. They have been training NSS, and maintaining a naval vigil on Maldives sea coasts and sea lanes. These patrols continue for years, and Maldive vessels are sometimes stopped and searched. The Indians donate four armoured vehicles to the NSS when they leave.


 * Officially, both India and Maldives reject the idea of a permanent bilateral defence treaty, but in reality, Maldives comes under the jurisdiction of the Indian Southern Command. Majlis election. Ilyas and Abbas Ibrahim, president Gayyoom’s brothers-in law, form illegal thug group called Binbi Force to intimidate supporters of Dr Mohamed Waheed. Both Ilyas and Abbas are ministers at this time. Ilyas was the minister of defence. The NSS ignored the illegal activities of the Binbi Force. Election fraud was evident in the figures given by the electoral commission and a Malè candidate, Zakariya Jameel, who complained in a public letter about the result, was charged with ‘creating hatred among the people towards the government’. Voting is held again on Maakadoodhoo island. Fire in Maldive prison. Many complaints by Maldivians about torture in Maldives jails. Despite public assurances that torture would cease, it continues as before.

December 1989

 * Paving of Malè roads begins, and is completed within a decade.


 * Independent Sangu (Conch shell) magazine registered for publication. Banned less then six months later in May 1990.

The Year  1990'''

 * Violence in Fua Mulak related to November 1989 Majlis election.


 * Journalist Mohamed Nasheed arrested after writing in a foreign newspaper about fraud in 1989 Majlis election. Some new Majlis members speak about important cases of corruption. These members are harassed and some resign or lose their posts.


 * New magazines Sangu, Hukuru , and Manthiri are banned by President Gayyoom.

January 1990

 * Gayyoom establishes expands president’s consultative council to 55 members.


 * First India-Maldives Joint Commission meeting. Agreements on many matters, including training civil servants for the foreign affairs department and sending experts to establish a natural disaster warning centre on Malè. Maldives is linked to the Indian satellite (INSAT

==1D) for meteorological data and re- broadcasting of Indian TV programs. In 1991, India provides a television receiver station at a cost of Rs2.5 million. Gayyoom visits Saudi Arabia.

February 1990

 * Gayyoom opens Majlis and says, ‘The Maldivian people need to begin a new era of democracy, and for this fresh ideas and new thoughts are in demand’.

March 1990

 * Gayyoom visits Thailand. Independent Hukuru ( Friday ) magazine registered for publication.

May 1990

 * Sangu magazine banned after less than six months, for ‘publication of articles inciting the public against the government, and failure to heed cautionary advice’. Sangu has been highlighting corruption around the President’s brother-in- law and minister of fisheries Ilyas Ibrahim.


 * Arrests and smear campaigns against government opponents and death threats against politicians and journalists.

June 1990

 * Indian PM V.P. Singh visits Maldives and promises economic assistance including a vocational training and hotel training institute in Malè.

July 1990

 * Gayyoom announces a pardon for former President Ibrahim Nasir. Nasir had previously been found guilty of certain charges by the Majlis. President Gayyoom tells journalist Vijitha Yapa, ‘Our laws do not bar anybody from forming a political party if they want to’.

August 1990

 * Hukuru magazine closed under the regulation: ‘in the event of the owner of a newspaper or a magazine is placed under arrest, unless the ownership is transferred within 14 days, the publication will be closed’.

September 1990

 * Gayyoom visits UN in New York.

November 1990

 * Gayyoom visits Japan.


 * New York Times article criticises Gayyoom for ‘locking up more than a dozen intellectuals who might criticise a government that no longer tolerates opposition’.

December 1990

 * India signs agreement to train Maldivians in use of aviation fuels.

The Year  1991

 * Gayyoom visits each SAARC country. Anti


 * corruption board established in Malè.

January 1991

 * Gayyoom is guest of honour at Republic Day Celebrations of India.

May 1991

 * Gayyoom receives ‘Man of the Sea’ award from the Italian Naval League in Palermo, Italy.

June 1991

 * Election commission cancels Dhaalu atoll Majlis election results for 1989 after one member is convicted of bribery.

July 1991

 * India donates Rs26 million in food aid to Maldives.

December 1991

 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa Shipping (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. incorporated in Singapore.

The Year 1992

 * Abdul Shakoor Ali (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf900,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Gayyoom speaks in support of women’s rights to equality of opportunity and pay.


 * By-election protest vote from Malè electors after reformist Dr Mohamed Waheed is forced to resign his Malè Majlis seat.

January 1992

 * Gayyoom visits Saudi Arabia.to attend Muslim World League council meeting. Attends further session in Saudi Arabia in 1993 and 1995/96.

June 1992

 * Gayyoom attends UN conference on environment and development in Rio de Janeiro. July/September 1992===


 * In a ‘confession’ to the NSS, Fanditha woman Dhon Didi, (the daughter of Hakeem Didi who was executed for black magic and murder by Mohamed Ameen in 1953), signs a confession saying she has done black magic rituals for Ilyas Ibrahim during the wet season of 1992.

The Year  1993

 * Dr Mohamed Zahir Hussein, Haveeru owner and editor, granted secret loan of almost Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Ilyas Ibrahim, brother-in law of president Gayyoom, attempts to secure presidential nomination in the Majlis. Sent to Singapore and charged with corruption and black magic offences. Despite adverse publicity, a minority of 18 Majlis members in a secret vote support Ilyas for president. Ilyas Ibrahim stays in ‘exile’ until 1996. His expenses abroad are paid by Koli Ali Umar Manik through Universal. In a flight to London, Ilyas carries US$450,000 in various currencies. President Gayyoom permits the money through British customs.


 * Law Commission established to assist Attorney-general’s office in drafting laws.

June 1993

 * In Thailand, Ismail Sadiq, Maldive director of a tuna


 * selling firm in Bangkok, promotes the establishment of a political party in Maldives to represent the interests of fishermen. Ismail Sadiq complains Gayyoom’s brother-in law Ilyas Ibrahim is selling Maldive tuna based on the size of commissions from the buyers, rather then the price paid for the fish.

September 1993

 * Ilyas Ibrahim tried in absentia and banished for 15 years for illegally attempting to influence the Majlis vote for the presidential candidate.

October 1993

 * Gayyoom supported in referendum for president with official vote of 93%. He vows to make sweeping reforms and allow a multi


 * candidate presidential referendum and to encourage decentralisation of power into the atolls before 1998.

The Year  1994

 * Gayyoom makes state visit to China.


 * Young Maldive woman dies after gang rape by the NSS in Gaamaadhoo prison.

December 1994

 * Majlis election held with numerous reports of voting fraud and intimidation. Election repeated in Kulhudhuffushi and Hirimaradhoo islands. Team of foreign observers organised by foreign minister Fathulla Jameel declare the elections free and fair.

The Year  1995

 * Ismail Faiz (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * US government suspends Maldives eligibility for tariff preferences because the Maldives government failed to take steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights to workers.


 * Female participation in the formal labour market has fallen from 60% in 1978 to only 21% by 1995.


 * Mohamed Nasheed, Ilyas Hussein and older politician Kaluhuraa Mohamed Latheef (no relation to current MDP spokesman Latheef) apply to register a political party.


 * Dagadu Dahanaa ‘Iron Armour: Maldives becomes a British protectorate, 1800-1900’ by Mohamed Nasheed published in Malè by Loamaafaanu.


 * Air Maldives formed as joint venture with Malaysian Tajudin Ramli’s holding company, Naluri, which paid US$8 million for a 49% stake.


 * Rehabilitation centre for drug addicts established on Himmafushi island on Malè atoll.


 * Survey carried out on marine protected site on Ari atoll. Ahmed Shafeeq, a prominent historian and writer aged 68, is arrested, jailed and tortured by Gayyoom’s NSS without public explanation. He is permanently crippled by the torture and after being released, he writes his diaries in an obsolete Dhivehi script so that few can read them. Ahmed Shafeeq, and fellow writers Hassan Ahmed Manik and Ali Moosa Didi were arrested and imprisoned because of a diary that Shafeeq kept, and their support for the establishment of a political party system. The diary had details of corruption by ruling officials, and details of the expenses incurred in building the Presidential Palace.

March 1995

 * Government power generator opened on Naifaru island Lhaviyani atoll.

April 1995

 * Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital completed in Malè.

July 1995

 * Gayyoom announces One Million Tree project to make Maldives ‘a million times greener’ by 1999.

October 1995

 * Gayyoom attends UN meeting in New York.

December 1995

 * In a letter to the Majlis, Gayyoom says that having more than one candidate in the presidential referendum ‘will disrupt the long existing political and social harmony as well as peace and prosperity among the people of Maldives’.

The Year  1996

 * Vakaru Moosa Ahmed granted secret Rf500,000 loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Samaru Blue Ibrahim Manik (Gayyoom’s wife’s brother-in law) granted Rf 350,000 loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Zahir becomes NSS chief of staff. Ismail Sadiq, who has been attempting to organise a fishermen’s political party and complaining about corruption in the sale of tuna in Bangkok, is arrested when he returns to Malè from Thailand. He is held for 4 and half years, and escapes from NSS custody in Thailand in September 2000. Ismail Sadiq suffers stab wounds from NSS Sgt Aseeth during the escape.

===338,733 tourists stay in Maldives during 1996, and GDP grows by 6.5%.


 * Ilyas Ibrahim returns quietly to Malè and is placed under comfortable house arrest.

January 1996

 * disturbances in Fua Mulak after rises in the price of electricity and continuing delays on developing the dangerous Fua Mulak harbour.


 * NSS militia occupy Fua Mulak and Addu atoll, and conduct military exercises on streets of inhabited Addu islands. Dhiraagu licensed to provide Internet connections. Majority owner at this time is the Maldives government. The joint-venture owner is Cable and Wireless PLC, UK

May 1996

 * Tobacco advertising banned throughout Maldives. General ban on smoking in government buildings.

July 1996

 * Gayyoom announces environmental cleanup campaign with slogan “Independent-Maldives Clean Maldives”.

October 1996

 * Villa representative office opened in Frankfurt, Germany.

November 1996

 * Gayyoom attends World Food Summit in Rome.

December 1996

 * Abbas Ibrahim (Gayyoom’s brother-in law) becomes director of the National Council for Linguistic and Historical Research.

The Year  1997

 * Aishath Zunaira (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf600,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Adam Naeem (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf600,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Hussein Mohamed Didi (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf600,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Saleem granted a secret loan of Rf200,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ibrahim Ahmed Manik granted a secret loan of Rf350,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Adam Abdul Rahman granted secret Rf500,000 loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Anbaree Abdul Sattar becomes deputy-chief of the NSS.


 * Gayyoom and his family and their spouses and children move into new multi-million dollar palace.


 * Total student enrolments are 93,375. Fifty-one government schools operate outside Malè. In an interview in 1997, Gayyoom says, ‘We enjoy a level of freedom of speech that Maldivians have never known in the past. But the freedom of expression that is prevailing in the West is not relevant or useful in a condition like ours’. Ministry of women’s affairs and social security established.

January 1997

 * Ilyas Ibrahim pardoned after earlier being sentenced to 15 years banishment in absentia for contravening the constitution.

July 1997

 * Villa Holidays Touristik incorporated in Germany by Buruma Gasim Ibrahim.

September 1997

 * President Gayyoom bans book of twentieth century Maldive history, Iyye, ( Yesterday ), written by Maldives’ oldest and most respected historian, Abdul Hakeem Hussein Manik. October 1997===


 * Gayyoom awarded Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George by queen Elizabeth II in London.

November 1997

 * After 17 years of preparation by a special constitutional Majlis, the new constitution is submitted to President Gayyoom for approval. Adopted by presidential decree on 27 November.

The Year  1998

 * Kelaa Ahmed Nizam granted secret Rf100,000 loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Web pages called Sangu98 appear on Internet


 * based on hardcopy magazines published and previously banned by President Gayyoom in 1990. Internet access to the Sangu98 is blocked.


 * Prisoners at Maafushi jail fight with NSS guards and beat them.


 * Torture of prisoners continues and intensifies.


 * Massive wastage in fishing industry. MIFCO is able to process only 5% of the year’s catch. Huvadhu atoll badly affected.

October 1998

 * President Gayyoom selected for fifth 5 year term in referendum with no other candidates. Official results give him over 90%. Kelaa island on Haa Alif atoll, votes against Gayyoom.

November 1998

 * Gaamaadhoo jail burns down. With the NSS quick reaction force (QRF 2), Mohamed Zahir takes control of Gaamaadhoo. Later, Maafushi jail is established.

The Year  1999

 * Ibrahim Ahmed Manik granted a further secret loan of Rf250,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority. Mohamed Rasheed (Hiyalee) granted a secret loan from president’s special assistance account. In October 2005, his outstanding debt is Rf570,000. Ahmed Mohamed granted a secret loan from president’s special assistance account. In October 2005, his outstanding debt is over Rf525,000.


 * Xavier Romero Frias, a fluent Dhivehi speaker married to a Maldivian from Fua Mulak, publishes The Maldive Islanders in Spain. It is the most important work on traditional Maldive culture ever to appear in English.

August 1999

 * Chief justice and chairman of the supreme council of Islamic affairs Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim says Christian missionary radio broadcasts from FEBA in Dhivehi language are of continuing concern to the Maldivian government. In an exclusive interview with Miadhu, Rasheed said that all the government efforts to stop the program, which started last year, have so far been unsuccessful. Direct talks with the Seychelles government have been held on the issue.

August/September 1999

 * Dead dolphins are washed up on the beach at Meedhoo island in Addu lagoon. Dolphins die at a rate of eight per day.


 * Mass fainting fits on two occasions by girls in Alifushi island, Raa atoll.

September 1999

 * Air Maldives director and NSS leader Anbaree Abdul Sattar signs lease agreement for three new wide


 * bodied Airbus A310-300 airplanes.

October 1999

 * Ibrahim Moosa Luthfee (future co


 * editor of Sandhaanu ) writes lengthy letters detailing two years of abuse of the court system and police powers in a campaign of harassment against him for refusing to vacate his house, wanted by Gayyoom’s Miadhu newspaper as an office in 1997. Luthfee sends the letters to the presidential palace, the advisor to the supreme council of Islamic affairs, the speaker of the people’s Majlis, members of the people’s Majlis, members of the cabinet, the chief justice of Maldives, the chief judge of the criminal court, and the candidates of the general elections of 1999.

November 1999

 * Majlis elections held with widespread fraud and intimidation. Mohamed Nasheed elected by large majority, even after public counting ceases when Nasheed’s majority becomes apparent. Counting is completed in secrecy In period before this election, at least three candidates are arrested and tortured by Gayyoom’s NSS.

December 1999

 * Five cafes in Malè lose their licences, and their foreign workers are deported after they were discovered preparing and selling rice packs during the fasting days of Ramazan.

The Year  2000

 * Chief Judge Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim granted secret loan of nearly Rf6 million from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Abdulla Shahid granted secret loan of nearly Rf3 million from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ibrahim Hussein (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf900,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * World Bank president James Wolfenshon describes Maldives as ‘a republic, with a democratic system of government’.


 * Government expenditure on NSS is now equal to Education expenditure at Rf500 million each. NSS purchases amphibious landing craft from New Zealand.


 * Internet discussion group called Dhivehi Forum attracts increasing readership and contributors. Moderator begins to allow discussion of sensitive political issues. President Gayyoom bans Dhivehi Forum from single Dhiraagu server controlling Maldives Internet connections.

January 2000

 * Man on Thinadhoo stabs his father-in law to death in the street in broad daylight. The father-in law is awaiting trial on charges of sexually molesting his five year old grand


 * daughter.


 * Faafu atoll chief Zakariya Hameed (childhood friend of Gayyoom) claims he is assaulted at night on Magoodhoo island. He accuses one man, and then drops that claim and accuses another. Eyewitnesses claim he was drunk and fell into a wall. When Gayyoom hears Zakariya’s accusations he sends the NSS to Magoodhoo and over 20 people from the island are arrested, imprisoned, tortured and exiled without trial. The atoll office is moved from Magoodhoo to Nilandhoo island, the home of Zakariya Hameed. At the end of 2000, a court in Malè clears all the men of any charges.

March 2000

 * Air Maldives collapses due to the deal signed by Anbaree Abdul Sattar in 1999. Losses are estimated between US$50 million and US$70 million. The long


 * haul route flown by the aircraft from London was never commercially viable, the leases cost over US$1 million per month and the losses started to multiply. On March 1, Air Maldives ceases all international operations. Six weeks later, the carrier closes down for good.

September 2000

 * Haveeru reports that women are being employed in growing numbers in Male’s west harbour teashops, but harassment is a serious problem for waitresses. Ismail Sadiq escapes from NSS custody in Thailand where he is visiting his sick daughter. He is stabbed by NSS Sgt. Aseeth.

December 2000

 * Ismail Sadiq’s wife Mariyam Jumna Sadiq writes to President Gayyoom with details of corruption and illegal sexual behaviour by senior ministers and officials. She alleges that foreign minister Fathulla Jameel asked her husband Ismail Sadiq to seek re


 * election funds for Gayyoom from IBU Bangkok, Dongwon and other Korean companies. Mrs Sadiq demands that debts owed to her husband be repaid, and says she has video and audio recordings to back many of her allegations. She claims that over the preceding ten years in Malè, her car was hit by gunfire (1991), her house set ablaze and her daughter poisoned.

The Year  2001

 * Abdul Gayyoom Hassan (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf375,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Ibrahim Rushdie (President’s Office) granted a secret loan of Rf600,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdulla Maseehu Mohamed granted a secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Vakaru Moosa Ahmed granted further loan of over Rf400,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Samaru Blue Ibrahim Manik (Gayyoom’s wife’s brother-in law) granted another Rf350,000 loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Hathifushi Abdulla Shakir granted secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdul Rasheed Hussein granted over Rf2 million loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Indian government donates radar system to Maldives.


 * Poor fishing catches cause widespread poverty throughout Huvadhu atoll during 2001.


 * Private buying of fresh fish is introduced by Gayyoom. The country is divided into four fishing zones and Gayyoom and his associates keep the lucrative zones 2 and 3 in central Maldives for themselves. Gayyoom disrupts the arrangement to pressure businessmen sympathetic to political reform. Fishermen in some areas unable to sell their daily catches.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa Hotels office established in Tokyo.


 * Only 100 out of 5,000 Maldivians employed in the tourism industry are women.


 * A group of 42 prominent people petition the minister of home affairs to request permission to set up the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

March 2001

 * Business development workshop held in Gan on Addu atoll.

April 2001

 * Maldives Culture website begins to publish detailed information on nepotism among the families of president Gayyoom and his wife Nasreena Ibrahim, and other critical analyses originally copied from Internet sites such as Dhivehi Forum and the Libertarian Party of Maldives . Maldives Culture banned from Dhiraagu server by president Gayyoom.

June 2001

 * Police issue warning that they will take action to prevent verbal and sexual harassment in Malè that is making it difficult for women to walk in the streets.

July 2001

 * Fanditha man Abdullah Haleelu, 40, from Fasmeeru Garden house in Male’s Henveiru ward, is sentenced to five months banishment for doing magic to influence a soccer football game, namely casting a spell on the Valencia players to enable his New Radiant club to win in the final match of the Maldives Football Association cup played in June. New Radiant had won the match 2-0.


 * Suspicious fire destroys boats in Male’s western harbour.


 * Family Act comes into force, granting more protection to the rights of women, custody of children, and care of elderly parents.


 * Rufiya officially devalued against US$. Eliminates the black market in foreign exchange.

August 2001

 * NSS attempt to stop cable TV use in Naifaru island. Government property is attacked. A number of arrests are made and the detainees are tortured.

September 2001

 * First issue of Dhivehi language Sandhaanu newsletter appears as a PDF file in many Maldivians’ email inboxes. NSS ordered by President Gayyoom to harass known computer users and closely monitor Internet communications through the Dhiraagu server. October 2001===


 * Faafu atoll chief Zakariya Hameed tells leaders of Magoodhoo that he has been given authority to level Magoodhoo island and disperse its inhabitants, just as Ibrahim Nasir destroyed Thinadhoo in early 1962. Later that night back in Nilandhoo, Zakariya falsely claims Magoodhoo islanders had assaulted health workers from Mulee island regional hospital. Zakariya’s assistant arrives in Magoodhoo accompanied by a group of convicts serving banishment sentences in Nilandhoo. Based on statements by these convicts, eight Magoodhoo men are accused of setting the atoll chief’s vessel adrift. Another Zakariya official arrives in Magoodhoo and takes away three men (not among the accused) to Nilandhoo where over 300 islanders pelt the men with sand and stones when they are brought ashore. The men were kept under house arrest in three different houses in Nilandhoo. The eight other accused men are taken to Malè, tortured and kept in jail and under house arrest for nearly 12 months before their release on 30 September 2002.


