The Maldives' Struggle to Stay Afloat

But few Maldivians — who pride themselves on thousands of years of unique history at the hub of Indian Ocean sea routes — want to leave, and Nasheed knows the sovereign fund is a last resort. Efforts now aim at shaping the country into a climate-change laboratory. In mid-March, the government announced its intention to be the world's first carbon-neutral nation within 10 years. The archipelago's coral reefs can also provide an invaluable testing ground for scientists. "Coral is the bedrock of our nation," says Azeez, who works at a coral-research and -regeneration facility at the Banyan Tree resort. With enough investment, he reckons the country can not only pioneer methods to mitigate rising waters, but also provide a vital gauge of how nature itself can adapt to the ravages of global warming. Far more populous low-lying countries, from Bangladesh to the Netherlands, will watch with interest. "Very small places can offer very big answers," says Ahmed Moosa, the editor of the online Dhivehi Observer, who has also been appointed the nation's climate envoy.

Sins of the Father
The Maldives' coffers, though, are perilously low. In part that is a consequence of the global downturn, which has hit international tourism hard. The crunch was exacerbated by profligate spending in the final years of the Gayoom regime, as it sought to cement votes with new infrastructure projects. In February, Nasheed's government moved to auction off some of the former ruler's more extravagant state possessions, including a personal yacht, a private pleasure island and a gold-plated toilet.

Gayoom's supporters point to the influx of foreign cash that flooded into the country after he assumed power. His government opened dozens of the archipelago's islands to international tourism, which now directly contributes to 30% of the Maldives' GDP. In a country short on land, construction became a lucrative business: the cramped capital Malé, where more than a third of the population lives, is a maze of concrete. Rents sometimes match those of world cities such as Hong Kong or New York City, and a bleary-eyed community of foreign laborers hammers away at building sites daily. That's quite a change. Not long ago, Malé was a sleepy fishing island with sand-packed streets and pens for livestock, only reachable after a perilous weeklong journey by ship from Colombo. Now, most people there sport flashy cell phones; at night, a few Porsches and Maseratis rev their engines impotently around the 500-acre (2 sq km) capital's congested roads.

But this prosperity, say some, is only skin-deep. "Gayoom developed resorts and buildings," says Aishath Velezinee, a journalist and consultant for the U.N., "but he didn't develop people." After 30 years of Gayoom's rule, the Maldives still has no university. The absence of a public ferry system makes travel to India or Sri Lanka, 400 miles (640 km) northwest, more affordable for some Maldivians than going to other islands in their own country. Many of the outlying atolls lack basic sewage-treatment facilities, while in Malé, political power and privilege have until recently remained tightly clustered around a coterie of Gayoom's family and friends.

Gayoom's regime retained its hold on power like many classic dictatorships: what media that existed were run either by the state or the President's closest allies, and dissidents were locked and beaten up, often on the most spurious grounds. Nasheed — who eventually fled to exile in 2003 with other members of his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) — was, in separate instances, accused of being a terrorist and then a Christian missionary, bent on converting the country's Muslim population.

With the aid of the Internet and radio broadcasts produced in Europe and Sri Lanka, the country's activists chipped away at the edifice of state control. U.S. State Department reports rebuked Gayoom's government for its brutal prison practices, particularly in September 2003 when Evan Naseem, a teenager in detention on petty-drug charges, was killed by guards. His death was a catalyst for change, triggering mass riots that, combined with mounting international pressure, forced Gayoom to initiate the process of reforms and liberalization that would finally lead to his defeat in the polls last year.

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