Legacies of Empire Fuel Conflict Among Southeast Asian States

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

It sounds at first like the plot of a comic opera: A group of men from a small Filipino island chain attack a Malaysian village on the nearby island of Borneo.

But there’s actually quite a long history behind this.

The Philippines, an archipelago of some 7,000 islands in Southeast Asia, was a Spanish colony for centuries, until lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War, it attained its independence in 1946.

Though most of its people are Roman Catholics, thanks to centuries of Spanish rule, the southern island of Mindanao is home to a large Muslim population. It has been the site of a long-term insurgency against the Manila government by rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front, two groups seeking to create a Muslim state on Mindanao.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Sultanate of Sulu, a Muslim entity, controlled the southwestern part of Mindanao, the Sulu Islands off Mindanao, and the northeastern part of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.

While Mindanao and the islands of the Sulu Sultanate came under the control of Spain and became part of the Philippines, Spain relinquished all claims to the part of Borneo which had belonged to the Sultanate in an agreement made with Great Britain and Germany in 1885.

The southern three-quarters of Borneo, known as Kalimantan, is part of Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, and it was ruled for centuries as part of the Dutch East Indies. The northern part, however, was divided into two British possessions, Sarawak and North Borneo, as well as the tiny Muslim protectorate of Brunei Darussalam.

North Borneo, which was proclaimed a British protectorate in 1888, included areas that had been under the jurisdiction of the Sulu Sultanate.

In 1963, Sarawak and North Borneo (now renamed Sabah), were joined with the former British colony of Malaya, the Muslim-majority peninsula across the South China Sea, as the Federation of Malaysia. Singapore was also, for a time, part of this new nation, though oil-rich Brunei never joined.

While Sabah is inhabited by numerous indigenous ethnic groups, about two-thirds are Muslim. Sarawak is the only state in Malaysia where Christians form a majority.

While the Sultanate of Sulu is no longer a sovereign state, many of its inhabitants still consider it a legitimate entity and recognize Jamalul Kiram III as sultan.

They also continue to claim Sabah, maintaining that it was only leased, not ceded, to the British North Borneo Company in the 19^th century, with the Sultan’s sovereignty never being relinquished.

The 1963 Manila Accord signed by the heads of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, at the time Sabah became part of Malaysia, stated that “the inclusion of Sabah in the Federation of Malaysia will not prejudice the interest of parties concerned until the issue of the Sabah claim is finally resolved by the United Nations.” This has not happened.

The Philippines broke diplomatic relations with Malaysia after the Federation had included Sabah in 1963; Malaysia, in turn, asserted that the people of North Borneo had been polled and supported joining the Federation.

Not wishing to continue the quarrel over territory with Malaysia, the Manila government has not pressed its claim in recent years. (For a time in the 1960s Indonesia, too, had claimed the entire island of Borneo and launched armed incursions into Malaysian territory.)

So supporters of the Sulu royal house decided to take matters into their own hands. Calling themselves the Royal Army of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, about 200 men attacked and occupied the coastal Sabah village of Tanduo on February 12 in order to reaffirm their claim to Sabah. Some members of the Moro National Liberation Front were also involved.

After days of sporadic fighting between the invaders and Malaysian forces, government troops mounted a full-scale assault on Tanduo at the end of the month and retook the village. “Our patience has reached the limit,” Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia declared.

Supporters of the Sultanate criticized Philippine President Benigno Aquino III for saying that the incursion into Sabah was triggered by self-interest and that the invaders had not considered the welfare of the 800,000 Filipinos working in Sabah.

However, Aquino affirmed the country’s claim on Sabah, stating that his administration would pursue it through dialogue and diplomacy.

Meanwhile, lawyers acting for the Sultanate of Sulu are preparing charges against Malaysia for usurpation of authority and illegal development of natural wealth in Sabah. They will be seeking a $25 billion “fine” from the Malaysian government before the International Court of Justice.

So this obscure, centuries-old territorial dispute, like so many others, will continue to fester and remain an issue between Malaysia and the Philippines, providing one more source of instability in Southeast Asia.