Maldives: Can Muizzu be transparent on security matters, which he said predecessor Solih was not?

Maldives President-elect Mohamed Muizzu’s reiterated resolve to have ‘foreign boots’ out of the strategically-located archipelago has multiple implications, going beyond visible India-baiting politico-electoral agenda of yesteryear mentor and jailed former President Abdulla Yameen. This flows from his well thought-out added declaration in a BBC interview that ‘as a small nation, Maldives does not want to get entangled in India-China conflict and global power struggle’. Pending a formal foreign and security policy statement of his government after he is sworn in as president on 17 November, Muizzu’s twin observations encapsulate his thinking and that of his PPM-PNC combine on the subject—or, so should it be presumed. Coupled with his promise to unveil all agreements signed by the outgoing government of President Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih (for public scrutiny through Parliament?), Muizzu has committed himself to policy-transparency under his stewardship. First, after accessing those documents, Muizzu would have to find out if there are clauses that swear the Maldivian authorities into secrecy. Two, if they concern ‘national security’, which has been the leitmotif of the PPM-PNC’s argument against the Solih leadership, will the new President find it judicious to disclose the contents? While he acknowledges India-China conflict, Muizzu with seven continuous years of ministerial experience (2012-18) under Presidents Waheed and Yameen, apart from three years as Male City Mayor, would understand the inherent Indian concerns in national security matters. For Maldives, the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity matter when it wants ‘Indian military personnel’ to leave, while for New Delhi, security concerns impinging on India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity matter even more. The Indian fears are more real and its approach to addressing them before they reach a confrontationist point is even more realistic. Disclosing China accords, too? This flags a further question if Muizzu will also divulge the contents of the Yameen presidency’s (2013-18) deals with China and also that of the Solih administration’s 2021 defence pact with the US. If Solih did not disclose the India agreements as adequately as Yameen’s PPM-PNC Opposition combine wanted, nor did he divulge the contents of the predecessor’s multiple China accords. In both cases, such agreements are not confined to ‘strategic and/or scientific matters’ as with the China-funded Ocean Observation Centre that did not take off. They were mostly about development projects, which are at the core of bilateral relations with the two larger nations. Yet, neither Solih, nor Yameen before him, had taken those agreements, either prior or after they had been signed. A basic lesson in statecraft, especially involving two nation-States, is not to acknowledge ‘State secrets’, especially on the defence and security fronts. Yes, they are ‘holy cows’, where everyone finds ignorance even if everyone knows one way or the other. It is not only about taking the Maldivian people into confidence. That is old-world statecraft. It is more about the friend’s enemy not getting to know those contents. In this case, for instance, it is India and China on the one hand, and also the US and China on the other. It is also applicable to India and the US, however friendly they are between them. Remember the ‘Status of Forces Agreement’ (SOFA) that the US intended signing with the short-lived Waheed government (2012-13). As it turned out, Washington had not taken New Delhi into confidence at appropriate levels, in appropriate ways, even while claiming, ‘India is in the loop.’ This should be true of the US-Maldives defence cooperation agreement during the Solih regime. It is just not done. It is just not acceptable. Before Waheed, the Nasheed presidency (2008-12) had hurriedly signed America’s ‘Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements’ (ACSA). It is another matter that successor-governments, including Yameen’s, did not share the contents when in power. Maldivians argue that the American ACSA brought extra-regional super-power competition to the archipelago-nation. They go as far as to link China’s subsequent entry and Beijing’s irresistible and relatively meaningful developmental endearments. President Yameen, seeking to widen his popular mandate, could not resist the same, given especially his desire to be acknowledged as the nation’s Lee Kuan Yew. It was a title that half-brother and pre-democracy President for 30 years (1978-2008), Mamoon Abdul Gayoom, had coveted in his time. Prior to this shadow-boxing between the US and China, there was this national consensus over including larger and closer neighbour India in Maldives’ external security plans, given the nation’s lack of resources in this department, starting with the much-needed human resources. There is the add-on question: As President, will Muizzu obtain Parliament’s approval