 * Malè MP Mohamed Nasheed (Anni) arrested on bogus petty theft charges. Nasheed was due to table a bill on ‘Questioning cabinet ministers in the Parliament (Majlis)’. It had been seconded by the MP for Thaa atoll, Hassan Afeef. Other reformist MPs are arrested, including Heron’s Hannan, Riyalu Azi, Mohamed Latheef and Umar Jamal. They are accused of committing a terrorist act by planning to establish a political party.

November 2001

 * After being held in jail for a month, Malè MP Mohamed Nasheed is tried without legal representation and convicted of a bogus petty theft charge, stripped of his Majlis seat and sentenced to two and half years banishment. During Republic Day speech, Gayyoom says multi


 * party politics does not conform to the norms of a homogenous society like Maldives. December 2001


 * Two male students returning from Australia and Malaysia are arrested and questioned about Internet use among Maldivians. Later released. Naushad Waheed arrested and his computer confiscated.

The Year  2002

 * Ibrahim Rushdie (President’s Office) granted another secret loan of Rf200,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Fathimath Shireen granted a secret loan of Rf1.5 million from president’s special assistance account.


 * Kelaa Ahmed Nizam granted further secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdulla Kamaludeen granted secret Rf750,000 loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ahmed Shareef granted a secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Nashid granted a secret loan of Rf200,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdulla Aseeru granted a secret loan of Rf50,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Naseem granted a secret loan of Rf45,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Population of Maldives is 293,000. GDP growth rate is 5.6%.


 * Draft manifesto for a proposed Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) circulates in Maldives.


 * Majlis passes bill on Prevention and Punishment of Corruption.


 * Large government boat building facility in Alifushi island on Raa atoll is closed without explanation.


 * For five days in 2002, two members of the US Marine Corps Martial Arts Program train NSS personnel in close combat techniques.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa Hotels office established in Hong Kong.

January 2002

 * last issue of Sandhaanu . NSS arrest Mohamed Zaki, Ibrahim Luthfee and Fathimath Nisreen, in connection with Sandhaanu . Malaysian police raid home of Mohamed and Ismail Zaki in Malaysia. Others are arrested over the matter, and later released.

February 2002

 * Ahmed Didi arrested for Sandhaanu related offences.

===March

April 2002

 * Businessmen known to be critical of President Gayyoom, Abdul Hannan, Ahmed Nasheed, Hassan Zahir, and Gasim Ibrahim arrested, interrogated, detained for days or weeks, and then released.

April 2002

 * Many Malè people refuse to vote in by


 * election for Mohamed Nasheed’s vacant seat in the Majlis. Abdulla Kamaludeen wins seat.

June 2002

 * Islamic preacher Ibrahim Fareed arrested and detained for criticising government policies during a religious lecture. Charged under the Religious Unity Protection law. Held in solitary confinement for two periods totaling over one year, with intervals of house arrest totaling over 8 months. Dengue fever outbreak in Maldives, thousands affected.

July 2002

 * Sandhaanu defendants Mohamed Zaki, aged 50, Ibrahim Luthfee, 37, and Ahmed Didi, 50, are tried without legal representation and sentenced to life imprisonment by judge Abdullah Areef. Fathimath Nisreen, 21, sentenced to ten years jail.


 * Nine Naifaru men (average age 41) sentenced to three years jail for various offences in Naifaru (August 2001) when NSS stopped cable TV access to the island.

September 2002

 * Indian PM Vajpayee pays state visit to Maldives.

October 2002

 * Australian man jailed in Maafushi for importing 57gm of hash oil cannabis is released after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000. Australian newspapers and surfing magazines reveal gross overcrowding in the jail. Naushad Waheed sentenced to 15 years jail for communicating with Amnesty International.


 * Two well known Dhivehi film actors found guilty of committing adultery and both are whipped. The man is banished and the woman sentenced to house arrest. Two women convicted of homosexual activity sentenced to 15 lashes each.

November 2002

 * The Monday Times banned without explanation by Gayyoom. Monday Times has been asking detailed questions about matters of law, business and government in Maldives.


 * In a republic day speech, Gayyoom describes the 1997 constitution, ratified in 2000, as ‘complete and perfect’.

December 2002

 * Hundreds of Sri Lankans protest in Colombo over plight of Sri Lankan prisoners in Maldives Maafushi jail, south of Malè.


 * Changes to the criminal procedure law reinforce the right of accused people to legal aid lawyers, but restrict the power of those lawyers to act on behalf of their clients. The NSS investigating officer must witness meetings between a lawyer and client, and lawyers can be dismissed or charged in relation to those discussions. Haveeru later reports that under this law, lawyers are refusing to take any legal aid cases.

The Year  2003

 * Hussein Mohamed Didi (President’s Office) granted another secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Ibrahim Rushdie (President’s Office) granted another secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Ali granted a secret loan of Rf1 million from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ismail Zahir granted a secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * The police, functioning as an NSS subsection, have 287 personnel in 2003.

January 2003

 * Ali Shaheer, 19, dies in Malè hospital after being beaten by NSS in Maafushi jail. February 2003===


 * Abida Gasim granted a secret loan of Rf200,000 from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.

March 2003

 * Head of police and senior NSS officer Adam Zahir granted secret Rf2 million loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * A sudden amendment to the print media regulations results in the de-registration of many newspapers and magazines in Maldives, including the Monday Times and Dhanfulhi.

21 April 2003

 * NSS quick reaction force (QRF 2) renamed as detention security unit.

24 April 2003

 * Administrative control of prisons transferred from Anbaree Abdul Sattar to Adam Zahir. Col. Shaukath Ibrahim in charge of prison security at this time. Later, for administrative convenience, the former QRF 2 unit is placed under the control of Adam Zahir and his subordinates Lt. Col. Ibrahim Rasheed and Major Ibrahim Latheef.

May 2003

 * Sandhaanu prisoner Ibrahim Luthfee escapes from NSS custody in Sri Lanka where he is being treated for chronic conjunctivitis contracted in Maafushi jail. He is given political refugee status by the UNHCR and resettled in Switzerland. Luthfee contacts Maldives Culture website and warns that serious trouble will occur at Maafushi due to constant torture of the prisoners, overcrowding and poor food.

June 2003

 * Dandikoshi, a book of Maldive history edited and published by the Orient Academic Centre in Malè headed by Mohamed Nasheed, is banned. After nearly three years of research, and eight months’ preparation, the book had been granted a permit in May 2003. When printing was completed, the permit was suddenly withdrawn without explanation. Ministry of trade warns Maldive islanders living near resorts not to trade with tourists. July 2003===


 * Five women imprisoned on drug charges sentenced to 10 lashes each.

September 2003

 * Hassan Evan Naseem, 19, beaten to death during torture of about 15 prisoners by NSS militia sent to Maafushi prison. Next day (20 September) protesting Maafushi prisoners move towards the the guards and are shot. Beatings and torture continue at the prison after the shootings. Riots in Malè that same day, after crowds see the dead bodies of Evan Naseem and Abdulla Ameen (shot in the head). Police stations in the capital are burnt, the Majlis building is stoned, and high court records destroyed. NSS militia are beaten by the crowd and NSS vehicles are burnt. There is no damage to private property. Over twenty prisoners suffering from gunshot wounds are air-lifted to Sri Lanka for treatment. Two more die in hospital. NSS arrest and beat young people from Malè, and then take them to the NSS training island Girifushi just north of Malè. Mass beatings of roped and chained prisoners in Girifushi. Jennifer Latheef is among the people arrested during the riot.


 * President Gayyoom selected (25 September) unanimously by Majlis to be sole candidate in presidential referendum. Most Majlis members are relatives of Gayyoom and his wife Nasreena Ibrahim, or they have been personally appointed by Gayyoom.

October 2003

 * Large fire (10 October) at MIFCO, 100% government owned tuna exporting business. Many records destroyed just before an audit of the company was scheduled to begin.


 * In an interview with Adam Mynott from the BBC, Gayyoom denies torture occurs in Maldives and says that freedom of expression is guaranteed in Maldives by its constitution. Mynott also interviews A.S.I. Moosa (Sappe’) and Ahmed Nizam, who both criticise Gayyoom. Sappe’ moves to the UK and establishes the influential website, Dhivehi Observer.

17 October 2003

 * President Gayyoom selected in public presidential referendum (he is only candidate) amid widespread reports of voting fraud and intervention during a late-night blackout at the Malè vote-counting centre by the NSS carrying suitcases full of prepared votes.

November 2003

 * Attorney-general Munavvar and national development minister Ibrahim Hussein Zaki are sacked by President Gayyoom.

10 November 2003

 * Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) formally created in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Later, MDP sets up website for Maldivians to join the party, and over 250 people apply before Gayyoom blocks the website two days later. Over the next two years, party membership grows to 40,000 people.

24 November 2003

 * Minster of state for defence and national security Anbaree Abdul Sattar testifies to the presidential commission of inquiry into the events at Maafushi jail in September.


 * Anbaree says he functions as a senior administrator and the ministry is controlled by its minister of defence, Maumoon Gayyoom. Anbaree says the NSS is controlled in sections by himself, Mohamed Zahir and Adam Zahir. Each section head reports directly to Maumoon Gayyoom. Police investigations, prisoners, regional police forces, trial transfers, and detentions are controlled by Adam Zahir.


 * Anbaree admits that Major Latheef phoned him at noon on 19 September (about 11 hours before Evan Naseem was tortured to death) and said there was a disturbance at Maafushi prison, but Anbaree insists he told Latheef to contact Adam Zahir about the matter, and Adam Zahir would then consult with Maumoon Gayyoom.


 * Anbaree admits that Major Latheef phoned him again at 8.30 pm that night to report that a NSS serviceman’s hand was broken and the situation in Maafushi jail had further deteriorated. Anbaree says he once again told Latheef to follow the chain of command and report to Adam Zahir, but Anbaree also admits he received details of the injury from Latheef and Anbaree personally arranged for NSS transportation of the injured serviceman to Malè for hospital treatment.


 * Anbaree says that at 11.30 pm that same day, Major Latheef telephoned him again to report that a prisoner had died at Maafushi jail.

24 November 2003

 * Police commissioner Adam Zahir testifies to the presidential commission that he had little involvement with decisions made at Maafushi jail during the period when Evan Naseem was killed and the prisoners shot. Adam Zahir lays the blame sympathetically on the NSS at Maafushi. ‘Capt. Adam Mohamed is a man who has had full military training. But, it is likely that he is not experienced in the police. The police deal with the people. Police thinking and philosophy may not be in a military person. Training to deal with people and training to deal with the enemy would be very different’.

