Pres. Aquino warns 12 years IMPRISONMENT for the Sulu Sultan Kiram over stand-off with Malaysia

Sultanate of Sulu and Borneo - Malaysia standoff in Sabah

President Benigno Aquino III asked a royal Muslim clan leader in the southern Philippines to order his followers to withdraw as soon as possible from Malaysian land they claim as their own, warning Tuesday of legal action against them and potential trouble.

Speaking on national television, Aquino told Sultan Jamalul Kiram III that his group of 180 followers led by his younger brother and including up to 30 armed men was risking a violent end to a two-week standoff by insisting on holding out. Kiram's sultanate has been claiming the land in a coastal village in Lahad Datu district in Malaysia's eastern Sabah state for nearly a century.

Malaysian Government lease payment for Sabah to the Sultanate of Sulu in 2003

Malaysian Government lease payment for Sabah to the Sultanate of Sulu in 2004

"We have not yet reached the point of no return, but we are fast approaching that point," Aquino said, calling the action by Kiram's followers a "foolhardy act" that was bound to fail.

Aquino's remarks elevated the Sabah territorial issue, which has been a thorn in Philippine-Malaysian relations for decades, to a Philippine national security concern. The crisis erupted at a crucial stage of peace negotiations — brokered by Malaysia — between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines.

Kiram's followers secretly traveled by boat early this month to Lahad Datu, where he said many of their Filipino relatives had resettled for years, to fortify his clan's claims on Sabah. It is a resource-rich Malaysian region where many mostly Muslim Filipinos have relocated in search of jobs and opportunities and to escape poverty and the decades-long Muslim rebellion in the southern Philippines.

Malaysian authorities, however, regard them as armed intruders and ordered them to immediately leave or face eviction. Malaysian police have surrounded Kiram's followers in Lahad Datu and gave them until late Tuesday to leave, suggesting they would be forcibly removed.

Aquino said that Kiram and his followers would be investigated, along with possible collaborators, suggesting the incident may have been an act to undermine the Philippine government. He warned Kiram and his followers of possible legal action if they continued to defy orders to withdraw from Lahad Datu.

He warned Kiram that he had also ordered an investigation "into possible violations of laws by you, your followers, and collaborators engaged in this foolhardy act".

Aquino cited a constitutional provision renouncing war as an instrument of policy and a law prohibiting citizens against inciting war, which is punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

Kiram's followers made a boat trip from their homes on remote islands in the southern Philippines to occupy the Malaysian fishing village two weeks ago, after the sultan gave them a blessing to live there.

"If you choose not to cooperate, the full force of the laws of the state will be used to achieve justice for all who have been put in harm's way," Aquino said.

Philippine and Malaysian authorities have said that the group's demands should be addressed through diplomatic channels.

The Philippines notified Malaysia over the weekend that it has deployed a navy ship, which would stay off Lahad Datu while talks to persuade the Filipinos to return home continue. The ship departed Sunday night with an entourage including social workers and medical personnel.

With report from ABC News, Star online Malaysia and AFP

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Sultanate of Sulu Prince Death penalty for entering back the territory- Sabah: Hiew King Cheu’s demand

CLOSE-UP VIEW Malaysia's Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein uses a pair of binoculars to view Tanduao village, where armed Filipinos from Sulu are holed up near Lahad Datu, during his visit on Tuesday. Followers of the sultan of Sulu who crossed to the Malaysian state of Sabah this month, have said they are reclaiming the area as their ancestral territory, the sultan said on Sunday amid a tense standoff. AFP

The peaceful group of the "Crowned Prince of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo" entering back their territory makes the Chinese origin Sabah chief-cum-member Hiew King Cheu insecure of their presence in the territory and demanding for a death penalty for the Prince and his group for entering and claiming back their leased territory to Malaysia.

Chief-cum-member Hiew King Cheu also blamed the incompetency of their military force for allowing the group to enter Sabah undetected.

A comment from the unverified source, an insider of the Royal Malaysian Navy in Sabah who refused to be named said the group where the Crowned Prince of the Sultanate of Sulu and his armed guards boarded were already detected when they entered the Sabah waters but they did not board the ship r knowing that the Prince is aboard with his armed guards. "As a respect for the Prince, we did not block them" he said.

Other Muslim countries start criticizing Malaysia, a Muslim country for taking advantage for the weakness of the Islamic Sultanate of Sulu and for depriving the Royal Family's territorial rights. Malaysia is Haram حرم. "Good Muslim must not take advantage for the weakness of the other Muslim just because of Money" as commented in a website.

Reported in the Daily Express, a Malaysian Independent News paper, "DAP queries if some in the armed group have Mykad"

MyKad is a biometric compulsory identity document for Malaysian citizens aged 12 and above. Introduced by the National Registration Department of Malaysia on 5 September 2001 as one of four MSC Malaysia flagship applications and a replacement for the High Quality Identity Card (Kad Pengenalan Bermutu Tinggi)

Malaysia's Sabah (North Borneo) lease payment to the Sultanate of Sulu (evidence) 2003

In Kota Kinabalu (KK): Sabah DAP urged the authorities to ascertain whether it is true that some among the Filipino guard of the Crowned Prince of Sultanate of Sulu holed up in Kg Tanduo, in Lahad Datu, are actually MyKad holders.

Its Sabah chief-cum-Member of Parliament, Hiew King Cheu, said if true, then some of them are actually Malaysians regardless of how they obtained the document.

He also said many people are still puzzled how the group estimated at between 200 and 400 managed to get through the layers of Malaysian defence, namely the marine patrols, the MMEA and the army.

"According to people in Lahad Datu, the usual passenger number on these speedboats smuggling people is not more than 30.

"If even 150 militants landed, that means at least 5 speedboats had to do the dropping off. How come our Forces did not detect them?" he asked, adding this suggested that they are already in Sabah and that probably hundreds of thousands of them now have Mykad.

The group is said to have landed on Feb. 9 and have demanded that Malaysia recognize them as the Royal Sulu Sultanate army and for Malaysia to promise not to deport the Suluk illegals "because Sabah still belongs to the Sulu sultanate." He said the impression to the outside world is one of our Forces being bullied by a small bunch of militants from a defunct sultanate.

He said this is despite the Government having spent billions of Ringgit to equip the army, navy, air force and police with weapons, armored vehicles, helicopters, fighter planes, warships and submarines.

"The negotiations have going on for too long and are becoming very fishy as it is now more than two weeks," he said.

Malaysia's Sabah (North Borneo) lease payment to the Sultanate of Sulu (evidence) 2004

"This is a lame approach by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government to protect our national dignity and sovereignty. It just shows BN's complete weakness in handling a serious emergency situation.

"Their action should have been swift and decisive to demonstrate our security forces strength and power."

He said the security forces should have forced the intruders to surrender and put them behind bars under the country's law for entering Malaysia with deadly weapons.

"Under the law those having 'unlawful possession of firearms' in contravention of the Arms Act 1960 is punishable by death penalty, imprisonment for life or 10-14 years imprisonment with whipping with not less than six strokes of the rotan depending on the case," he said.

He said the patience of villagers are running thin as they were barred from entering their own village and back to their homes, while details of the so-called "negotiations" are withheld from public knowledge.

He said the present standoff is in stark contrast to the 1985 tragedy when armed men dressed in military fatigues fired randomly in public killing 11 people, while injuring others before robbing RM200,000 from a bank and a Malaysia Airlines Office in Lahad Datu.

In that incident, the security forces chased the attackers right to the border islands where they were believed to have come from.

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