Malaysia has refused to listen to the UNITED NATIONS because they know too well that Sabah is not really their territory

 

Sabah: A case for Christian and Muslim unity

By : Bobit S. Avila - SHOOTING STRAIGHT  - PHILTAR Column

The standoff in Sabah has become an international issue that has caught the interest of United Nations' (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who has asked Malaysia to refrain from attacking the forces of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III who are holed out in a corner of Sabah, a territory that he has a legitimate claim. But Malaysia has refused to listen to the UN because they know too well that Sabah is not really their territory.

This is where President Benigno "P-Noy" Aquino III should wake up and start believing that the Philippines do have a legitimate claim to this corner of North Borneo. P-Noy doesn't need a committee to look into this case. All he needs to do is to read the March 25, 1963 debate between Senator Lorenzo Sumulong who delivered a speech questioning the Philippine claim to North Borneo, which was filed by then President Diosdado Macapagal on June 25, 1962. I was still in first year high school when this happened.

Sen. Sumulong's privilege speech was rebutted point-by-point a few days later by Sen. Jovito R. Salonga. You can Google this report because it is too long to discuss it here. However it seems that the stand of P-Noy is uncannily similar or close to that of his grand uncle Sen. Lorenzo Sumulong. On the other hand, I'm not surprised that he is taking his grand uncle's position in Sabah. But it matters not what's the President's stand is on the Sabah issue… what matters is, is the Sultan's claim on Sabah the truth or not?

But somehow the Sabah issue was grabbed by that fellow "Rip Van Winkle" and put into a decade's long slumber. But now the Filipino nation just woke up and realized that this was a historical faux pas on the part of all the previous Philippine governments, and it is high time to get this case finally settled once and for all. If the UN says it is owned by Malaysia, then let's put an end to this claim. But if the UN says that Sabah belongs to the Philippines… then by all means, let's move to secure this territory.

 

In the meantime, P-Noy should be advised to help all Filipinos in the area because they are Filipino citizens. But ordering the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to go on a fault-finding mission in this very delicate time will only fuel more animosity with our Muslim brothers. This is P-Noy's golden opportunity to unify Christians and Muslims in this highly-diverse nation of ours. Alas, once again P-Noy is missing the boat. All he needs to do is sit down with Sultan Jamalul Kiram III. If he could sit down with Al Haj Murad, a Muslim rebel, he ought to be talking with the legitimate owner and Sultan of Sulu and of Sabah.

Bring Sabah claim to the ICJ!

Written by NESTOR MATA - MALAYA

Razak, in turning a deaf ear to the UN chief's call to peacefully end the one-month-old conflict and causing the merciless slaughter of 61 Filipino Muslims and innocent women and children (as of this writing), may well be held liable for using a "policy of genocide" before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"We just finished writing another letter informing the United Nations that Malaysia is not complying with their call to peacefully end violence in Sabah," Sultan Kiram told a press conference the other day. "We want them to investigate this genocide. I don't know why they do not want a cease-fire. It's very un-Islamic!"

If this move by Kiram succeeds, political watchers of the Sabah crisis forecasted, it may well affect the chances of Razak, who is running a close race for re-election in the coming Malaysian elections against the opposition party Pakatan Rakyat's Anwar Ibrahim. And they say that's the reason Razak, whose popularity is waning, ordered the massive attacks in order to "gain political credits."

Actually, according to an international law expert, Razak's defiance of the UN chief's call for peace may lead to his being tagged an "international outlaw" for defying the UN's call for peace which, in the eyes of the international community is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Other watchers of the Sabah conflict say that President Noynoy Aquino himself can't escape being blamed for the "colossal bungling" of the situation in Sabah, as it relates to the territorial claim of the Sulu sultanate and the Philippine government, as well as the mounting casualties there. Instead of complying with his mandated constitutional duty as president of the Republic to preserve its territories and the lives of its citizens, Christians and Muslims alike, he has instead ordered the filing of criminal charges against the Sulu sultan's followers who are our Muslim brothers.

