PETALING JAYA: It’s hard to believe, but a North Borneo territorial dispute stretching back centuries still keeps resurfacing in the 21st century.
And it’s often not just a gentlemanly discussion around a table. Blood has been recently spilled.
In 2013, about 200 insurgents from the Royal Army of Sulu set out from Jolo in the southern Philippines and landed in Lahad Datu, Sabah, to reclaim territory for Sulu. The conflict lasted two months and there were casualties on both sides.
Why “reclaim”? It’s a long and convoluted story.
FMT spoke to Jatswan Singh, historian and associate professor at Universiti Malaya’s Department of International and Strategic Studies, to see if he could shed some light on the background to the dispute.
It’s a pretty tangled story with a long cast of colourful characters, but basically it all comes down to how the involved parties interpret one word.
That word is “pajakan” and the dispute is over whether it means temporarily “lease” or “sell for good”.
Jatswan takes up the story.
“For centuries, the Sultan of Brunei owned most of what we now call Sabah and Sarawak,” he began.
There was a rebellion on the east coast of Sabah, which the sultan couldn’t suppress. So, he asked Sulu to help, in exchange for some rivers on the east coast. Sulu obliged and the rebellion was quashed.
This was the start of the overlapping ownership claims on northern Borneo.
Years later, when Western powers began to take an interest in this part of Asia, a succession of adventurers secured leases from Brunei for rivers in the north.
On learning that Brunei was not the only sultan-controlling land in the northeast, several adventurers sailed for Sulu in 1878.
At that time, the Sultan of Sulu was desperate for money and so he agreed to lease out his Borneo land.
With their lease in hand, the Westerners created the North Borneo Charter Company, which was ultimately granted royal protection by the British.
The charter ran the territory until 1946, when administration was taken over by the British under the Crown Colony of North Borneo.
In 1963, the state of Sabah together with Sarawak, Singapore and the Federation of Malaya formed Malaysia.
In the Sabah referendum held prior to the formation of Malaysia, Sabahans had voted to become part of the new country.
“And, of course, that raised the issue of sovereignty over Sabah,” said Jatswan.
The Philippines interpret “pajakan” as meaning “lease”, whereas the British government always took it to mean “grant”.
So, the British interpretation was that by this agreement, Sulu surrendered the areas in perpetuity. The Philippines still maintains it was only leased.
“I think one needs to be truthful to the documents that exist,” said Jatswan.
“Records clearly show the disputed territory has been part of Malaysia since 1963.
“If you want to start digging up ancient history, we’ll never stop fighting.”
Jatswan is of the opinion that the countries involved should stand united in the spirit of Asean.
This peaceable approach has been attempted before, most recently in November 2016, when President Duterte and then prime minister Najib Razak agreed to set aside the dispute.
And yet, this year another spat erupted.
In response to a note the Philippines sent to the UN on March 6, Malaysia replied this August with the following statement:
“The Permanent Mission of Malaysia wishes to inform the Secretary-General that Malaysia has never recognised the Republic of Philippines’ claim to the Malaysian state of Sabah, formerly known as North Borneo.”
And never will, it might have added, if rather undiplomatically.
from Free Malaysia Today https://ift.tt/2QOQUHk
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment