The sudden arrival four weeks ago at this writing of followers of the sultan of Sulu in Sabah in North Borneo has now resulted in a number of deaths. Further deaths may ensue before the problem is resolved.
The incident has embroiled the governments of the Philippines and of Malaysia and the sultan in a fresh controversy over the long-standing dispute over Sabah, which is a physical part of Malaysia that is claimed by the Philippines. The sultan’s move caught the Philippine government by surprise, provoking anger from President Benigno Aquino III, whose administration is currently scrambling to make heads or tails of the sultan’s actions.
No doubt, the sultan of Sulu’s solo move is causing the President a huge migraine. The Philippines’ claim over Sabah has been on the back burner for many decades. Past presidents since Ferdinand Marcos have not pursued the claim actively because of its ticklish implications.
Centuries ago, land bridges connected many of the Southeast Asian territories. What was to become the Philippines was connected to what was to become Malaysia and also what is today Indonesia. In that context, Borneo, which includes Sabah, was physically connected to southern Philippines.
The then sultan of Borneo gave Sabah to the sultan of Sulu in the 18th century as a reciprocal gesture for a favor from the sultan of Sulu — the latter supported the sultan of Borneo in a dispute against a third party. That is the basis for the claim — up to today — of the sultanate of Sulu over Sabah, which the Philippine government supports, although subsequent Philippine administrations haven’t pressed the claim against Malaysia. The sultanate claims as proof of its ownership of Sabah the fact Malaysia pays the sultanate a token sum of less than $2,000 A YEAR, supposedly for rent.
Because of this dormancy of the claim, the succeeding sultans of Sulu have grown impatient over the years over the Philippine government’s inaction in pursuing the claim. And this impatience has now led to the current incursion of followers of the sultan into Sabah and the resulting deaths among elements of the sultan’s group and Malaysian police.
In the ensuing back-and-forth between the Philippine government and the sultan, the issue has become murky. The sultan calls his followers’ move — under his direction — a homecoming of his people to their homeland. (The sultan himself, Jamalul Kiram III, does not live currently in Sulu but in Taguig, a suburb of Manila, so his orders are made through remote control.) Someone in his group even called the arrival of his followers in Sabah an “excursion,” instead of an incursion, meaning a picnic or outing of people in their own land. Media reports here have variously labeled the move an “invasion” or a “takeover.”
Malaysia calls it an illegal occupation and has given the “intruders” an ultimatum to leave Sabah. President Aquino has called on the sultan to bid his followers to go back to Sulu before many more lives are lost in skirmishes between the sultan’s people and Malaysian police.
(In later developments at this writing, the government of Malaysia had sent fighter jets to bomb the area where the sultan’s followers are holed up. News reports say Malaysian soldiers are in pursuit of the sultan’s men.)
There is a mysterious element in the drama. President Aquino has floated the suspicion that a still-unidentified group is behind Kiram’s sudden move to claim Sabah. The suspicion revolves around former Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, who has been the target of Mr. Aquino’s drive to make former government officials pay for their alleged crimes of plundering the nation’s coffers and other offenses.
The President has declined at press time to formally state that Mrs. Arroyo is behind, or at least is financing, Kiram’s adventure into Sabah. But news reports say that Mrs. Arroyo’s then national security adviser, Norberto Gonzales, had been in touch with Kiram and the presumed conclusion is that Gonzales and his former boss, Mrs. Arroyo, had prodded Kiram to make his move. This makes the plot thicken.
Kiram’s family is said to be in dire financial straits and is, therefore, not capable of bankrolling an adventure involving several hundreds of men, some armed, landing in Sabah to claim it as belonging to the sultanate of Sulu. How he could afford such an expensive undertaking, some have asked.
Adventures like this one often aren’t as simple and straight-forward as they are portrayed to be. One doesn’t have to be a Frederick Forsyth, John Grisham or Ian Fleming to know that these escapades are complicated. And often dark and murky. When this is all over, all kinds of post-mortems and endless analyses will follow. But we may never know the whole truth behind it.
For now, the invasion or homecoming — whatever it may truly be — is causing a lot of concern in the Philippines and in Malaysia. The Observer’s take on this is that the sultan of Sulu’s move is untimely, ill-advised, futile and, ultimately, may be deadly.
Only a national government can negotiate any land dispute between sovereign nations. And, even though the dispute pertains to local territory, the claimants must still go through the national government. All such claims must be properly and exhaustively coordinated with the government before any moves, especially irretrievable ones where all sides cannot back down as in this case.
This is what has annoyed President Aquino — the sultan’s sudden move without the government’s imprimatur. And the suspicion that former President Arroyo may have plotted with the sultan to go on such an adventure which may in turn have a destabilizing effect on the Aquino administration.
One other factor that has Mr. Aquino in a foul mood is that Malaysia has been instrumental in the current talks between the Aquino administration and the Muslim community to forge a lasting peace in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. The Muslims have wanted to secede from the predominantly Catholic nation for a long time and finally, after so many failed negotiations over decades, a permanent agreement may be in sight to create a functioning autonomous Muslim region in Mindanao. For this, the Philippine government, while not abandoning its claim over Sabah, is not too keen to displease a friendly neighbor at this time. Trouble in Muslim Mindanao may also derail the current peace talks there.
Mr. Aquino has bade Sultan Kiram to call back his followers before any further and bloodier consequences take place in this mysterious and seemingly ill-planned takeover or homecoming in Sabah, a land long ago claimed to be owned by the sultanate of Sulu. This solo move by the sultan is fraught with danger for his followers and peril for the Philippine government’s peace initiatives as well as its economic and social agenda in Mindanao.