24 November 2003

 * NSS chief of staff Mohamed Zahir testifies to presidential commission that he had little involvement in the killings at Maafushi jail. He says he is the budget controller for the NSS. Mohamed Zahir admits the NSS quick reaction forces were used to control the prisons before they were renamed in April 2003.


 * President Gayyoom hires international public relations firm Hill and Knowlton (London office) to promote his dictatorship.

December 2003

 * Police chief Adam Zahir granted another secret Rf2 million loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority. President Gayyoom blocks Maldivian Democratic Party website without official explanation.


 * Sandhaanu prisoners Mohamed Zaki and Ahmed Didi have life sentences reduced to 15 years, and Fathimath Nisreen’s sentence reduced to 5 years.


 * Maldivian Democratic Party established by Mohamed Nasheed and Mohamed Latheef (Jennifer Latheef’s father) in Sri Lanka to avoid persecution by President Gayyoom. Human Rights Commission, controlled by President Gayyoom, established in Malè with funding from the UNDP, Canada and UK.

The Year  2004

 * Umar Shafeeu and Ahmed Shafeeu, from the house of Adam Naeem (President’s Office) are granted secret loans of Rf1 million each, from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Mohamed Unaif granted a secret loan of Rf350,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdul Sattar Mohamed granted a secret loan of Rf500,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Ali granted a secret loan of Rf1 million from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abida Gasim granted a further secret loan of Rf200,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Aminath Jameel granted a secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Hussein Rasheed Yusuf granted a secret loan of Rf125,000 from president’s special assistance account..


 * The Maldives Ministry of Finance is paying off MSL loans amounting to US$23 million. Other MSL-related shipping debts outstanding in 2004 are US$10 million owed to Singapore suppliers and US$3 million owed to Iraq.


 * The cost of renting a single room with toilet, food, water and electricity in Malè is approximately Rf3,850 per month. The average monthly wage is Rf1,900.

January 2004

 * President Gayyoom presents to the Majlis two heavily censored Maafushi reports (cut to about 10% of original reports) concerning death of Evan Naseem and the shootings the following day.


 * Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) representatives meet with British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka.

February 2004

 * Fight in Dhiddhoo island in Haa Alif atoll between supporters of Samaru Ibrahim Manik and islanders over misuse of funds for Manik’s Majlis election campaign. More than 700 members of the NSS threaten to resign. Secret meeting at President’s office attended by President Gayyoom, NSS generals Mohamed Zahir and Adam Zahir, and NSS Lieutenant colonel Moosa Ali Jaleel.


 * Gayyoom forms secret illegal group of thugs controlled by his brother Yameen Abdulla and Ilyas Ibrahim.


 * MDP holds its first council elections using the Internet and SMS messaging. To prevent a public protest rally, Maldivian Democratic party supporters and their wives and children arrested by NSS in pre-dawn raids in Malè. Men, women and children handcuffed, dragged and thrown into trucks.


 * Several days after these arrests, the new Attorney-general Dr Hassan Saeed charges six people including Jennifer Latheef with terrorism during the September 2003 riot.


 * On same day, charges also filed against eleven NSS privates and one NSS lance-corporal for the death of Evan Naseem at Maafushi jail in September 2003. Attorney-general demands the death penalty for these 12 young men, but over the coming months and years they are treated very leniently by the courts and the prison system. Their sentences are kept short and most are quickly pardoned. Other NSS personnel are charged over the shootings of Maafushi prisoners on the day after Naseem’s death, and related matters.


 * Maldivian Democratic party representatives Mohamed Nasheed and Ahmed Moosa (editor of Dhivehi Observer website) meet officials from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.


 * President Gayyoom announces the police force will be separated from the NSS. Later events, and statements by the police chief NSS general Adam Zahir, prove that although the police uniform changes, the police remain, in reality, a subsection of the NSS.

March 2004

 * Maldivian Democratic Party moves to UK due to Sri Lankan police and Maldivian High Commission harassment. Sandhaanu website established by Ibrahim Luthfee in Switzerland. (In 2005, Luthfee ceases publication for family reasons.)

17 March 2004

 * Twenty-three Thinadhoo islanders drowned after the overcrowded boat Enamaa capsizes in the Huvadhu atoll lagoon returning from Viligili island with 126 people aboard. NSS prevents rescuers from leaving Thinadhoo until enraged people attack the island office and sail out to the disaster area. They return with drowned and bloated bodies. Mass burials follow.

April 2004

 * Speaking at the 112th anniversary of the NSS, President Gayyoom tells the assembled militia at a private ceremony that democratic reform is a plot by Christian missionaries and reformists who were un-Islamic and acting illegally. Gayyoom tells the NSS to hunt down reformists. Adam Zahir and Mohamed Zahir, heads of the NSS, are each promoted to the rank of major-general. Isthafa Ibrahim Mohamed Manik, chief administrator of the torture of prisoners for President Ibrahim Nasir and then President Gayyoom, resigns from the defence department. He keeps other government positions and is publicly praised by Gayyoom. Colonel Ahmed Zahir resigns from the NSS. He was appalled by the events of September 2003.


 * Islamic preacher Ibrahim Fareed released from house arrest but forbidden to travel outside Malè.


 * Maldives signs UN Convention against Torture.


 * IMF consultation with Maldives: Tourism receipts grew by 15% during 2003, and inflation was negative, due mainly to falling prices for locally grown food. Rufiya is pegged to US dollar, and the dollar’s depreciation against the euro since 2001 has improved Maldives’ competitive position. Economic output growth in 2003 was 8.5%, according to the IMF. Due to increased foreign financing, external debt as a share of GDP was 40.5%, up 7% from 2001.The IMF stresses the need to prepare the country for market-based financing and to encourage private inflows of capital. It is important to have a clear separation of the roles of minister of finance and governor of the Maldives Monetary Authority, says the IMF.

May 2004

 * Without evidence or court proceedings, the Maldives media controlled by the president’s relatives and old friends, accuses Ibrahim Fareed of being a terrorist. Large quantities of heroin, packaged for sale as small pellet


 * shaped packets, wash up onto Viligili beach adjacent to Malè. Hundreds of NSS personnel search the Viligili lagoon.

June 2004

 * President Gayyoom proposes constitutional reform for a more democratic Maldives on 9 June. These proposals include:


 * more than one candidate in the presidential referendum.
 * divesting president of control over judiciary.
 * permitting women to contest the presidency.
 * two 5 year term limit for presidency.
 * creation of a prime minister appointed by president on advice from the people’s Majlis.
 * abolishing presidential appointments to the Majlis (currently 15% of members).
 * permitting formation and activities of political parties.
 * establishment of a supreme court.


 * MDP supports his proposals. However, Gayyoom continues to block and sabotage the reform process. Gayyoom tells BBC that opinion ‘from our legal experts’ says that the Maldives constitution prevents political parties.


 * President Gayyoom, through Singapore based lawyers, threatens the editors of Maldives Culture (resident in Canberra, Australia) with legal action over an email to the editors they have published about Koli Ali Umar Manik, who is resident in Singapore.


 * Friends of Maldives organisation, based in UK and headed by David Hardingham, launches its website.


 * Large attendance at two hour seminar on party politics organised by the MDP in Malè. A second highly successful meeting is held on 5 July.

July 2004

 * Gayyoom bans future public meetings about democratic reform after two large meetings are attended by thousands in Malè. Reformists defy the ban and continue to hold peaceful and well attended meetings.


 * World Bank approves US$15.76 million credit to the Maldives government to deliver education, health and nutrition, employment and community services, particularly to remote island regions.


 * Gayyoom pardons Guraidhoo island chief Abdul Hadee just after he is sentenced to 5 years banishment for corruption and theft, and re-instates him as island chief.


 * President’s office payroll database is leaked to Dhivehi Observer website in UK . The database reveals that Koli Ali Umar Manik, resident in Singapore for decades, is a special advisor to Gayyoom and paid a ministerial salary.


 * Bidding begins for new Maldive islands made available for resort development, amid widespread allegations of bribery.


 * 24 reformist members walk out of the special Majlis when Gayyoom’s brother, Abdulla Hameed, attempts to have a show of hands vote for the speaker, instead of the usual secret vote. They walk directly to the president’s office, passing a cordon of NSS police, and have a heated meeting with Maumoon Gayyoom. Lawsuit is filed against Abdulla Hameed by reformist Majlis member Ilyas Hussein. Gayyoom rejects the lawsuit. Respected high court judge Ahmed Hameed Fahmy is transferred out of the court system without explanation.


 * Dr Mohamed Waheed, a former Majlis member and successful administrator forced to resign his seat in 1992 and driven out of the country by Gayyoom, returns to Malè after a successful career with the UN and announces his intention to be a candidate for the presidency.


 * Sri Lankan foreign minister holds one and half hour meeting with MDP delegates.


 * Draft report on the criminal justice system of Maldives and proposals for reform is completed by Professor Paul Robinson for the UNDP. Robinson says, ‘The Maldivian criminal justice system systematically fails to do justice and regularly does injustice’.

August 2004

 * A young critic of the government Ali Naz Saleem, 26, approaches Gayyoom after Friday prayers in Malè. He is denied access to a lawyer, declared insane and in need of treatment at the Guraidhoo island psychiatric facilities. Meeting in India between Lieutenant


 * general Anbaree Abdul Sattar and Indian defence minister to discuss defence co


 * operation and training.


 * Maldives justice minister tries to make lawyer Husnu Al-Suood sign an admission statement over the attempt to charge the President’s brother Abdulla Hameed with treason for his handling of the vote for the special Majlis speaker in July.


 * Asked to explain the continuing closure of the large government boat-building facility in Alifushi island on Raa atoll since 2002, the fisheries minister Abdulla Kamaludeen says, ‘At one stage the government made a decision to re-open and run it, but what happened was private people showed interest, so we realised that our previous belief, that private people would not be interested in running the business, was wrong’.


 * Old government building rented by the ministry for finance and treasury burns to the ground in the main street of Malè, only days after after bundles of government documents are transferred there. Files from the Fisheries Projects Implementation Department, FPID, (MIFCO’s former name) and finance department records are destroyed.


 * Ilyas Hussein is sacked from the ministry of atolls development, for attempting to charge the president’s brother Abdulla Hameed with treason. Large open air public meetings in Malè demand reform.


 * Slight increase in government wages. Large increases for senior government members.