before signing new agreements, whether with India, China, Mauritius (over the IMBL issue, flagged during the Solih time) or any other nation? When Yameen rushed through those agreements with China, he in fact violated a parliamentary legislation. During the Nasheed presidency, Yameen was in the forefront of a hurriedly-passed law requiring the government to seek prior parliamentary approval for initiating projects that impinged on ‘national security’ – a broad term that defies a concise definition. President Nasheed gave assent to the Bill only when Parliament voted it in a second time after he had returned the same to the House – but only after the government had signed the Male airport expansion contract with Indian infra major, GMR Group, hurriedly during the interregnum. The law was aimed at thwarting the GMR agreement, yes, which the Opposition achieved only through a massive anti-Nasheed, anti-GMR, anti-India protest, launched in the name of religious NGOs, calling themselves as the ‘December 23 Movement’. However, the provisions of the law did not suggest that it was only a one-off affair, pertaining to GMR and none else. Yet, the Nasheed-Solih combo’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) did not quote from the ‘GMR law’ for disclosing Yameen’s China accords. They knew that it was just not done, and that they would be dismissed for their ‘childish behaviour’ if they had insisted on ‘full disclosure’ of Yameen’s China agreements, whether developmental, security-driven or what. It is another matter that even President Yameen did not care to obtain parliamentary ratification for the China FTA that he had signed after obtaining a prior-clearance of sorts at a hurriedly-convened, highly-dramatised emergency session, for which there was no need in the first place. It is another matter, yet a related one, that the outgoing Solih government did not participate in the tenth anniversary celebrations of China’s BRI, of which Maldives became a member under predecessor Yameen. Now, President-elect Muizzu has said that BRI can play a ‘crucial role’ for Maldives’ development. How he intends going about it, and whether he plans to seek parliamentary approval as it commits Maldives to a long-term relationship which may be at variance with known national positions and which too could invite adverse criticism from the political Opposition, too, would be keenly watched. Conservative constituency Muizzu has inherited the legacy-support of the nation’s 40-per cent ‘conservative constituency’ from President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, through Yameen. Caught in the ‘transitional psyche’, this constituency is wedded to ‘Maldivian nationalism’, which is far cry from ‘Islamic nationalism’ of the ISIS kind, with which overseas observers often confuse it. This constituency swears by nationalism centred on sovereignty and territorial integrity, again a legacy concept. To date, most Maldivians take pride in theirs as being the only South Asian nation to have thrown out an European coloniser, namely, the Portuguese after ‘occupation’ for 13 years, in 1573 AD. Even the equally tiny Travancore kingdom, now forming a part of southern Kerala state in the Indian Union, defeated the Dutch navy in the ‘Battle of Colachel’, much later, in 1741. Hence, the perception of this constituency is misplaced and unrealistic in 21st century geo-politics and geo-strategy, in which the once-isolated and equally insulated Maldives is a willing partner and player. Contestable claims This constituency does not approve of the presence of Indian or any other foreign military personnel, whatever the reason and requirement. Or, that is the belief and argument. Such contentions are contestable. Yameen’s ‘India Out’ campaign during the Solih presidency, which he kept alternating for ‘India Military Out’ call, did not bring even a fraction of Muizzu’s 54-per cent voters to the streets, then or later. Instead, theirs was an anti-incumbency vote, as in all three presidential elections under the multi-party scheme since 2008. Team Yameen conveniently interpreted it to the outside world as an ‘anti-India’ electorate posture – which it was not. If anything, the Maldivian conservatives have no great animus towards India. On the contrary, they too are alive to and aware of the greater Indian contributions to their welfare, development, safety and security, both traditional security (‘Operation Cactus’, 1988) and human security, which included post-tsunami rescue and rehabilitation, 2005 and the ‘Male drinking water crisis’, 2014, the last one, when Yameen was President. On all three occasions, the Indian military personnel left Maldives the minute they had completed the task. This of course excludes India rushing Covid-19 vaccines to Maldives and other neighbours first even before making it available to its own citizenry, whose need was even greater, given especially the much higher death-roll in the country. Even without it all, every Maldivian is aware how a steady supply of every-day needs, starting with food items and medicines, has sustained the