The government on Sunday denied any involvement in an "India Out" banner held up during a rally held on Friday night by the opposition coalition formed against the Maldives' stand in a maritime boundary dispute with Mauritius.
"India Out" was a slogan used in a campaign previously carried out by the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) against the alleged Indian military presence in the Maldives. Some members of the "Chagos coalition" do not support the "India Out" activities.
While the opposition has stopped the campaign due to government pressure, the banner was held up during Friday's rally by about eight people who came prepared. The slogan was written in pink on the banner and their white T-shirts.
The PPM and The Democrats, a new party led by former president Mohamed Nasheed, alleged that the government was behind the banner.
"It wasn't done by the government. They're trying to bring the government into it after politicians who can't stay united deceived each other," President's Office spokesman Miuvaan Mohamed told Adhadhu.
The disputed territory needed to be divided when Mauritius petitioned a UN tribunal after it was determined to have sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago.
The opposition says the Maldives has lost a portion of the sea that rightfully belongs to Maldivians. The laws state that overlapping regions in the territory of two countries must be divided in accordance with determined principles.
While the opposition says the government acted in a manner that was detrimental to the country, the government says the Maldives in reality was only able to use a small portion before the southern border was drawn.
The Chagos dispute
The decision by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to draw a boundary between the Maldives and Mauritius on the assumption that Chagos belongs to Mauritius amounted to ITLOS agreeing that Mauritius exercises sovereign power over Chagos. This was what the Maldives objected to in the preliminary stages of the dispute.
The Maldives' stand at the time was that ITLOS lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case because there was a dispute concerning sovereignty over Chagos. But ITLOS rejected the objection and proceeded with the case. The Maldives changed its stand after that.
The UN General Assembly passed a resolution in 2019 to follow an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice determining that Mauritius should have sovereignty over Chagos. The countries that voted against the resolution with Britain were the Maldives, America, Australia, Hungary and Israel.
Mauritius appealed to various international forums to achieve sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago, which was not part of the country when it gained independence from Britain. The petition to the ICJ was one such appeal.
The ITLOS judgment
Neither the Maldives nor Chagos has the full 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and there is an overlapping area of about 92,000 square kilometers.
A maritime border was never demarcated because of the longstanding sovereignty dispute over Chagos.
In cases where countries do not agree on determining a boundary, international norms say "equidistance" must be followed. The main dispute between the countries at ITLOS concerned the baselines for determining the boundary.
In Mauritius's proposal, the base point was a low-tide elevation called Bleinhem Reef. The Maldives objected to this, arguing that a base point could not be set at reefs visible in low tide.
In its judgment, ITLOS supported the arguments made by the Maldives. The judgment delivered by a special chamber of ITLOS held that there were no grounds to draw the equidistant line from a low-tide reef to determine the boundary.
The ITLOS judgment divided the 92,563 square kilometers overlapping area with 47,232 kilometers to the Maldives and 45,331 kilometers to Mauritius.
