Dhivehi Observer News | South Asia | Maldives Election Irregularities

No change for the extra dollars - Maldives police and military split is NSS charade

DO editorial - 17 December 2004

With more pomp and ceremony than necessary, the Maldives National Security Service separated into police and military divisions on Wednesday 1 September 2004. Two experienced torturers, Police Commissioner Adam Zahir and Chief of Staff Mohamed 22 Zahir, both NSS major-generals, were enshrined as respective heads of the new divisions. The NSS military remains as an undefined part of the Ministry of Defence, and the NSS police becomes an undefined section of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Gayyoom heralded the occasion a great administrative and legal reform:

Highlighting the importance of the duties entrusted to the police, the President said that the police were responsible for upholding the law, and that the cooperation, assistance and support of the community was required in performing their duties. He thanked everyone who had assisted him in making the necessary arrangements following the decision to designate the police as a civilian force.
Reaffirming his firm commitment to implementing his reform agenda for the further democratization and progress of the country, the President pointed out that the constitutional reform process too had begun.
from: President inaugurates Maldives Police Service as a civil authority,
English report in Haveeru 2 Sept 2004.

It was left to Adam Zahir to bring some reality to the proceedings and remind the troops that nothing had changed. Just two weeks before on the afternoon of 13 August 2004, the NSS had mounted a mass attack on Male', dragging many people from their homes and beating them.

Mohamed Zahir (left) and Adam Zahir
Haveeru September 2004

'Although we are now wearing a separate uniform and have different responsibilities, we are very closely related like brothers,' said Adam Zahir at the separation ceremony, reported in Dhivehi by Haveeru on 1 September 2004. '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,' he said. 'We will be working in separate uniforms with different responsiblities, but for the same aim.'

The exact nature of 'the same aim' was not explained, nor can it be. Many members of the NSS believe, correctly, that they are part of an exclusive organisation which is the real ruler Maldives, however the 'aim' of this power has never been defined - the NSS is rarely mentioned in statutes or decrees and there is no constitutional definition of its role in the country. For the last 26 years, the 'aim' of the NSS has depended on the political and financial needs of Maumoon Gayyoom and his fellow junta senior officers.

'Sameness' may be a virtue for the NSS, but Adam Zahir often exhibits an individual flair. Years ago, after training as a primary school teacher in Australia, he arrived in Sri Lanka wearing a huge crucifix. For Adam, it was only a fashion accessory, and a friend persuaded him to stop wearing it before he landed back in Maldives. These days, the Commissioner has thrown all pretence and modesty to the winds, and proudly builds one of Male's new skyscrapers. His personal payments from Gayyoom in 2004 alone, totalled millions of dollars.

Flagmen above the entrance to the Shaheed Husaain Adam building

Adam comes from a prominent NSS family, Ranvikka. The former minister of health and close Gayyoom family friend, Ahmed Abdullah, is also from Ranvikka. Once low ranking members of the royal militia, by the time of Ibrahim Nasir, the Ranvikka had reached the upper echelons and when Nasir resigned in 1978, Ranvikka Ali Maniku was head of the NSS. The fathers of both Adam Zahir and Ahmed Abdullah were shopkeepers selling mainly coconuts and coir rope. Adam's father's shop was slightly better stocked. Adam's mother was in charge of the family and Adam played the house clown.

When Gayyoom took over from Nasir on 11 November 1978, his first move was to transfer the deputy director of Air Maldives Anbaree Abdul Sattar, a clerk named Mohamed Zahir and school teacher Adam Zahir into the NSS. Gayyoom 'wanted educated people in the NSS to improve its efficiency and image. He wanted proper training and placed much emphasis on the development of human resources,' Anbaree told Gayyoom's biographer Royston Ellis.

Anbaree was lying. 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 Kolis at that time - Ahmed Maniku, Ahmed Didi and Mohamed Didi. Adam and Mohamed Zahir entered the NSS as No:2 officers. The lowest rank was No:4 and only a few commissioned officers held the No:1 rank. Within days, the old guard was demobbed and only one senior officer was retained. Adam and Mohamed Zahir were then leaders of the new officers.

Gayyoom wanted to create a personal presidential guard to suppress human development in Maldives and act as a politicised military force maintaining his control regardless of criticism from ministers, the judiciary or bureaucracy who had traditionally shared power with kings and queens. Gayyoom's new NSS would swear allegiance to the president alone, not the Dhivehi state. It could act in a wide range of roles, from religious police to enforcers for businessmen; its operations were above scrutiny by the courts or the majlis.

