RISING.....Sabah
became the vision of the last gold coin that could win back the possibility of
rising again, getting back the worth of a name: the venerable House of Kiram.
By : RAYMOND TOMBUNG
The Sabah claim will
continue to be raised by the Phlippines and Sulu as it is powerful and emotive
international issue which many leaders from Manila will find convenient to
bleed for political mileage. And the many “sultans” in Sulu will continue to
cast their hungry eyes at Sabah, considered to be “the last gold coin” and
aspire, albeit hopelessly, to try and achieve the impossible.
But Malaysians, especially
Sabahans, should be able to give a cogent argument on the issue of this claim
and in favour of Sabah.
All Malaysians and Sabahans
need is three or four historical facts, events or political realities to win
the argument.
So let’s always keep clear
knowledge of the following:
1. The controversy arising
from the 1878 treaty between Jamalul Alam and British North Borneo Company.
It can strongly be argued
that it was a “cession” and not a “lease” as claimed by Filipinos.
Note that any argument on
the matter was decisively clarified and settled when on April 22, 1903, Sultan
Jamalul Kiram signed a document known as “Confirmation of cession of certain
islands” in which he says the 1878 treaty was a CESSION.
The “confirmation” of the
1878 treaty says specifically that “We, the Sultan of Sulu, state with truth
and clearness that we have ceded to the Government of British North Borneo of
our own pleasure all the islands that are near the territory of North Borneo…
This is done because the names of the islands were not mentioned in the 22nd
January, 1878 [treaty]… that the islands were included in the cession…”
2. The purpose of the Madrid
Protocol of 1885 was to recognise the sovereignty of Spain in the Sulu
Archipelago and also for Spain to relinquish all claims it might have had over
North Borneo.
Article III of the protocol
states that “The Spanish Government renounces… all claims of sovereignty over
the territories of the continent of Borneo, which belong, or which have
belonged in the past to the Sultan of Sulu [Jolo]….”
3. The signing of the
Carpenter Agreement on March 22, 1915 in which Sultan Jamalul Kiram II was
stripped off all temporal (worldly) power and retained only the empty title of
Sultan. His claimed ownership of North Borneo was of no concern to the American
colonists.
4. The Macaskie Dictum
(Judgment) of 1939. This judgment doesn’t settle the argument although Macaskie
said the annual payment was cession money and not rental money and that the
nine plaintiff heirs were entitled to.
These payments, however, in
no way had anything to do with territorial property. This is because a later
translation by the Filipinos of the original 1878 treaty (written in Malayan
Jawi) said the agreement was a “pajak” which they say meant “lease”.
(Today “pajak” can mean
“purchase”). But even this judgment was preceded by the addition “cession” of
1903 and the Madrid Protocol of 1885.
Power of attorney
questionable
5. The Sulu “sultans” cannot
claim Sabah because there is no more a Sulu sultanate and there is no more any
real sultan. The only legitimate royal group in Sulu are the descendants of the
nine heirs who went to Macaskie in 1939.
6. Sulu (a region of the
Philippines without any national sovereignty) cannot claim Sabah which is part
of Malaysia – a sovereign nation.
Only a country can claim
another country or a part of another country. This therefore means Sulu has no
locus standi to claim Sabah. The power of attorney that was given to Macapagal
by the Sulu Sultan to give Macapagal the “authority” to claim Sabah on Sulu’s behalf
(now withdrawn) has very questionable validity.
Maybe this is one of the
reasons why Manila had not really pursued the claim using the so-called power
of attorney.
7. Manila had denied and
re-recognised the sultanate a number of times, but this does not change the
fact that there has been not been any sultanate to speak of since the
Carpenter-Kiram Agreement of 1915.
8. By July 15, 1946, the
British government had taken over North Borneo when the North Borneo Company
could no longer manage it after the devastation of World War II.
The company had the right to
hand over North Borneo to whoever it wanted because the country had been ceded
to it in 1878 (and confirmed by the confirmation of cession in 1903 and the
nullification of Sulu’s ownership of the country by the Madrid Protocol of
1885).
9. Many Brunei historians
actually argue that Brunei never gave away any part of North Borneo to Sulu.
And there is no document whatsoever to prove this cession.
10. After Sabah became part
of Malaysia and Malaysia’s sovereignty was recognised by the United Nation and
the world, that had effectively superceded and nullified any claim on Sabah.
If Sulu, by a very long
shot, gets back Sabah, will it be able to pay Malaysia all the billions
utilised to develop Sabah since 1963?
ICJ confirmed Sabah’s status
Sulu cannot be so arrogant
and shameless to think that it can simply and freely take back a piece of land
it “owned” 135 years ago after it has been developed by someone else for half a
century.
11. The International Court
of Justice (which is an arm of the United Nation) had recognised and confirmed
Sabah as part of Malaysia when it made a verdict in 2002 that Sipadan and Ligitan
islands belonged to Malaysia (and not Indonesia). This confirmation of
ownership cannot be reversed in favour of Sulu (judgments of the ICJ cannot be
appealed).