Obviously, the same political watchers say, Aquino and his Cabinet officials, especially his secretary of foreign affairs and secretary of justice, lacked an understanding of the history of our Filipino Muslim brothers and the Philippine claim to Sabah. They and their Palace mouthpieces showed their "scandalous ignorance" about the Philippine claim to Sabah when they said that it was "dormant." They do not know, for instance, that it is their bounden duty "to preserve and safeguard the historical and legal rights of the government of the Republic of the Philippines arising from its claim to dominion and sovereignty over the territory of North Borneo."

Indeed, we have a law that upholds the sovereign rights of the Philippines over Sabah and unless it's repealed, President Aquino is mandated by his constitutional oath of office to exercise that sovereignty peacefully, and one way is for him to act quickly by filing a case over the territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), just like other bloody disputes over lands among our Asian neighbors which are now pending before the UN's ICJ. And once the ICJ acts on the Philippine claim to Sabah, it will hopefully put to an end an irritant between our country and Malaysia.

Instead, President Aquino continues to blame Sultan Kiram and his   followers, led by his brother Rajah Muda Kiram, who are holed up somewhere in the jungles of Sabah, for destroying what he (Aquino) calls "good relations" with Malaysia, even as more Filipino Muslims are being slaughtered like a pack of animals in that northern territory of Borneo.

Our national honor does not mean   that we must to go to war over Sabah, but it is the sworn duty of Aquino, as president of all the Filipino people, Christians and Muslims alike, to assert our country's sovereign rights to Sabah, and not Malaysia.

Mr. President, you must heed the UN Chief's call for a "peaceful resolution" of the situation in Sabah, and then go the UN's International Court of Justice and file our territorial claim against Malaysia, pronto!

***

Quote of the Day: "International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one." --- Ambrose Bierce

Thought of the Day: "What we dignify with the name of peace is really only a short truce, in accordance with which the weaker party renounces his claims, whether just or unjust until such time as he can find an opportunity of asserting them with the sword." --- Vauvenargues

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Filipino refugees describe DEADLY crackdown in Sabah - Killings of civilians and Mykad residents

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—"They dragged all the males outside the house, kicked and hit them," Amira Taradji said  as she recounted her family's ordeal in Sandakan that started when Malaysian security forces began cracking down on suspected supporters of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of Sulu.

Interviewed by phone from Patikul, Sulu, shortly after she arrived there Friday night with about 200 other refugees, Taradji, 32, claimed that Malaysian policemen would order Filipino men to run as fast as they could and would then gun them down.

Among those killed that way on Monday night during what she described as a zoning operation in a Filipino community in Sandakan was her brother, Jumadil, Taradji said.

Taradji, originally from Calinan in Davao City, is among some 400 people who have arrived in Sulu from such places in Sabah as Lahad Datu, Sempornah, Tawau and Kunak since the start of the week as violence triggered by a "homecoming" expedition to the east Malaysian state by followers of Kiram escalated.

Officials said there are now close to a thousand refugees from Sabah in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Hundreds more have arrived in smaller Philippine island near Sabah and many more Filipinos are expected to make the sea crossing, officials said.

The Inquirer reached Taradji by phone through the help of a Sulu local official shortly after she arrived in Patikul on a commercial vessel from Sabah late Friday.

Taradji said the constant raid on houses by Malaysian security forces was particularly dreadful for both Filipinos and Orang Suluk, as Sabahans who originated from Sulu are known.

Aside from the police abuse she said she witnessed in Sandakan, Taradji said Filipinos she encountered before leaving Sabah said they too had witnessed Filipino men being rounded up in Tawau and Kunak.

Some of the arrested men, who tried to dissuade the police from arresting them by waving immigration documents, were killed just the same for trying to evade the raiders, she said.

"Some of those arrested did not see jail because they were shot and killed," Taradji said.

Those who were jailed were not doing very well either because Malaysian authorities were allegedly starving them to death.

"Even if you have valid immigration document, you will not be spared. If you are lucky to reach the jail, you will die of starvation because they will not feed you," Taradji said.

