Former Maldivian Leaders Demand Chagos Be Returned to Maldives: A Strategic Legal Appeal for Decolonization

Some of the former Maldivian Leaders
 Signed the Petition

MC-UPDATE 01: In a bold and unprecedented diplomatic move, a coalition of high-ranking former Maldivian officials has issued a formal appeal to the United Kingdom demanding the immediate and complete restoration of the Chagos Archipelago to Maldivian sovereignty. The appeal, issued under the civil movement Maldivians for Chagos, denounces the UK's transfer of Chagos to Mauritius as a "tragically insufficient" act that perpetuates colonial injustice. The letter, addressed to His Excellency Mr. Nick Low, British High Commissioner to the Maldives, calls for comprehensive decolonisation and accuses both Britain and Mauritius of sustaining an international legal fiction that disregards centuries of Maldivian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago.

Citing undeniable pre-colonial historical ties, the appeal systematically dismantles the colonial-era legal myth of terra nullius - invoked by France in 1715 and later exploited by Britain - branding it a Eurocentric legal fabrication designed to erase indigenous sovereignty. The signatories argue that the Maldives exercised uninterrupted cultural and geographic influence over the Chagos Archipelago long before the arrival of European powers.

A key piece of evidence referenced in the appeal is the 1834 map created under the command of the British East India Company, which the signatories assert was not a neutral cartographic exercise but a calculated act of colonial subjugation, undertaken amid concerns over Maldivian resistance. This, they argue, amounts to a grand colonial injustice with direct strategic and geopolitical consequences that persist to this day.

The signatories include a formidable group of political veterans and national figures:
1. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, former President of the Maldives
2. Qasim Ibrahim, former Speaker of the Constitutional Majlis
3. Ahmed Abdulla, former Health Minister
4. Abdul Azeez Yoosuf, former Ambassador to Sri Lanka
5. Umar Naseer, former Minister of Home Affairs
6. Dr. Ameen Ibrahim, former Transport Minister
7. Dr. Mohamed Latheef, former Minister of Education
8. Aneesa Ahmed, former Cabinet Minister
9. Ahmed Azleen, former Minister of Home Affairs
10. Ahmed Faris Maumoon, Member of Parliament (18th Majlis)

Strategically, this initiative comes at a time when decolonisation discourse is being manipulated to sideline rightful claims under the guise of procedural justice. The movement warns that the exclusion of the Maldives from sovereignty negotiations on Chagos amounts to diplomatic malpractice and a betrayal of historical and legal truths.

Maldivians for Chagos calls upon the UK government, international legal institutions, and the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24) to urgently reconsider the legitimacy of Mauritius' claim and to recognise that true decolonisation demands the repatriation of the Chagos Islands to their rightful sovereign, the Maldivian people.

This appeal marks a significant recalibration of the Maldives' diplomatic posture, signalling a move from passive acquiescence to assertive reclamation in the struggle to reverse one of the Indian Ocean's longest-standing colonial injustices.