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Special Report

Lies from Crown and Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa may mean millions for Mandhoo islanders

by Dhivehi Observer editorial staff and Mandhoo island reporters, 4 April 2006

The Maldives Crown company and Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa complex have accused Dhivehi Observer of lying in our report on 6 November 2005 titled 'Hilton hits on Mandhoo – No Room for Ethics in Maldives Resort.'

Dhivehi Observer claimed that a large area of Mandhoo island on Alifu (south Ari) atoll has been illegally stripped of coconut palms and soil for the nearby luxury resort at Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa complex in Rangali and Rangalifinolhu islands. The Hilton resort and Hilton's Maldive agent Crown company, who supplied the resort with palms, soil and mangrove trees, denied the Dhivehi Observer report in a lengthy response published by Minivan News website.

However, photographs taken on Mandhoo, protests by Mandhoo islanders, and admissions by the Maldives environment ministry detailed in the respected Minivan Daily newspaper published in Male', provide clear evidence that the Crown and Hilton resort response is factually incorrect, misleading and ill-advised.

There are glaring and important lies in Crown and Hilton's public reponse. Namely:
'Photographs purported to be of plants being removed from Mandhoo Island are of coco palms that had come from the Hilton resort island of Rangalifinolhu and had been moved to Mandhoo for 12 months during the renovation of Rangalifinolhu. These trees were replaced back on Rangalifinolhu in early 2005. The flora on the reopened Rangalifinolhu Island came from specially constructed nurseries which were built on Mandhoo Island for that purpose, as well as from nurseries in Sri Lanka and southern India. The resort categorically denies removing local trees, plants and topsoil from Mandhoo Island.'






	Freshly dug Mandhoo coconut palms being shifted to Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa complex on 18-20 February 2005. All these photographs were taken at the Mandhoo Thundi area. Crown company and the Hilton resort say the palms had been transplanted from the Hilton resort island into a nursery on Mandhoo Thundi for 12 months, prior to their removal from Mandhoo back to the resort.

However, the coconut palms shown in the photographs (dated in accordance with Crown company's admissions) had not been transplanted in the previous 12 months. They were straight, with green fronds and bearing coconuts as well. Fully grown coconut palms need special treatment for successful transplanting, and it is two years at least before they return to normal growth and fruiting. They must be secured with large structures or they will be blown around by the wind and die from lack of root development. Fully grown palms can also be temporarily laid on the ground but then their roots must be kept covered with damp soil that cannot be allowed to dry out.

It is obvious from the photographs that these plants had just been removed with their original ball of roots. There was no sign of structures to hold them in place, and the trunks showed no evidence of being laid horizontally on the ground. The trunks at the top were straight. If the palms had been laid on the ground for twelve months, the top sections of the trunk would have had a pronounced bend towards the sky. The photographs show fully grown palms that have been freshly dug from their original growth position. The palms had luxuriant green foliage and coconuts. There was no indication of previous transplanting over the past 12 months as Crown company claimed.

There is another obvious anomaly in Crown company's response: 'the resort does not organise excursions to Mandhoo because the island offers little of interest to tourists.' If Crown had a special nursery capable of holding fully grown palms and other plants, why did it want to keep the tourists from the Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa complex away from the island? If what Crown said was true, then it should have been proud of its exemplary environmental activities. There would have been a lot on Mandhoo for tourists to see and admire. Crown's refusal to let tourists visit the island is further evidence the company had something to hide.

Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa complex on Ari atoll is among the best resorts of its type anywhere in the world, and in many ways the complex's construction is a credit to everyone involved. The Hilton group's major mistake has been to allow Crown company to continue to act as its Maldives agent, and to allow the Hilton brand to be associated with Crown's denials of wrong-doing on Mandhoo island, which lies just north of the resort.