Taradji had lived in Sandakan since she was six years old and is the holder of "Mykad," a type of identification card issued to Malaysian citizens and permanent residents.

She said that although she and here family were Mykad holders, they hastily abandoned their home when Malaysian policemen started arriving Monday night.

She said she saw how those caught during the raid suffered at the hands of Malaysian policemen.

"We sailed from Sandakan to nearby islands—from one island to another—until we reached a small island where we took a kumpit for the Philippines. We begged hard so they would allow us to ride one of the kumpits," she recounted.

Carla Manlaw, 47, said it was fear of the Malaysian policemen following stories of the abuse and killings that prompted her and other Filipinos to sail to Bongao in Tawi-Tawi.

Manlaw and 99 others, including children and the elderly, arrived in Philippine waters aboard two motorboats after sailing for about two hours from Sandakan. They were intercepted and escorted by a Philippine Navy ship until they reached Bongao late Friday.

"My employer has no problem with having a Filipino employee. But what bothered me was the police," she said.

Manlaw said the other Filipinos who sailed with her were afraid of  "what they will do to us."

Manlaw said when she heard that a vessel was returning to Bongao from Sandakan, she immediately grabbed her things and boarded it.

Mayor Hussin Amin of Jolo, Sulu, said the accounts of abuses by Malaysian policemen were so "alarming and disturbing" that the national government should already look into them.

He said he had spoken with a lot of evacuees and the stories were the same: Malaysian soldiers and policemen were not making any distinction between illegal immigrants and those issued Mykad cards.

"Soldiers and policemen stormed their houses and even those with legitimate working papers like passports and IC papers were not spared. These documents were allegedly torn down before their eyes. Men were told to run and were shot if they did. Those who refused were beaten black and blue. Filipinos inside the jail were executed," Amin said as he recounted what the evacuees told him.

"We are asking our government to investigate now. Refugees from Sandakan and Sabah share  [the same] ordeals. If indeed what they have been telling us is true, then Malaysian authorities were not just targeting the Kirams in Lahad Datu," Amin said by phone late Friday.

He said for now, he tended to believe the stories told by the fleeing Filipinos that Filipino men—Tausug especially—were being killed on the streets and in detention centers in Malaysia.

"Our people are treated like animals there and this has to stop because they are no longer hitting the Kirams," Amin said.

Amin said one his reasons for believing the stories was his observation that children and women "are deeply traumatized seeing our police personnel inspecting them."

He said that during processing of some evacuees who arrived in Jolo this week, he saw how "some even attempted to jump off to the sea, thinking they were still in Malaysia."

"I spoke to them and gave them assurance that they were all home and no one will ever harm them now and the policemen securing the port were not Malaysians but Filipinos protecting them," Amin said.

Social welfare officials, who spoke to the Inquirer on condition of anonymity, said they anticipated that more than a thousand Filipinos from Sabah will be arriving  within the next few days.

One official said the sheer number of the expected returnees "will pose a problem" greater than what the 2002 deportation of Filipinos by Malaysian authorities  caused.

That year, some 64,000 Filipinos were forced out of Sabah due to lack of documents and feeding or relocating them proved to be a nightmare for officials.

Amirah Lidasan of the militant group Suara Bangsamoro said she pitied women and children who had to endure uncertainty at sea just to escape the Sabah violence.

The waters between Sabah and Tawi-Tawi and Sulu are known for huge waves that could engulf and capsize small vessels.

Taradji said one problem facing many Filipinos escaping the Sabah crackdown is how to earn a living in the Philippines.

She said she managed to bring with her some money for food and other needs for her family for a few days. But she and her husband were at a loss as to how to feed the family after that.

"We do not even know which way is Calinan now," Taradji said, adding that the Philippines was now a foreign land to her and her family after living for the past 26 years in Sabah.

Manlaw said the same thing when she spoke with the Inquirer in Bongao.

"We have no future here, unlike in Sabah where we hade clear jobs and livelihood," she said.

INQUIRER Global Nation

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