11 August 2004

 * Judge in Malè attempts to give Ibrahim Fareed a long sentence under the Religious Unity Protection law. Fareed and a small group of supporters conduct protest march through streets of the capital.

13 August 2004

 * Black Friday in Malè. Large public rally in the main square of Malè demands reform and release of political prisoners. Some political prisoners are temporarily permitted to speak at the rally, and Gayyoom’s family members encourage reformists to attend. Numbers at the rally peak on Friday morning, and many have drifted away from the area by the afternoon when Gayyoom orders the NSS to attack the rally and then the homes of known reformists. Many people, including young children and old people, are beaten severely in the streets and houses of Malè. Houses of reformists are vandalised and women assaulted. Mass arrests of over 1,000 people. Many prisoners are blindfolded and beaten in custody in Malè and during transportation to other NSS islands, where they are beaten again.


 * Minivan Radio begins independent broadcasts, prepared by MDP supporters, from overseas into Maldives. It is jammed in Malè by Gayyoom, but becomes a valuable source of information for the 70% of the population living in the atolls.


 * Call by British EU member Nirj Deva for economic sanctions against Gayyoom.


 * The South Asian regions’ newspapers are critical of Gayyoom’s actions against the reformists.


 * Former Seychelles president James Mancham recommends reconciliation in Maldives between Gayyoom and the reformist movement.


 * Friends of Maldives questions the distribution of tourism revenue in Maldives.

September 2004

 * NSS nominally separates into police and military organisations. The police are now under the ministry of home affairs and the military stays in the department of defence. At the ceremony to celebrate the separation, police chief NSS major-general Adam Zahir says, ‘Although we are now wearing a separate uniform and have different responsibilities, we are very closely related like brothers. We will always see ourselves in the same way. We must see ourselves the same. We will teach our juniors to see themselves as the same. In the future, we will have eating and workplaces in separate buildings, but the police and the militia must, and will, work together. Both will be dependant on each other and the police and the military are very close friends. We will be working in separate uniforms with different responsibilities, but for the same aim’.


 * Gayyoom relinquishes the defence and finance portfolios, which he had held since 1978.


 * EU calls on Gayyoom to repeal the state of emergency. Later, the European parliament passes a resolution calling for a travel ban to Maldives and blocking of EU aid.


 * Gayyoom freezes bank accounts of detained reformists.


 * Law Society in UK calls for release of reformist detainees, particularly lawyers Husnu Al-Suood and Dr Mohamed Munavvar


 * Gayyoom’s ministers’ salary rates are revealed in Dhivehi Observer . They receive Rf30,000 to Rf50,000 per month, while the average government wage is Rf1900 per month. Ministers’ spouses receive salary of Rf10,000-Rf12,000 per month and dress allowance. Junior ministers are paid a base rate of Rf6,000 per month. Senior NSS officers receive between Rf20,000 and Rf40,000 per month, and their other expenses are unknown. Police Chief Adam Zahir granted a further Rf4 million loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority


 * More prominent reformist leaders are arrested by Gayyoom. Ibrahim Fareed sentenced to two years jail. His charges included terrorist offences related to his speech to the crowd on 13 August.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim is admitted to hospital from solitary confinement in Dhoonidhoo.


 * Dhivehi Observer website records 8 million hits for the month.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa head office is raided by Gayyoom’s NSS.

October 2004

 * Maldives government signs agreement on prison monitoring with Red Cross.


 * Reports from Addu atoll of low level government staff not receiving their salaries. Buruma Gasim Ibrahim removed from hospital and transferred back to Dhoonidhoo jail. Ibrahim Hussein Zaki’s former personal secretary Aminath Viliniya is arrested, interrogated and released next day.


 * Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) is admitted to hospital from solitary confinement in Dhoonidhoo jail where he has been held since August 13.


 * Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, a former Gayyoom minister, admitted to hospital in critical condition after being held in solitary confinement in Dhoonidhoo since August 13.


 * Gayyoom repeals state of emergency declared on 13 August.


 * Dr Mohamed Munavvar, Gayyoom’s former Attorney-general, brought briefly to hospital in Malè. He has been held in solitary confinement in Dhoonidhoo since August 13.


 * Abbas Ibrahim, brother-in law of Maumoon Gayyoom, elected speaker of the special constitutional Majlis. Twelve MPs walk out of the meeting in protest.


 * Sandhaanu prisoner Ahmed Didi remains in jail despite doctor’s warning that he is suffering from severe coronary heart disease.


 * Leading members of the MDP claim the NSS is raping their family members and other female and male detainees All assaults are video-taped.


 * Naifaru islanders on Lhaviyani atoll receive a public notice from the island chief forbidding them to listen to Minivan Radio and to report people who criticise the public notice.


 * Parents in Feydhoo island Addu atoll asked to pay the salary of their government teachers.


 * Dhivehi Observer reveals that Gayyoom is granted US$14 million by the Maldives Monetary Authority for presidential expenses in 2004, equal to about half government expenditures on health or education. In the previous six years, Gayyoom’s expenses have averaged US$12 million per year.


 * Massive wastage in the fishing industry. Up to 80% of the catch on Huvadhu atoll cannot be processed. Fresh chilled tuna sells for US$23 in UK, but it sells in Maldives for 20 cents a kilo, and in Thailand fetches only US$1 per kilo.


 * Commonwealth secretary-general visits Gayyoom, who agrees to accept expert advice on strengthening the Maldives election commission.


 * Gayyoom begins releasing reformists from solitary confinement and places them under house arrest in their homes in Malè.


 * NSS Lt. GeneralAnbaree Abdul Sattar appointed high commissioner to India by Gayyoom.


 * Sandhaanu prisoner Fathimath Nisreen banished again after being under house arrest in Malè.


 * In UK, Mohamed Nasheed threatens Gayyoom with torture charges in UK courts if reformists are charged in Maldives after enduring imprisonment and torture since 13 August. Gayyoom continues to bring charges against reformist MPs.

November 2004

 * Reformists in detention begin hunger strike. As the strike intensifies, more sick reformists are transferred from jail to house arrest. Friends of Maldives (FOM) demonstrates against the Gayyoom dictatorship in London at World Travel Market fair and the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane. Gayyoom’s son Gassan yells at the demonstrators at the World Travel Market and loudly claims that the deaths and shootings at Maafushi jail in 2003 never happened. At the Hilton hotel, Champa Afeef defends the dictatorship in a heated discussion with FOM leader David Hardingham.


 * Gayyoom refuses to permit 200 education scholarships granted by Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa organisation.


 * Wataniya company granted licence to provide mobile phone services in Maldives.


 * Minivan Radio’s news website launched.


 * Friends of Maldives demonstrate at Maldivian High Commission in London.


 * Dhivehi Observer reports on the number of high rise buildings in Malè and other luxury homes owned by high level officials in Gayyoom’s government - Abdulla Shahid, Mohamed Hussein, Ilyas Ibrahim, Ahmed Abdulla, Fathulla Jameel, Samaru Ibrahim Manik, Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim, Abdul Rasheed Hussein, Anbaree Abdul Sattar, Umar Zahir, Adam Zahir, Yameen Abdulla, Hassan Sobir and Dr Mohamed Latheef.


 * European Commission reports that during Gayyoom’s rule the World Bank has lent Maldives US$87 million for development, and the Asian Development bank has lent US$75.2 million. Average growth rate was 10% per year during the 1980s, down to a 8.4% average in the 1990s, slowing to 4.6% in 2000. Tourism accounts for 19% of GDP, 20% of employment, 30% of tax revenues and 70% of foreign exchange earnings.


 * Friends of Maldives officially opened by Mayor of Salisbury in UK.


 * President Gayyoom, accompanied by other officials including the chief justice Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim, visits military supply factory in Jordan to purchase equipment for the NSS.


 * Gayyoom uses secret night courts for reformists.


 * Second wave of knife slashing attacks on Naifaru island. This Lhaviyani atoll island is adjacent to a NSS base in Madivaru island.


 * Mass resignation of foreign doctors at regional hospital in Hithadhoo island on Addu atoll, due to failure to halt attacks on doctors and their property. Vigilante justice occurs on Hithadhoo as outraged islanders blame NSS connivance with local gangs for the loss of hospital services.

December 2004

 * Human Rights Commission instructed by Gayyoom not to proceed with investigations into events of 12 and 13 August in 2004.


 * Gayyoom loyalist Ibrahim Rasheed Moosa resigns from the Human Rights Commission and attempts to smear human rights commissioner Ahmed Mujutaba.


 * During campaigning for the Majlis election, then scheduled for 31 December 2004, Gayyoom continually arrests and detains reformist candidates, while Gayyoom’s candidates are free to intimidate and bribe their electorates with private and government resources. Voting counting is fraudulent and the NSS interferes with voting boxes on Gayyoom’s behalf. Maldives has one only psychiatrist for its 300,000 people.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim, Dr Mohamed Munavvar, Ibrahim Hussein Zaki and Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) are charged under article 29 of the Maldives Penal Code with ‘acts against the state and causing disharmony’, carrying a penalty of 15 years jail. Buruma Gasim Ibrahim released from house arrest but forbidden to travel abroad.


 * Dr Mohamed Munavvar, Ilyas Hussein and Ibrahim Hussein Zaki released from house arrest.


 * Human Rights Commission demands investigation into allegations made against it by Ibrahim Rasheed Moosa. Gayyoom snubs Human Rights Commission report presentation.


 * The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, affiliated with the US Democrats, publishes 60 page report highly critical of the Gayyoom dictatorship.

26 December 2004

 * Tsunami hits Maldives and other Indian Ocean countries. Waves between 4-14 feet high sweep over much of Maldives. Twenty-one islands devastated, and 14 islands are evacuated. 100,000 Maldivians are directly affected by the tsunami, nearly 12,000 are displaced and another 8,500 temporarily relocated. 83 people are confirmed dead, with a further 25 missing and feared dead. Over 1,300 people are injured. 1,700 homes are destroyed and 3,000 damaged. Gayyoom later claims to have set up a ministerial committee and task force within hours of the disaster, but there is little evidence of government action in the days after the tsunami. Majlis elections rescheduled to 22 January 2005.


 * Delays in helping tsunami victims and general government inaction and corruption enrages many island communities rendered homeless, hungry and destitute by the tsunami. Gayyoom resists offers of tsunami help from NGOs, and demands money rather than physical aid and donations of goods.


 * Gayyoom drops charges against many of the pro-democracy reformists arrested, tortured and jailed in solitary confinement for involvement in the August 2004 rally.

