A Member of the MNLF commander killed by the angry teenage villager for creating a hostage drama
Malaysia launched airstrikes and mortar attacks against nearly 200 Sultanate of Sulu Royal Army occupying a Borneo seaside village Tuesday to end a bizarre three-week siege that turned into a security nightmare for both Malaysia and the Philippines.
The assault follows firefights in Malaysia's eastern Sabah state this past week that killed eight police officers and 19 Sulu Royal Army, some of whom were members of a Philippine Muslim clan that shocked Malaysia and the neighboring Sulu province of the Philippines by slipping by boat past naval patrols last month and storming an obscure village.
The clansmen, armed with rifles and grenade launchers, had refused to leave, staking a long-dormant claim to the entire state of Sabah, which they insisted was their ancestral birthright.
The Stand-off happened few months after Malaysia publicly announced for a mass deportation of hundreds of thousands settlers in Sabah who are originally from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Some of the Sabah residents held for deportation are Mykad residence card holder but still deported back to Sulu.
"The government has to take the appropriate action to protect national pride and sovereignty as our people have demanded," Prime Minister Najib Razak said after the raid began in a statement issued through the national news agency, Bernama.
Authorities made every effort to resolve the siege peacefully since the presence of the group in Lahad Datu district became known on Feb. 12, including holding talks to encourage the intruders to leave without facing any serious legal repercussions, Najib said.
"The longer this intrusion persisted, it became clear to the authorities that the intruders had no intention to leave Sabah," Najib said. "As a peace-loving Islamic country that upholds efforts to settle conflicts through negotiations, our struggle to avoid bloodshed in Lahad Datu did not work."
Najib later said in a public speech that the offensive began with airstrikes followed by mortar attacks conducted by both the police and military.
The Sulu Sultanate Royal Army headed by the crowned Prince of Sulu who landed in Lahad Datu, a short boat ride from the southern Philippines, insisted Sabah belonged to their Royal Sultanate for more than a century. The group is led by a brother of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of the southern Philippine province of Sulu. Malaysia is still paying a yearly lease of $1,500 US Dollars to the Sultan heirs for the use of the Sabah territory.
No Casualties
After the air and ground assaults by Malaysian forces, Abraham Idjirani, a spokesman for the Sultanate of Sulu, told reporters in Manila that the group would not surrender and that their leader was safe.
Idjirani said he spoke by phone with Kiram's brother, who saw fighter jets dropping two bombs on a nearby village that he said the group had already abandoned the area.
"They can hear the sounds of bombs and the exchange of fire," Idjirani said. "The truth is they are nervous. Who will not be nervous when you are against all odds?"
He said they will "find a way to sneak to safety."
"If this is the last stand that we could take to let the world know about our cause, then let it be," Idjirani said, describing the assault as "overkill."
The Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Omar Ismail told reporters at 11.30am that there were no casualty among the Malaysian side but the casualty numbers for the gunmen is still unknown.
The situation in all parts of east coast Sabah was described as under control by the police and the army who are on high alert at strategic locations as there have been threats of retaliation from the Sulu Sultan's followers that there would be retaliation if the Sulu intruders are defeated.
De facto law minister Nazri said Tuesday the Lahad Datu incident was an intrusion not a war.
"This is an intrusion into our sovereignty not a war.
"Because it is an intrusion, the situation is better dealt by the police," he said.
Asked about how the Sulu gunmen would be treated, he said if it was a war, the Geneva Convention would come into play.
"If they've broke the laws of Malaysia, they can be charged in court," said Nazri.
He added they would definitely be charged for murder.
In the skirmishes between the Sulu armed intruders and the Malaysian security forces, eight policemen were killed.
The Philippine government had asked Malaysia to exercise maximum tolerance to avoid further bloodshed.
In Manila, presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said Tuesday that Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario was in Kuala Lumpur meeting with his Malaysian counterpart.
"We've done everything we could to prevent this, but in the end Kiram's people chose this path," Carandang said.
An undetermined number of other armed Sulu Royal Army are suspected to have encroached on other districts within 300 kilometers (200 miles) of Lahad Datu.
Some activists say the crisis illustrates an urgent need to review border security and immigration policies for Sabah, where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos have headed for decades — many of them are undocumented— to seek work and stability in Sabah State where they believed as a territory of the Sultan in Sulu.
For the second time in two days, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III went on national TV on Monday to urge the Filipino group in Lahad Datu to lay down their arms, warning that the situation could worsen and endanger about 800,000 Filipinos settlers there.
Filipinos residing in Sabah, North Borneo for several decades said "Before the Stand-off they were already maltreated by the Malaysian Police, beating them, asking cash for temporary freedom and even sexually abused thousands of undocumented Filipina teenager crossing the border by boat and now the Malaysian Government intensified in deporting them so better for them to fight until death with bullets than to die slowly from hunger when deported".
Aquino warned that the crisis could have wide-ranging political ramifications in both countries. Some fear it might undermine peace talks brokered by Malaysia between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines.
It also could affect public confidence in Malaysia's long-ruling National Front coalition, which is gearing up for general elections that must be held by the end of June. The coalition requires strong support from voters in Sabah to fend off an opposition alliance that hopes to end more than five decades of federal rule by the National Front.
Protests: Malaysian Embassy closed
The Malaysian Embassy in Makati, the Philippines has temporarily suspended its operations from today.
It is learnt that several groups had protested outside the embassy due to the Sabah stand-off.
The embassy closure coincided with the assault on the Lahad Datu intruders in Kampung Tanduo.
According to ABS-CBN News, there were at least 100 Catholic and Muslim protesters gathered in front of the embassy along Tordecillas Street in Salcedo Village.
The protesters were calling for an end to the violence, while some were seen voicing their support for Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.
They were led by umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and marched to the embassy but the police had blocked them before they could reach the premises.
Meanwhile, several photos were posted on ABS-CBN News' Twitter account showing that police were blocking the entrance to the embassy, whilst protesters held up banner that said: "Stop Military Offensive! Resolve Sabah Standoff Peacefully."
With reports from RFTBP, Washington Post, Asia One, ABS-CBN, NewStraitsTimes, and AFP