In 1953, when Ameen Didi was overthrown by his ministers, the aspiring majlis challenged the concept of the dictator developed by Hassan Fareed and Ameen Didi after visiting fascist Europe in the 1920s. The British ruling the Indian Ocean had been happy to back Ameen Didi and his fall was a shock to them, despite the death of 50% of Maldives population from starvation during his government.

The UK-Nasir relationship that followed was never close and Nasir humiliated the British many times during disputes over the Gan base in Addu atoll, UK protectorate responsibilities, and UK support for the Suvadiva Republic (1960-63). Nasir's independent foreign policies also irked the British.

The relationship between UK and Maldives did not return to Ameen-like warmth until Gayyoom took power. Here was the sort of posturing corrupt tyrant that Great Britain could once again be comfortable with. Terrorising the population with NSS intimidation and torture, and honing the military into his personal havaru, Gayyoom adapted governing methods from Egypt's Nasser and Mubarak, Libya's Gaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. His family's public persona mirrored the monarchy in Jordan while Gayyoom himself appeared in stylish western suits, chequered short-sleeve shirts or pious Islamic scholarly garb as the occasion demanded.

All the apparent paradoxes - impoverished population/grandiose spending by elites, strict Islamic law for the people/modern western lifestyle for the elites, 'democratic' rituals for the masses/bashings, imprisonment and torture by elites - were explained away as unique cultural traditions and mysteries beyond the comprehension of mere non-Dhivehins.

First Lieutenant Adam Zahir
Haveeru 10 June 1980
'First Lieutenant Adam Zahir was sent overseas to gather information for an investigation into the rebellion Maldives has recently experienced. Among the people he met in Switzerland was Robert Weise who was the leader of the mercenary group Kerafaa Ahmed Naseem is alleged to have brought to Male' to remove the legitimate government in Maldives,' Haveeru reported in the accompanying article.

Adam Zahir was an essential part of the NSS 'modernisation' planned by Gayyoom's family and the Endherimaage-based gang the new president had married into. On 10 June 1980, Haveeru published a front page report about first lieutenant Adam Zahir on special assignment to Switzerland as part of investigations into an alleged coup plot against Gayyoom. There is strong evidence that the coup was manufactured by Gayyoom to justify a crackdown on his opponents and critics in the majlis at that time. The report shows that from the start of Gayyoom's rule, Adam Zahir was entrusted with highly sensitive tasks.

Adam Zahir's detailed knowledge of Gayyoom's crimes, and Gayyoom's knowledge of Adam Zahir's transgressions, are only part of the reason for their long-standing partnership. Both men are bi-sexual and their admiration for each other hinges partly on physical attraction but more on their complementary natures. Adam Zahir is happy to bloody his hands (and wet his pants) in pursuit of wealth and power, while Gayyoom likes to remain aloof and scheming - no grime can pollute his well-scrubbed fingernails.

Apart from corruption and drug addiction, Adam Zahir is notorious for exposing himself and urinating on people - a practice he began at school in Male' and used repeatedly during torture of NSS prisoners for over two decades. His fellow commander Mohamed Zahir seems to have acquired the habit in the NSS itself, beginning by urinating on prisoners in stocks.

For Adam Zahir, there is an element of sexual excitement to this practice. Years ago, in a house owned by the Koli family, Adam enticed the homosexual cook Ali, to fellate him. Adam's penis was erect when he exposed himself and urinated on Ali's face.

On 13 August this year during mass arrests of reformists, the Commissioner of Police urinated on hooded and blindfolded prisoners while Foreign Minister Fathullah Jameel (who assumed command of the NSS that afternoon) yelled 'Goru boi! (suck piss)' at the crouching detainees, and said they were fools for trusting in Allah.

For nearly three decades, the NSS and Gayyoom have suppressed the political, cultural and religious development of Maldives, intimidating and torturing politicians, historians, Islamic scholars, artists and writers. The separation into police and military divisions cannot be claimed to be evidence that reform is happening in Maldives. There has not been any change. The police officers have the same military ranks, and their continuing campaign of harrassment against reformists and use of the official NSS stationery indicates that the NSS is functioning exactly the same as it always has under Gayyoom.