The Year  2005

 * Dr Mohamed Asim, Maldives High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, owes over RF75,000 to president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * Abdulla Shareef (President’s Office) owes nearly Rf900,000 to the president’s special assistance account.


 * Mohamed Unaif granted a further secret loan of Rf350,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdul Sattar Mohamed granted a further secret loan of Rf150,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ibrahim Siraj granted a secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Umar Zahir granted a secret loan of Rf2 million from president’s special assistance account.


 * Zahir Adam, member for southern Huvadhu atoll, granted over Rf1.5 million loan from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ahmed Izzath Sidgee granted a secret loan of over Rf400,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Ibrahim Sabir granted a secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Abdul Azeez Moosa granted a secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account.


 * Dr Hussein Niyaz granted a secret loan of Rf300,000 from president’s special assistance account..

January 2005

 * More than 21 resorts shut down due to tsunami damage.


 * A week after the tsunami, US marines inspect damage in inhabited islands in Maldives accompanied by NSS. Japan pledges US$16 million for Maldives tsunami aid. Dead 70 ft blue whale washed ashore at Full Moon resort on Malè atoll. Continuing protests on eastern Huvadhu atoll over government neglect of tsunami victims. Allegations of theft and misuse of millions of dollars from tsunami funds.


 * Dead human bodies washed up on Maldives from other Indian Ocean countries swept by the tsunami.


 * US sends military staff and equipment to Maldives to aid tsunami victims and reconstruction. Hong Kong gives Maldives government US$1 million cash for tsunami aid.


 * Majlis elections held amid widespread intimidation, bribery and misuse of government property by candidates and supporters of President Gayyoom. Education, health and electricity officials forced to lobby for Gayyoom’s candidates. Voting counting is also manipulated by Gayyoom. Despite blatant vote fraud, reformist candidates win many important seats in the major population areas of Malè and Addu atoll, and other atolls, where Gayyoom’s high profile candidates are rejected. Gayyoom announces that Maldives will have a multi


 * party system within a year. (The MDP is officially registered in Maldives in June 2005.)


 * Container loads of FOM aid leaves Britain for Maldives.


 * Corruption allegations against Maldives High Commissioner to UK Hassan Sobir and high-profile tourism businessman Champa Afeef published in Dhivehi Observer.

February 2005

 * Abbas Ibrahim (president’s brother-in law) granted secret Rf2 million loan from president’s special assistance account with Maldives Monetary Authority.


 * MDP leader Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) travels to UK. to lobby for the MDP. He meets officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth office, Amnesty International and the Commonwealth secretariat, and holds meetings with British members of parliament.


 * Dhivehi Observer reveals business links between the Koli family’s Universal Enterprises, Tom McLoughlin (former manager of the Hilton at Rangali resort) and police chief Adam Zahir. In interview with the BBC in UK,


 * MDP leader Ibrahim Ismail thanks the British people for their generosity after the tsunami, and thanks the FOM organisation for its tsunami help.


 * Maldives Human Rights Commission reports on its monitoring of the Majlis elections in January, and says the elections were not ‘free, unbiased or removed from undue influence’.


 * MDP elects provisional governing council of 15 members.


 * Gayyoom grants tsunami bonus of Rf1,500 for NSS privates, and undisclosed amounts for senior officers.


 * Dhivehi Observer exposes links between new Majlis members and tourist island resort allocations by President Gayyoom.


 * Maldives will need US$340 million for tsunami recovery and reconstruction, says the Asian Development Bank, UNDP and World Bank. US$120 million of external financing will be needed in the next 6 months.


 * Eight NSS privates sentenced to death for murder of Evan Naseem in Maafushi jail. Their sentences are later commuted to life imprisonment by Gayyoom and many are pardoned. Evan Naseem’s mother, Mariyam Manike, condemns President Gayyoom in an interview with Minivan Radio.


 * Karo Abbas and Abdulla Shahid, former high-ranking members of the NSS imprisoned for life after the attempted coup on 3 November 1988, are pardoned and released by Maumoon Gayyoom.


 * UNICEF donates 23 water plants to Maldives.


 * Singapore donates desalination plant.


 * Amnesty International report details systematic abuse of reformists by President Gayyoom and the NSS. Reporters Without Borders, based in France, condemns Gayyoom’s treatment of journalists and writers, and the continuing punishment of the Sandhaanu prisoners.

March 2005

 * Fathulla Jameel undergoes heart surgery in Singapore.


 * Friends Of Maldives founder David Hardingham threatens to sue Miadhu newspaper, often edited by President Gayyoom, after Miadhu claims FOM is a secret Christian missionary organisation.


 * Gayyoom meets with Singapore tycoon Ong Beng Seng who is now major shareholder in the Maldives tourism industry.


 * Minivan News reveals Gayyoom has rejected 30 tons of tsunami aid offered by Buruma Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa group.


 * IMF approves US$6 million emergency loan for Maldives, due to the tsunami disaster. Five percent of the Maldives population has been left homeless by the tsunami and net losses to the Maldives’ balance of payments are estimated at US$160 million in 2005. Total reconstruction costs are estimated at 50% of GDP.


 * Capt Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru), a senior officer on duty in charge of security at Maafushi jail the night Evan Naseem was beaten to death, is acquitted of Naseem’s murder and found guilty on an insubordination charge. Dead and injured prisoners continue to be brought to Malè hospital by the NSS.


 * Father of dead prisoner Muaviath Mahmood lodges complaint with Maldives Human Rights Commission. Four NSS drug enforcement police arrested over death of Muaviath Mahmood and torture of another prisoner. World Bank approves US$14 million for post-tsunami reconstruction.


 * Abbas Ibrahim (Gayyoom’s brother-in law) elected speaker of the special constitutional Majlis. 15 members walk out in protest.


 * Large rises in STELCO electricity prices in Malè. Decomposed body of Mohamed Shafiu, 26, found in uninhabited island near Hithadhoo, Addu atoll. He was last seen being assaulted in NSS custody.


 * European parliament delegation visits Maldives. Gayyoom pays state visit to New Delhi, while two Indian warships anchor near Malè.


 * Asian Development Bank approves US$20 million grant and US$1.8 million loan for Maldives.


 * Maldives resorts damaged by the tsunami are all repaired by end of March 2005, at a cost of US$100 million. Many resorts take the opportunity to renovate and upgrade their facilities.

April 2005

 * Gayyoom rules out multi-party democracy until constitutional reforms are completed by the special constitutional Majlis. Large peaceful night gatherings of reformists demand that political parties be allowed.


 * Chief Judge Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim claims a Christian missionary group called Jafwaa, from the US, wanted to build a US$2 billion church in Maldives in 2000. He also warns Maldivians to beware of aid from Christian missionary groups. ‘We must be alert,’ he says. ‘We should not be mesmerised by the aid they give’.

8 April 2005

 * Gayyoom’s NSS arrest 12 reformists at 2 a.m. President Gayyoom’s national day speech is poorly attended. He claims again that the reformists are plotting to facilitate Christian missionary work in Maldives.


 * NSS seize two container loads of aid, after a search had revealed a Christmas story book donated by a British schoolgirl.


 * Gayyoom demands that all tsunami aid from NGOs be channeled through his regime’s Disaster Management Centre.


 * Emir of Qatar pays state visit to Maldives and tells Gayyoom, ‘the achievement of democracy, social justice and equality in rights and duties is the ideal way of attaining affluence and dignity to people and laying down the foundations for building a modern state’.


 * Gayyoom orders the arrest of a key member of the FOM aid team in Maldives, and also tries to register a bogus Friends of Maldives organisation in UK to intercept tsunami aid money being donated there, and to undermine the real FOM.


 * The FOM organisation has distributed 100 tons of aid since the tsunami, including medical supplies, food, clothing, water and tools. Vast majority of the people working for FOM are Maldivians working in Maldives to distribute, sort and check the aid. NSS officers accompany every FOM shipment to the atolls. World’s first under-sea restaurant opens at the Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa on Raa atoll.


 * Acting on a ‘tipoff’, the police in India’s Kerala state arrest and deport Ibrahim Asif to Malè for ‘indulging in undesirable and suspicious activities’. On 27 April, The Hindu reports that Asif has been deported after ‘the Kerala state police and Indian central agencies foiled an attempt by religious fundamentalist groups based in the UK and Malè to procure arms in Kerala and use them against prominent religious centres and government functionaries in Maldives’. The Hindu quotes ‘highly


 * placed government sources’ saying, ‘Asif had been doing religious work among tsunami


 * affected people at Puttalam in Sri Lanka earlier, and intended to procure weapons and explosives from the state using tsunami relief funds collected in the UK’. The organisation in the UK was named as the Jama’ah Tul Muslimeen. According to The Hindu’s sources, Ibrahim Asif had been arrested by the NSS in 2000 for ‘anti


 * national activities’ and he had traveled to Pakistan in 2004, where he met ‘certain fundamentalist groups working against the Pakistan government’ and the plot to buy arms in Kerala began.


 * There is no evidence to support any of these charges against Ibrahim Asif.


 * In an attempt to intimidate the population, NSS military vehicles manned by fully equipped NSS personnel patrol the streets of Addu atoll


 * At the Indira Gandhi hospital in Malè, a prisoner being brought to from Maafushi jail to the hospital for a checkup is publicly beaten unconscious by 4 NSS personnel at the hospital reception area, after he recognised and abused a NSS serviceman who had tortured him at the jail.


 * Friends of Maldives founder David Hardingham is denied entry to Maldives from Sri Lanka. Without evidence or credibility, he is accused by Gayyoom of Islamic terrorist links to Ibrahim Asif, and of being the leader of a Christian missionary organisation, the FOM.


 * Mohamed Nasheed arrives back in Malè after fleeing Maldives in late 2003 to establish the Maldivian Democratic Party in Colombo. He is placed under surveillance by the NSS and his telephone is tapped.

May 2005

 * Arbitrary arrests of reformists in Addu, and Dhiraagu Internet systems analyst is also arrested.


 * Gayyoom opens the One & Only Reethi Rah resort in northern Malè atoll.


 * Disturbances in Addu atoll, and reports of beatings and torture by the NSS based in Gan island, after protests related to arbitrary arrests of reformists.


 * Adduvas magazine becomes increasingly critical of the Gayyoom regime but is allowed to continue publishing. Without evidence or credibility, Gayyoom accuses MDP of having links with alleged Islamic terrorist Ibrahim Asif.


 * Regular assaults on MDP members in Malè by thugs known to be employed by Gayyoom’s brother Yameen Abdulla.