At the end of March 2006, Crown Company Agent and Coordinator in Mandhoo Mr. Shahid (known as Military Shahid) presided over a meeting of around twenty angry Crown company employees on Mandhoo Thundi ('thundi' means 'sandspit' or an area of an island that may contain vegetation but is not fit for permanent human habitation). The Mandhoo thundi is the section of Mandhoo island that Dhivehi Observer believes has been illegally ripped up to supply palms, mangrove trees and topsoil for the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa complex.

At the meeting, which was reported by Dhivehi Observer on 2 April 2006, Military Shahid threatened and blackmailed the Mandhoo workers, saying that his company was aware many people from the island had been involved in spreading information in the media and the Internet about what Crown had been doing on the thundi. Military Shahid said his company was intending to provide many services beneficial to the island including a free power supply. 'So what you should do, in the name of the people of Mandhoo, is inform the government and other concerned people that the information was all false,' he said, 'and tell them Crown has not taken away a single palm, or tree, or even a handful of soil. You should also expel the informants from the island.' Military Shahid told the workers if they did not comply, then the company would not provide the power supply, and it might move its operations to another island on the atoll.

The Mandhoo islanders refused to be intimidated and told Military Shahid not to attempt to involve them in the problems that Crown company had inflicted upon itself. 'Your departure from here is long overdue,' they said. 'We are only concerned that you won't leave until the place has become a desert. You once promised to build walls for our houses and to keep sending tourists to visit this island, so why should we believe that you'll provide a power supply?' The workers told him that his company ordered him to remove the plants and soil for the company, and they then began to abuse him with colourful language (as the tradition goes). The workers also accused Crown of planning to dig a deep channel to separate the thundi from the main inhabited part of Mandhoo island.

On 28 March 2006, Minivan Daily in Maldives published a report claiming that coconut palm removal from Mandhoo was intensified after the Indian Ocean tsunami in late December 2004. The Maldives environment and tourism ministry was unaware of this removal, according to the report, and the atolls ministry had 'neglected to notice'. Information and complaints from overseas had prompted a delegation from the environment ministry to visit Mandhoo to investigate the matter, Minivan Daily said, and on Monday 27 March, 'there was hurried work at the thundi area to clean up, burn and dispose of palm trunks and other material into the sea.'

When Minivan Daily contacted the Mandhoo island chief Mohamed Saeed, he refused to give any information to the reporter and hung up the phone. Also, 'Crown company director Ahmed Nazeer rudely refused to speak to the reporter when asked about the matter,' according to Minivan Daily.

Environment ministry officials were more communicative. They told Minivan Daily they had stopped Hilton's agents from doing similar destructive acts in the past, and the ministry was unaware what had been happening on Mandhoo before the complaints were received.

The newspaper quoted a Mandhoo islander who said the island's chief Mohamed Saeed had been 'given a vessel', and that the vessel was leased back from the island chief by Hilton's agents. Dhivehi Observer has received information identifying the Mandhoo island chief's windfall gift as the vessel 'Vilares', a modern Dhoni valued at more than a million rufiya (over US$78,000).

Dhivehi Observer is informed that Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa complex had been sending tourists to visit Mandhoo until the decision was made to strip Mandhoo Thundi. The tourist visits were then stopped. After the tsunami on 24 December 2004, the only help Mandhoo island received was a few bags of rice, flour, sugar and drinking water but only for a brief period of time. This contradicts Crown's response claim that 'the resort offered immediate assistance to the islanders after the tsunami, both in the form of immediate requirements such as food, clothing and medicines and with longer-term support with delivery of building supplies and workmen to assist with the rebuilding of the island.'

Crown company said in its public response that 'the resort currently sponsors a teacher on the island and is the main source of employment on the island.' However, Dhivehi Observer has learnt that the only school on the island is a government school and teachers' wages are paid by the Male' education ministry. Crown's claim that the resort is the main source of employment on the island is logical, since there are few other sources of employment there. It also explains why Crown company director Ahmed Nazeer feels confident enough to threaten and blackmail the company's Mandhoo employees.

