Chagos Momentum Swells: STO’s Former MD Backs Maldivians4Chagos

Moosa Ismail: Former STO MD

In a stunningly powerful move that will not go unnoticed but should not be missed, former MD of the State Trading Organisation (STO), Mr Moosa Ismail, has made direct contact today with the Administrative Custodian of Maldivians4Chagos, a key figure in the movement, to offer his full support. Putting words into action, he signed the Chagos Sovereignty Petition, which was inevitably another strong show of support from the country's strategic leadership circle. This message is for those who hesitate and excuse diplomatic cowardice: The wind has shifted.

Moosa Ismail's participation is not just symbolic. As a man who once headed one of the Maldives' most critical state-run businesses, an economic arm with tentacles reaching far into international trade and political stability, his signature means more than 'I'm with you.' It signals strategy. It signals sovereignty. It's a reassertion of national dignity, a move that should reassure you of the movement's strategic direction.

But he was not alone. Today, its participation was like dominoes falling – not just those stalwarts already listed from the law, academia, civil service, youth movements, defence industries, and business, but many other leading figures who wanted their names attached to that petition, not in protest but in reclamation. This is not a protest movement. This is a constitutional correction, a national resumption. A people reclaiming what was always theirs, and you are an integral part of this diverse and united community.

The Maldivians4Chagos Petition is not a desperate document but a legal statement and political assertion. The message it sends to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and every diplomat complicit in the erasure of our history is this: we have never ceded Chagos — not in law, not in memory, not in spirit.

The Maldives's exclusion from 20th-century colonial roundtables should not be misconstrued as forfeiture. What Mauritius gave up under colonial excision is not ours to endure. Lennon, the Colonial Secretary of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the 19th century, did not illustrate our connections to the Chagos on maps; instead, we establish these connections through centuries of navigation, Islamic authority, and a consciousness of sovereignty. This historical and legal basis of our claim should inform you and instil confidence in the legitimacy of our movement.

To our political class, silence is no longer a neutral stance. It is negligence.

And to the world: This is not a question of borders. It's about broken treaties, falsified histories, and extinguished indigenous rights. Our argument does not rely on fraudulent identities or colonial remains; it rests on the continuity of the pre-colonial, the sovereignty of the Muslim and the strategic imperative of defending what belongs to us.

And to Mauritius and its echo chambers: You may have scripted a scene on the ICJ stage, but history does not bend for courtroom drama. The Indian Ocean is not yours to divide, and the Maldives isn't yours to speak for.

And for every Maldivian with a memory, a sense of justice and a shred of dignity, the time is always now to sign. Moosa Ismail has. Many others have. Will you?