 * Sandhaanu prisoner Fathimath Nisreen is pardoned and released by Gayyoom. She had been arrested in January 2002 and since that time had been in jail, in exile or under house arrest. Fathimath Nisreen denies she had any part in the preparation and distribution of Sandhaanu.


 * FOM founder David Hardingham and Maldivian Sarah Mahir and others confront Gayyoom with insults and accusations of human rights abuse, and a five foot poster of Evan Naseem and other victims of NSS torture, in front of the WHO building in Geneva, Switzerland. Sarah Mahir publicly accuses Gayyoom of torturing her family. Before Gayyoom gives his speech, FOM members distribute leaflets to the WHO delegates, detailing tsunami aid theft and the torture practices of Gayyoom’s NSS . MDP holds its first public meeting in the Dhunfinige tent in Galolhu ward of Malè.


 * Maldives joins the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, MIGA, a member of the World Bank group.


 * European commission approves details of 323 million euro aid package, part of its 350 million euro post-tsunami reconstruction program for the Indian Ocean region.


 * Cyprus gives US$110,000 cheque to Maldives for tsunami aid.

June 2005

 * Key members of MDP, including Mohamed Nasheed, are arrested in Malè as Majlis begins debate on lifting ban on party politics. Gayyoom suddenly became serious about lifting of the ban in May. The Majlis swiftly passes a motion to allow political parties.


 * MDP quickly signs up thousands of new members, while Gayyoom struggles to find people willing to join his DRP party (translates as the Maldivian People’s Party). The MDP website is unblocked by Dhiraagu, after being banned since its launch in 2004.


 * Gayyoom’s brother, Yameen Abdulla, attempts to buy Adduvas magazine. The offer is refused.


 * Yameen Abdulla bullies his staff at STELCO and STO to join Gayyoom’s DRP party.


 * MDP’s first official assembly at Iskandharu school in Malè attracts a huge crowd of many thousands. Party membership passes 30,000. Without evidence, Gayyoom’s supporters claim to have 25,000 members in the DRP.


 * Sarah Mahir visits her family in Maldives, only weeks after confronting Gayyoom in Geneva with accusations of torture of her family.

26 June 2005

 * Maldivian Democratic Party becomes first official political party registered in Maldives. July 2005===


 * Gayyoom’s brother, Abdulla Hameed, resigns as atolls minister. Umar Zahir also resigns, along with foreign minister Fathulla Jameel. They are replaced with Gayyoom’s younger relatives and regime loyalists.


 * DRP party selects Gayyoom as their leader with 1,245 votes for the president. DRP officials insist, without evidence, that DRP now has 27,000 members.


 * Dr Mohamed Waheed officially joins the MDP.


 * Dhivehi Observer reveals publishes series of articles about corruption by Khadeeja Hassan at the Maldives Monetary Authority. She is a close family friend of Maumoon and Nasreena Gayyoom.


 * Without evidence or credibility, Gayyoom blacklists Nicola Witt, a coordinator from the UK Maldives Aid organisation associated with FOM.


 * Minivan newspaper granted a licence to print in Maldives after waiting over a year. First edition sells out in two and half hours.


 * No government response after torrential rains cause one metre high flooding in Vaadhoo island on Huvadhu atoll, leaving the island’s population destitute.


 * Gayyoom dispatches 35 members of the NSS to Huvadhu atoll after disturbances in Dhaandhoo and Kolamaafushi islands over favouritism for Gayyoom supporters, and protests in Dhinadhoo island.


 * People on heavily populated Thinadhoo island in Huvadhu atoll stage large march calling for resignation of Gayyoom. Over the following days, NSS harass and arrest protest leaders. Hundreds of demonstrators gather near Majlis in Malè calling for release of all Sandhaanu prisoners and other political detainees.

August 2005

 * Dhivehi Observer alleges Gayyoom secretly transferred US$60 million to the UK in January 2005 or just before.


 * NSS use tear gas and electric batons and stun guns to clear crowd from Majlis area. In the following days in Malè, there are continuing peaceful protests and attacks and arrests of reformists and unlucky bystanders by Gayyoom’s NSS. Gayyoom orders installation of 50 surveillance cameras in Malè.

12 August 2005

 * After over a week of continuing unrest, the NSS in full riot gear and shields arrest five MDP protesters, including Mohamed Nasheed, sitting in the middle of the main square. In the coming days, Gayyoom temporarily loses control of Malè, and many people are beaten by the NSS and threatened. Beaten and dead prisoners arrive at the hospital in Malè from Dhoonidhoo. A team of doctors and nurses are sent to Dhoonidhoo. Using tear gas, beatings and gunfire, the NSS fight to regain control of Malè. Crowds continue to gather and NSS deploys armoured vehicles and high pressure hoses. For several nights, NSS uses stun guns, pepper spray, rubber bullets, water cannon and electric batons to clear streets. Old people, pregnant women and children are also beaten and hospitalised by the NSS.


 * Attorney-general Hassan Saeed appears on Maldives television and blames the MDP for organising the violence.


 * Dhivehi Observer reports that large numbers of NSS are refusing to follow orders to beat people in the streets. Gangs organised by Gayyoom’s brother Abdulla Yameen attack MDP leaders and their property.


 * US government sends human rights expert and political officer to Maldives to investigate the unrest in Malè. They observe street violence and speak with the Maldives government and MDP officials.


 * Gayyoom arrests Maldive businessmen associated with MDP. After saying Mohamed Nasheed had been arrested for sitting in the main square for his own safety on 11 August, regime spokesmen blame Nasheed for leading the continuing revolt. Unrest continues in Malè and Addu atoll, where Gayyoom reinforces NSS in Gan island.


 * MDP senior member Ibrahim Hussein Zaki calls for caretaker government and elections in Maldives. Many arrests on Addu atoll, and transfer of prisoners to Malè. Arrests on Thinadhoo, Huvadhu atoll. MDP invites EU to send a fact-finding mission to Maldives.


 * Buruma Gasim Ibrahim, imprisoned and tortured by Gayyoom after the rally of August 2004, leaves the MDP and is appointed finance minister in Gayyoom’s cabinet.


 * Sandhaanu Zaki is released from house arrest.


 * Mohamed Nasheed begins hunger strike in prison.


 * Red Cross visits detainees in Maldives jails.


 * Asian Centre for Human Rights in New Delhi claims 350 people have been arrested by the NSS since the unrest began, and urges intervention by India and the United Nations in Maldives.


 * Maldives state media announces that Mohamed Nasheed is to be charged with terrorism and inciting violence.


 * USAID launches Indian Ocean tsunami warning program.


 * UN expresses concern about human rights abuses in Maldives.


 * International Commission of Jurists, ICJ, announces it will observe the trial of Mohamed Nasheed.


 * Gayyoom’s NSS hunt down key reformists in Thinadhoo, Huvadhu atoll. Arrests continue for weeks.


 * MDP denies any involvement in the unrest in Malè since August. ‘Some groups have planned and conducted illegal operations to defame the party and destroy our support, and the MDP has been negatively affected,’ says MDP senior official Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) at a press conference in Malè.

September 2005

 * Five NSS servicemen sentenced to life imprisonment over the shooting of unarmed prisoners in Maafushi jail in September 2003.


 * European Union report of investigation from 24-26 August of the disturbances of 12-14 August and arrest of demonstrators including Mohamed Nasheed, chairman of the MDP.


 * EU welcomes Gayyoom’s decision to allow International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) to observe trial proceedings. Urges consultation between all parties to the reform process. ‘Genuine commitment to democracy requires living up to the spirit as well as the letter of reform,’ the report says.


 * Mohamed Nasheed’s health deteriorates in prison.


 * NSS attempt to confiscate sound system at large MDP meeting. State evidence and signed statements collected by the NSS against Mohamed Nasheed after his speech in Thoddu island on 30 June, are exposed as bogus.


 * All party rallies are banned by Gayyoom until after Mohamed Nasheed’s trial on 14 September and the anniversary of Evan Naseem’s murder on 19 September. Nasheed’s trial is suddenly brought forward by a week, and then postponed without explanation.


 * UN reports that 90,000 Maldivians still face drinking water shortages caused by the tsunami.


 * Islamic preacher Ibrahim Fareed is released from detention after being held since August 2004. He accuses Gayyoom’s government of framing him on terrorist charges.


 * Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed and the finance minister Buruma Gasim Ibrahim visit Delhi to discuss Maldives’ first budget deficit in decades.


 * FOM protesters demonstrate during a secret visit by Gayyoom and his family to the Maldives High Commission in London, and call for the release of political prisoners and Mohamed Nasheed.


 * Mohamed Nasheed has an operation on his arm. He remains in prison.


 * Gayyoom launches prosecutions against Minivan newspaper.


 * Remains of three dead people found in Hithadhoo, Addu atoll.


 * US ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead gives strong support to the Maldives democracy movement and criticises the Gayyoom regime for restricting Maldivians’ right of assembly and free speech. He says he has visited Maldives 6 times in the previous 2 years and traveled in the atolls.


 * Team of four senior British barristers headed by Sir Ivan Lawrence QC condemns the conduct of the trial of Mohamed Nasheed.


 * British deputy high commissioner Lesley Craig visits MDP office in Hithadhoo on Addu atoll.


 * Maldives human rights commissioner Ahmed Mujutaba resigns because he is unable to perform his duties independently.

October 2005

 * Islamic preacher Ibrahim Fareed officially joins MDP.


 * Four young men sentenced to over 10 years jail each for participation in the September 2003 riot in Malè.


 * Maldives Aid in partnership with FOM announces start of desalination project in Filadhoo island, Haa Alif atoll.


 * World Bank expresses concern that teachers and civil servants may not be paid in Maldives.


 * Finance minister Buruma Gasim Ibrahim asks Majlis for emergency budget grant of US$7.82 million to make up the STELCO electricity company cash shortfall that followed Yameen Abdulla’s departure from its management.


 * DRP meeting poorly attended in Malè.


 * MDP delegation visits Guraidhoo island on Malè atoll. 50 homes were destroyed there by the tsunami and most families are still living in tents.


 * Two Minivan Newspaper journalists arrested.


 * Jennifer Latheef sentenced to 10 years jail for terrorism during the Malè riot of September 2003.


 * India is named as a source of teargas supplies for the NSS.


 * Senior MDP official Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) says the MDP is considering a civil disobedience campaign.


 * UN under-secretary-general and executive director of UN-HABITAT Anna Tibaijuka visits Maldives.


 * Ten months after the tsunami, 11,300 Maldivians remain homeless.