12. Whatever the arguments
are, all the past agreements and treaties – whether they were valid, arguable
or controversial – are now effectively useless historical references because
they have been superseded by bigger and more important events.
Therefore the argument by
Harry Roque, a law professor at University of the Philippines, who says that a
legal principle known as “uti posseditis juris” “accords pre-eminence of legal
title over effective possession as a basis of sovereignty” is useless and
ineffective due to this superceding by bigger events in history.
Also, this pre-eminence of
legal title is a double-edged sword because it can also be applied to Malaysia.
13. Prof Dr Ramlah Adam
recently said: “They cannot claim [Sabah] just based on history. For example,
the Siam government handed Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu over to the British
and [today] cannot claim the states.”
Prof Emeritus Khoo Kay Kim
said that if the Philippines’ argument can be accepted, then “Singapore should
be returned to Johor and Penang be returned to Kedah”.
And for that matter why does
Brunei not claim Sabah as well because there is a Brunei argument that it never
gave Sabah to Sulu? Or why doesn’t Indonesia claim Peninsular Malaysia and
southern Thailand? After all, weren’t these regions under the Srivijaya Empire
in the eighth century?
14. Sabahans do not want to
be part of the Philippines, as confirmed by the findings of the Cobbold
Commission.
Even today Sabahans feel a
lot of trepidation at the mere thought of being under the so-called Sulu
sultanate. If a referendum is held to seek Sabahans’ preference between
Malaysia and the Philippines, many would dare say the foregone conclusion is
for most preferring to stay on in Malaysia.
No referendum
15. There is an argument
that Malaysia had agreed in the Manila Accord (signed July 31, 1963) that the
formation of Malaysia was subject to the Philippines’ claim over Sabah.
But whatever was agreed in
the Manila Accord has been superseded by later events, for example, the
formation of Malaysia which included Sabah, two months after the Manila Accord.
In the Bangkok talk of
June-July 1968, Malaysia had unilaterally rejected the Manila Accord.
With the benefit of
hindsight, wasn’t the Manila Accord an exercise in futility, especially by the
Philippines in trying to hang on to something which couldn’t be implemented and
solved till the end of time?
If the terms of the Manila
Accord were adhered to, there would have been no Malaysia.
Of prime importance was the
wishes of Sabahans – two-thirds of whom wanted to join Malaysia as the findings
of the Cobbold Commission indicated the year before.
And noteworthy is Article 10
of the accord which says: “The Ministers reaffirmed their countries’ adherence
to the principle of self-determination for the people’s of non-governing
territories. In this context, Indonesia and the Philippines stated that they
would welcome the formation of Malaysia provided the support of the people of
the Borneo territories is ascertained by an independent and impartial
authority, the Secretary-General of the United Nations or his representatives.”
There was not much time to
carry out such a referendum, but wasn’t this condition (to allow Sabah to be
part of Malaysia) already fulfilled by the Cobbold Commission the year before?
A virtual paradise
16. Even Sabahan Tausugs do
not want to be part of the Philippines.
Ed Lingao, a renowned
Filipino author and journalist had on Feb 21, 2013, reported in Minda News that
he had undertaken a random survey of the Tausugs in Sabah and found out that
even they do not want Sabah to become part of the Philippines.
He wrote: “Many of the
Tausugs we encountered detested the idea of the Philippine government
reclaiming Sabah. Refugees from war and poverty, many of these Tausugs see
little benefit in a Sabah under the Philippine flag; in fact, for them, it is a
worrying proposition, not unlike jumping from the clichéd frying pan into an
even bigger fire.
“One Tausug we encountered
outside a mall in Kota Kinabalu bristled at the idea of the Philippines staking
a claim on Sabah saying ‘sisirain lang nila ang Sabah. Okay na nga ang Sabah
ngayon, guguluhin lang nila,’ (They will just destroy Sabah. Sabah is doing
fine right now, they will just mess it up).
“It is hard to blame them
for the cynicism. After all, they took great risks and fled their own troubled
country in droves for a better life, only to have that same country reach out
and stake a claim on what, to them, is already a virtual paradise where one can
finally live and work in peace. That, to them, may be the ultimate irony, the
ultimate tragedy.”
As such, what we see today
is a group of desperate people trying to live in the glory of the distant past,
stepping forward with their thick skins with no regard for the truth.
Lingao described the nature
of the situation on Feb 19 in an article, “Sabah as the last gold coin”.
In it he notes: “Sabah
became their clutch when their own Sulu was sinking, so to speak, from the
heavy weight of bloodshed that spiralled into poverty.
“Sabah became the vision of
the last gold coin that could win back the possibility of rising again, getting
back the worth of a name: the venerable House of Kiram.”
How very sad and tragic
indeed. And now more blood is being spilled in the name of a great overstated
lie!
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