Another truthful statement in Crown's response is that no effort was made by Dhivehi Observer to contact the company before publishing its reports in November 2005 and March 2006. Dhivehi Observer made the judgment, quite correctly in light of the company's treatment of Minivan Daily, that Crown's reaction would be unenlightening and dismissive.

The public response by Hilton's agents to the November report by Dhivehi Observer was delayed for months. Though it was dated 22 March 2006, it was not received for publication by Minivan News until a week later on 29 March, less than 48 hours after Crown company used heavy machinery and fires to fill gaping holes and destroy dead vegetation caused by the removal of palms, mangroves and top soil on Mandhoo Thundi. Dhivehi Observer reported Crown's efforts to hide its activities on 28 March.

Dhivehi Observer is pleased to learn that, unlike many resorts in Maldives, Hilton Resort and Spa complex is employing many local women. We would like to know how many of these women were employed after our report appeared, and the nature of their work there. In the past, the few women who manage to enter the tourist industry have been relegated to the most menial and low paying jobs with no opportunity for advancement.

The deliberate destruction of Mandhoo Thundi by Crown company is prompted solely by greed. It was cheaper to rip plants and soil from the thundi than to actually pay for the landscaping requirements of the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa complex or to wait for new palms to grow from seedlings. Monthly wages to for labourers in Maldives are rarely above Rf3,000 or US$234 and payments to female resort staff are often less than half that amount. Meanwhile, Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa complex charges tourists between US$390 and US$835 per night for a double room in the off season (July) and between US$570 and US$1,270 per night for a double room in the peak season (January).

Crown company's actions on Mandhoo are an example of its contempt for the island people of Maldives. Crown is controlled by a silent partner, Champa Hussein Afeef, who is an influential member of Gayyoom's economic committee which directs development in Maldives. The main directors of the company are Ahmed Saleem who is the Maldives consul for New Zealand, Ahmed Nazeer, and Abdul Ghani who is resident in UK. The lives of these men are far removed from the reality and struggles for existence on Mandhoo. They do not understand the deep emotional and spiritual ties that connect the people of Mandhoo to their very limited land resources. The destruction of Mandhoo's thundi, used for communal recreation, is having serious negative psychological effects on the people there, and cutting a channel between the people and their thundi would be a spiteful action by the Crown company designed to add to the islanders distress.

The involvement of the multinational Hilton group with Crown company and the destruction on Mandhoo could conceivably result in more than just bad publicity. The legal relationship between a principal and an agent is clearly defined, and if the Hilton group continues to ignore this issue and leave it in the hands of its Maldives agent (Crown company), it may eventually face compensation claims involving millions of dollars.

Dhivehi Observer realises that the thought of such compensation payments would cause Hilton and Crown company considerable distress, commensurate with the distress Mandhoo islanders are suffering now. Our sympathy extends to all parties in this matter. Just as we have offered free reporting facilities for the defenceless people of Mandhoo, we are now able to offer considered and free advice to Hilton and Crown. It may be just a coincidence, but on the same day Minivan News website carried Crown's and Hilton resort's response to our reports, one of Australia's most respected newspapers, the Australian Financial Review, published an interview with the leading American risk communication expert Peter Sandman. 'Honourable behaviour now pays better than dishonourable behaviour,' Mr Sandman said. 'I don't tell companies: Say sorry even though it will cost you money. I say: Say you're sorry because it will save you money.' The Review report explained that when arguing for an apology, Sandman's greatest battles are not always fought with company executives or technical staff. 'It's the PR and the lawyers who usually don't like it,' he said.

Peter Sandman usually charges clients US$1,750 an hour for his advice and opinions, and Dhivehi Observer is happy to pass them on to Hilton and Crown, without commission.

Hilton's Save the Environment Album

These pictures were taken by DO agents yesterday 27th March 2006

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