 * Mohamed Nasheed beaten by the NSS police during transfer to and from his trial in Malè, as large crowd demands his release.

November 2005

 * High court judge Hameed assaults man on the streets of Malè.


 * Mohamed Nasheed moved from prison to house arrest with his family in Malè. He resumes active politics with the MDP.


 * Articles in Dhivehi Observer condemn the ethical and objective standards of the Asian Development Bank and World Bank reports on Maldives, and the banks’ practice of ignoring the economic effects of corruption and gross over-expenditure by the President and the NSS.


 * Fighting breaks out between Hulhudhufaru islanders and tsunami refugees on the island from Kandholhudhoo. Former residents of Mundoo island on Laam atoll remain camping in temporary shelter on Gan island in Laam.


 * Shipment of riot gear for the NSS arrives in Malè from Malaysia. It includes 1,000 batons with electric shock capability, 500 gas masks and 1,000 gas mask filters. Total cost of the consignment is US$75,000 plus customs duties.


 * World Bank subsidiary, the International Finance Corporation, lends US$20 million to Wataniya Telecom Maldives.


 * Minivan journalist Abdulla Saeed (Fahala) remains in jail after his detention without charge is extended for a further thirty days.


 * Gayyoom calls for all-party talks. MDP responds positively but doubts Gayyoom’s sincerity because MDP proposals for such talks have always been ignored by Gayyoom in the past.


 * Gayyoom fails to name Human Rights Commission in the timeframe required by law.


 * Document leaked to Dhivehi Observer proves a UNDP consultant Antony Dolman prepared a full mission statement and other recommendations in 1997 that formed most of Gayyoom’s Vision 2020 ideas.


 * India transfers a fast-attack patrol craft to Maldives. Massive wastage of the tuna fish catch in Maldives due to corruption, incompetence and lack of investment in freezer and processing infrastructure.


 * MDP holds first round of internal party elections.

December 2005

 * Friends of Maldives in UK urges boycott of resorts owned by leading members of Gayyoom’s regime. Red Cross tsunami response update says 85 housing blocks have been completed in Maldives, and 134 homes are under construction in Guraidhoo, Kudahuvadhoo and Maafushi islands. Relief facilities have been provided for 20,000 people. 10,500 water tanks and rain water harvesting kits have been distributed. 32 generators have been installed benefiting 17,000 people. Many school students have been trained in first aid techniques. However, the reports says 2,111 permanent homes and 32 public building remain to be constructed. There are plans to set up waste management systems on 74 islands, which do not have them. A further 4,500 water tanks and rain water harvesting kits remain to be distributed.

19-21 December 2005

 * MDP holds its first national congress. Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) is elected party president. Ibrahim Hussein Zaki is elected party vice-president and Mohamed Nasheed is elected as party chairman. Despite vigorous campaigning, the congress votes and election results take place with no violence or public rancour between members. Majlis by-election result gives MDP two seats out of three, and in the Shaviyani election won officially by the DRP candidate, there is strong evidence of vote-rigging by Gayyoom supporters.


 * Adduvas magazine publishes details in Dhivehi of US$10 million in secret loans granted by President Maumoon Gayyoom to selected members of the Majlis and other senior administrators and associates, including the chief judge Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim and NSS police chief Adam Zahir, who has made no repayments.


 * Minivan Radio and website office in Colombo Sri Lanka is raided by 10 Sri Lankan police claiming to be acting on an Interpol alert. The office is searched for arms. Nothing is found. The Minivan Radio office moves to UK.


 * Arbitrary arrests and detentions continue, while many of the detainees from the mass arrests in August 2005 are released.

January 2006

 * Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) announces shadow cabinet.

2 January 2006

 * NSS are banned from purchasing or reading any magazines that are politically motivated, and the NSS announcement from the office of the chief of staff Mohamed Zahir names Adduvas, Minivan Daily and Fiyes Weekly and describes them as ‘opposed to the legitimately elected government’ and publishing articles ‘to create hatred and divide the people’. The NSS order says, ‘The army is entrusted with the defence of the nation, its security and social harmony. Because we are given this noble national duty, we have to have good behaviour and high moral standards, and our thinking must be shaped in a particular way and remain firm according to our oath (to President Gayyoom). Therefore the army is not to participate in any political activity, and the army must support the legitimate government of the time and must always act responsibly in performing its duties’.


 * Team of surveyors from Malè visits Fares-Maathodaa in Huvadhu atoll to resurvey the harbour channel. Islanders have hosted surveying teams before for the same task over the previous 7 years, but the harbour entrance has remained blocked by a thin reef of coral. That morning, the islanders block the harbour entrance with about 4 fishing vessels and insist the survey team stay on Fares-Maathodaa until there is a definite date for dredging work to begin. The survey team later said they did not feel in any danger, and were free to walk around the island. Senior NSS officers arrive in Fares


 * Maathodaa that afternoon, and in peaceful discussions the islanders insist they want a definite date for the dredging. The NSS officers leave the island without the surveyors and promise the situation will be resolved peacefully.

3 January 2006

 * Ministry of atolls development sends fax to Fares island office confirming dredging will start on 30 June 2006. Protest ends that afternoon and surveyors leave the island. Government ministers appear on TV Maldives and acknowledge that the Fares-Maathodaa harbour entrance has been left undredged for seven years without official explanation. Ministers claim the protesters are a small minority and, although legal action could be taken against them, the government had no intention of doing so. The ministers say the incident had been resolved peacefully.

5 January 2006

 * Team of five NSS investigators arrive on Fares-Maathodaa, accompanied by a boatload of around 40 NSS police in full riot gear who initially wait outside the harbour. The five NSS investigators have a list of people to question. They arrest Luqman Abdulla, one of the leaders of the island community. News of Luqman’s arrest spreads in the island and a crowd of mainly women and children gathers at the harbour front in support of Luqman. Most of the island men are away fishing. The 40 NSS wearing gas masks, padded jackets and carrying shields, electric batons and stun grenades, land at the harbour where the crowd has gathered and attack everybody. At least one stun grenade is thrown into the fleeing crowd. Women and children are chased and beaten around the island. The NSS swear loudly and abuse the islanders as they beat them, yelling that they will ‘kill all those who are against the government’ and they ‘will be back again tonight and tomorrow’. Children as young as 8 years, and men aged 65 are beaten. The NSS leave the island with six people. Eyewitnesses claim one man, Ibrahim Shakir is badly beaten and the NSS inject something in his back, and others are also handcuffed and beaten.


 * NSS in Malè release a 16 year old boy from Fares-Maathodaa two days later, and the five remaining detainees are transferred to Dhoonidhoo prison. The official government media in Maldives either ignores or lies about the events on Fares-Maathodaa.


 * MDP delegation led by Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, and including journalists from Minivan and Fiyes, visits Fares-Maathodaa and interviews many islanders. The MDP publishes its report.


 * Fisheries minister Abdulla Kamaludeen is interviewed by Minivan about the presidential loans scandal, revealed by Adduvas in late December 2005, and the loans he has received. ‘This is not money given to me unlawfully or as a bribe by someone,’ he says. ‘I have never taken anything from a Maldivian citizen and I am quite familiar with the rich crowd. But I’ve never taken a cent from them. Even if I had taken, or have been given, or have made use of it, I will say what I have to say in defence of that citizen’s rights... If they had not given it to me, I would not have touched it’.


 * An editor from Fiyes is arrested without explanation. Demonstration in Kumundhoo, Haa Dhaal atoll, in northern Maldives protesting about the lack of basic services and infrastructure.


 * Six Maldivians killed in stampede in Mecca which kills nearly 400 people during the hajj stone throwing ritual at Mina: ‘The stampede took place at the foot of the bridge of Jamarat, where pilgrims hurl stones at three pillars where the devil is said to have appeared to Abraham,’ reports the BBC . MDP leaders greeted by large crowds in Hithadhoo island, Addu atoll. Later, after a large public meeting, NSS riot police beat up many people including children and a 75 year old man (broken jaw and arm) in the streets of Hithadhoo. Senior


 * MDP officials are assaulted by NSS in the Addu MDP office. Many people admitted to hospital in Hithadhoo. Protesters in Malè, condemning the NSS behaviour in Addu, are arrested and beaten by NSS. Arrests and beatings continue on Addu, and Gayyoom reinforces the NSS in the south.


 * In a letter to the French-based Reporters Without Borders organisation, Interpol denies that its channels of communication were used to transmit messages from Maldives and Sri Lanka resulting in the raid on the Minivan Radio office in Colombo in December 2005. No Interpol officers were involved in the raid. Interpol also denied any knowledge of Ahmed Didi, arrested in Sri Lanka in 2002 for publishing Sandhaanu . Interpol denies any knowledge of political refugee and Sandhaanu editor Ibrahim Luthfee, and Interpol has no information on Ibrahim Asif, who was arrested on alleged terrorism conspiracy charges in Kerala in April 2005 and instantly deported to Malè. Interpol says under its constitution, it is ‘strictly forbidden to undertake any intervention of a political, military, religious or racial character’. Interpol affirms that this prohibition is taken ‘extremely seriously’.


 * MDP meetings in Malè attended by many thousands.


 * Large crowds gather at the house of Ibrahim Ismail to petition for the release of Mohamed Nasheed.


 * Several MDP members bashed and stabbed by thugs in Malè.


 * Demonstrations outside the hospital. Brutal public beatings and assaults by NSS continue on Addu atoll.


 * Thugs armed with iron bars drive around Malè on motorbikes beating up reformists. Malè houses of Addu atoll MP Ibrahim Shareef, and MDP leaders Ibrahim Hussein Zaki and Ibrahim Ismail, are invaded by thugs and vandalised.


 * Large peaceful rally in the main square of Malè ends without violence when Ibrahim Ismail calls an abrupt halt to the rally. Gayyoom later fines the MDP Rf50,000 for holding the rally without permission. MDP says it will attend talks with Gayyoom if Mohamed Nasheed, Jennifer Latheef, Ahmed Didi and Naushad Waheed are released.


 * MDP leaders meet ambassadors from India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.


 * Mohamed Nasheed appears in court and mocks his ‘farcical’ trial for terrorism. Later, he is removed from house arrest and sent back to Dhoonidhoo jail.


 * British High Commissioner visits Maldives ‘to find out about local political and social issues’. EU warns Gayyoom to make real democratic reforms without delay.


 * Angry fishermen impound a MIFCO refrigeration vessel in Addu atoll lagoon after it refuses to buy fish due to lack of space. Wastage of massive catches of tuna on Addu and Huvadhu atolls.