PROCLAIMED....The
self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu Jamalul Kiram (centre), accompanied by former
congressman Satur Ocampo (right) and a constitutional lawyer, Rafaelita Gono
(left), affirms his sultanate’s claim to Sabah in Manila yesterday. Armed
followers of the sultan have crossed over to Sabah and attacked Malaysian
security forces.
POSITION....
Malaysian sovereignty over Sabah is non-negotiable, no matter the claim by the
Sulu Sultanate.
By : JOHN TEO
AS the weeks-old stand-off
between the band of armed Sulu intruders and Malaysian police and armed forces
in Lahad Datu, Sabah, comes to a tragic and bloody denouement, it is important
to understand how it all came to this juncture.
What is now Sabah and
Sarawak used to be part of the Brunei sultanate. While Sarawak remained under
Brunei until 1841, when bit by bit the Sarawak as we know it today was ceded to
British adventurer James Brooke by a grateful sultan for help in quelling
persistent rebellions, North Borneo as Sabah was known before similarly passed
from Brunei's control to that of the Sulu sultanate even earlier: in 1704.
North Borneo stayed under
Sulu suzerainty until 1878 when it came under control of the British North
Borneo Company (NBC). That was the genesis of what now becomes known as the
much-disputed Philippine claim to Sabah.
Whether Sabah was ceded in
perpetuity to NBC or merely leased to it has become the real bone of
contention. An annual payment was paid to the Sulu sultan and his heirs by the
NBC for Sabah, a payment which Britain apparently assumed responsibility for
when Sabah became a British colony in 1946.
Malaysia, as the successor
independent and sovereign political federation to which Sabah became a
constituent part in 1963, reportedly has continued the Sulu payment, although
we have officially kept it under wraps.
The Malaysian official
position has rightly separated the Sulu sultanate's proprietary claim over
Sabah from Malaysian sovereignty over the state, which is non-negotiable. It is
also only proper that the Malaysian government continues to resist any
discussion over the Sulu payments for Sabah without any firm assurances that
any settlement will be final and unanimously agreed to by all the rightful
royal heirs.
The Sulu sultanate,
meanwhile, lost its status as an officially recognised political actor under
the modern and independent Philippine republic.
Philippine President
Diosdado Macapagal thus used the historic ties between the Sulu sultanate and
Sabah as the basis to officially stake his country's claim to Sabah upon the
latter becoming a part of Malaysia, a move that ruptured diplomatic relations
between both countries.
Macapagal's successor,
Ferdinand Marcos, promised in 1977 to renounce his country's claim to Sabah,
but only succeeded in emasculating further what remained then of the extended
and divided royal family of Sulu and after seeking to instigate a rebellion in
Sabah by a group he armed and trained and later massa-cred when the group
baulked in its assigned mission.
The overthrow of Marcos in
1986 saw President Corazon Aquino grant a measure of autonomy to "Muslim
Mindanao", empowering the likes of Nur Misuari, a Sulu native of the
Tausug tribe who, as governor of the new autonomous region, won brief adulation
from the international community which invested in him high hopes for bringing
peace and prosperity to the restive region.
President Fidel Ramos, who
took over from Aquino in 1992, saw the opportunity to build on that
international goodwill by enlisting his country's Muslim neighbours Brunei,
Indonesia and Malaysia in a joint sub-regional effort to reap the peace dividends
in Mindanao.
Alas, it was not to be.
Misuari proved to be a huge disappointment, preferring to spend time abroad or
in luxury hotels in Manila rather than attend to the needs of his impoverished
constituents in Mindanao. He was soon up to his old rebellious streak in his
native Sulu when his leadership credibility hit rock bottom whereupon he
attempted an escape to Sabah, a short boat trip away.
Misuari's Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF) suffered a split and the splinter Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) soon sued for a separate peace deal with Manila.
Tortured negotiations under Malaysia's facilitation lumbered on through much of
the duration of the decade-long presidency of Gloria Arroyo.
In 2001, when Malaysia and
Indonesia referred the dispute over ownership of Sipadan and Ligitan to the
International Court of Justice, the Philippines lost a pillar in its legal case
as the court threw out the latter's request for intervention in the case based
on the Sabah claim. Sipadan and Ligitan were later duly recognised by the court
as belonging to Sabah and therefore legally Malaysian territory.
A peace framework agreement
was finally signed between the MILF and the Philippine administration of
President Benigno Aquino III towards the end of last year.
Misuari's MNLF, now under
more sober leadership, had promised to be open towards the Bangsamoro political
entity that the MILF had fought for and won. But Misuari himself has proved
recalcitrant.
It is under such a state of
political flux when Misuari's fellow Tausug tribespeople in Sulu appear to have
been politically eclipsed by their fellow Muslims on the Mindanao mainland that
the Lahad Datu stand-off began.
If Misuari now sees fit to
join forces with the traditional political rulers of Sulu whom he himself had
earlier eclipsed to cause mischief in Sabah, he may have pulled off quite a
coup, given all the attention the stand-off now commands, both in Malaysia and
the Philippines.
But this plausible
"last stand" may well also be Misuari's ultimate undoing. Through the
armed intrusion into Sabah and the resulting deaths of both Filipinos and
Malaysians, ostensibly under orders of the Sulu sultan, both the Philippine and
Malaysian governments are united in hunting down those whom President Aquino
has firmly stated have chosen the wrong path to air their grievances.
Malaysian and Philippine
political interests are now intertwined as never before. That should only
strengthen the collective resolve of both nations to bring about the peace and
economic prosperity long denied Filipino Muslims as a result of selfish leaders
out only to save their own hides.
Peace and prosperity in
Bangsamoro, ultimately, is the only sure way as well to protect the problems of
the Philippine south from being imported into Sabah whose rugged and long
coastline defies easy measures to guard it.
It has become clear now that
a final settlement of the Sabah claim, given what is happening in Sabah, will
have to wait until at least a future generation of more responsible and sincere
Sulu leaders appears. The priority of the moment is to quell the Sabah
stand-off and its bloody after-effects now unfolding and to ensure all threats
to the young bud that is the Bangsamoro peace agreement are neutralised. (NST)
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