nation and its population, through and through. In particular, most Maldivians are also aware of the Indian Government granting near-permanent exemption for two tiny neighbours, namely, the sea-encircled Maldives and land-bound Bhutan, from almost all export-bans, especially on food and medicines. It is thus that Yameen had to steadily shift between ‘India Out’ and ‘India Military Out’ in what essentially was a domestic, anti-Solih campaign. Muizzu, as the first new-generation President with lil’ or no association with the ‘pro-democracy’ protests, one way or the other, especially at the top, hence has to draw the line clearer than any other in his place before him. He has to learn from the experience of fellow South Asian nation, Pakistan, which is tottering after making ‘foreign policy’ the nation’s sustenance agenda – and failing on both fronts. India, which was the subject of Pakistan’s scorn and internal dynamic, has moved on unhurt. India has since done what the Solih government failed to do for itself. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi pointed out how the Indian personnel in the Maldives have flown close to 500 humanitarian sorties in five years (averaging one every three-to-four days). Maldivian governments, including Yameen’s, did not find an alternative to the Indian humanitarian mission, even while asking them to leave. Muizzu withdrawing it without a replacement, that too during the current monsoon season, when the Indian choppers have done a good job in evacuating ‘emergency patients’ and marooned individuals from far-away islands, could hurt his combine’s chances in the parliamentary polls, due by April next year. The Indian High Commission in Maldives too has been clarifying time and again, how none of the Indian personnel, though drawn from the Services, carry weapons. Needless to point out, the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF), under whose complete command and control they operate, has had no complaints thus far. It might be a different situation if and when Muizzu as President replaces the MNDF hierarchy, as has become customary but unheard of in most other modern democracies. While wanting Indian personnel out, Muizzu has not indicated if he wants the three flying machines, too, to be taken back, which was what Yameen’s main demand in the closing months of his presidency. Another unacknowledged fact pertains to India training MNDF personnel in flying and maintaining these machines, and the Maldivian government’s inability to retain them, as qualified pilots and technicians leave for greener pastures elsewhere, almost without fail. But for this erosion, the Indian personnel might have left long ago after handing over the task to their Maldivian counterparts. In the midst of all these, Muizzu also has to clarify his position on the India-funded Uthuru Thila Falhu (UTF) coast guard harbour, which Team Yameen had claimed was a military base of India. Once again, the insensitive / unimaginative PR approach of the Solih dispensation was/is to blame. After Sphinx-like silence all through, incumbent Solih announced a social housing scheme on the island just ahead of the decisive, second-round vote. It was to convince the traditionally anti-liberal and even more anti-Solih conservative constituency that he had nothing to hide in the matter – but at least this one was too late in coming. The same goes for Maldives’ IMBL accord with Mauritius. After refusing to share the President’s letter to Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth for over six months, when it was a hot topic inside and outside Parliament, the Solih government readily acknowledged as true a mysteriously-leaked document appearing on a social media platform, again only ahead of the second-round polling. The damage had been done by then – and Mauritius, like India, has to take the blame for something it did not do but has been accused of doing. How Muizzu as President treads these two issues involving a larger and ever-supporting neighbour on the one hand and an equally small Ocean nation on the other could well define his orientation to foreign and security policies and their implementation, through the short and medium terms, for the larger term to choose its course. In turn, Muizzu’s first steps, whether tiny or big, would go on to define /re-define his leadership qualities, for him to be able to hoodwink the ‘anti-incumbency’ five years from now, now that he has indicated a vague desire to seek re-election but predicating it with ‘doing what the people want’ – and only what the people want. If it was a multiple message that he was sending all out even before he had taken oath of office for the elected first term, much of it was for Yameen and his generation of leaders, both within the coalition and outside, to make way for the next generation, both within the party and outside, where Muizzu alone belongs now. The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst & political commentator Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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