Malaysia soldiers attack armed Filipino clan in Borneo

"Malaysian soldiers have launched an assault on armed members of a Filipino clan in an ongoing conflict that has left at least 27 dead on Borneo island.

The ground troops are backed by fighter jets, with reports of several explosions near Lahad Datu, where the group of about 180 Filipinos are.

The operation to oust the clan began at 07:00 (23:00 GMT on Monday), the Malaysian government said.

Seven army battalions were deployed to the area on Monday to reinforce police."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21665135

Isn't that rather an audacious claim by the Filipino clan?

I see. I wasn't aware of that relationship / arrangement. An interesting scenario.

I can bore for Britain on this one.

On the 10th of May, 1866 the great City of London banking house of Overend Gurney failed, with debts of eleven million pounds - an immense sum. It was the last bank failure in England before Northern Crock - and there was no bail out of Overend Gurney, because they had been usurping some functions that the Bank of England wanted to keep to itself.

At this time, there was no telegraph cable all the way to Hong Kong. The telegraph cable stopped at Calcutta, and from there a mail steamer sailed for Hong Kong once a month.

Ewo, the Princely Hong, Jardine Matheson, had a fast paddle steamer called the Glengyle. She was almost all engine and coal bunkers, with little room for cargo, but that didn't matter much. Her job, for which she had been built, was to sail from Calcutta one day after the P&O mail steamer, overtake her without being seen, and arrive in Hong Kong one day before the P&O mail steamer.

On arriving in Hong Kong, the Glengyle did not hoist a Q flag and clear customs in the usual way. Instead, she sneaked into Junk Bay, outside Ly-e-Mun Passage, her Mate changed into his "go-ashores", hailed a sampan and reported to the offices of the Princely Hong with the very latest news in his pocket.

In May 1866 the latest news was the financial panic triggered by the collapse of Overend Gurney. The Princely Hong immediately withdrew all their deposits from the banks of Hong Kong and turned them into gold.

The Directors of their arch rivals in the opium trade, Dent and Company, unwarned, did not. The banks crashed, and Dent and Co went with them. Jardine Matheson bought their office, The Landmark, and today they still own it - the swankiest shopping centre in Hong Kong,

The Dent family were down, but not out. They re-formed their company and looked for new fields to conquer.

The Sultanate of Sulu had controlled Mindanao and the islands to the south of Mindanao since it was founded by an Arab trader in 1457I t extended into when the Sultan helped out the Sultan of Brunei with a rebellion and Brunei ceded some of Borneo to Sulu.

But by the 1860's and 70's the Sultanate had fallen on hard times, it was under attack by Spain and its piracy and slave trading activities had been curtailed by the British. It was persuaded to lease North Borneo to an American for ten years, but the American could not make use of it as he could not raise the funds to devellop his new colony.

The Austrian Consul in Hong Kong, Baron Von Overbeck, saw an opportunity and bought the American out of his lease, then went to Alfred Dent for finance to take on a new, long term, lease of North Borneo. Von Overbeck had hoped to interest his Emperor in a colony in East Asia, but Franz Josef was not interested, so Overbeck sold out his interest to Dent.

Dent was very interested; here was his chance to rebuild the family fortunes. In 1882 he founded the British North Borneo Company; main asset, this lease:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/306108_430866763666356_319363920_n.jpg

On 22 January 1878, an agreement was signed between the Sultanate of Sulu and British commercial syndicate (Alfred Dent and Baron von Overback), which stipulated that North Borneo was either ceded or leased (depending on translation used) to the British syndicate in return for payment of 5000 Malayan Dollar per year.



British version


“

... hereby grant and cede of our own free and sovereign will to Gustavus Baron de Overbeck of Hong Kong and Alfred Dent Esquire of London...and assigns for ever and in perpetuity all the rights and powers belonging to us over all the territories and lands being tritutary to us on the mainland of the island of Borneo commencing from the Pandassan River
on the north-west coast and extending along the whole east coast as far as the Sibuco River in the south and comprising amongst other the States of Paitan, Sugut, Bangaya, Labuk, Sandakan, Kina Batangan, Mumiang, and all the other territories and states to the suthward thereof bordering on Darvel Bay and as far as the Sibuco river with all the islands within three marine leagues of the coast.”


Sulu version


“
...do hereby lease of our own freewill and satisfaction to...all the territories and lands being tributary to [us] together with their heirs, associates, successors and assigns forever and until the end of time, all rights and powers which we possess over all territories and lads tributary to us on the mainland of the Island of Borneo, commencing from the Pandassan River on the west coast to Maludu Bay, and extending along the whole east coast as far as Sibuco River on the south,..., and all the other territories and states to the southward thereof bordering on Darvel Bay and as far as the Sibuco River, ..., [9 nautical miles] of the coast."

”
On 22 April 1903 His Majesty Sultan Jamalul Kiram signed a document known as "Confirmation of cession of certain islands", under what he either grant and ceded or leased additional islands in the neighbourhood of the mainland of North Borneo from Banggi Island to Sibuku Bay to British North Borneo Company. The sum 5,000 dollars a year payable every year increased to 5,300 dollars a year payable every year."

(continued below...)

More to it all than at first meets the eye. Thanks for that. Presumably you got so far and the electricity meter needed more coins?

Dent and his family built up Sabah on different lines to those taken by the Brooke family, the White Rajahs of neighbouring Sarawak, who had been granted Sarawak after James Brooke helped out the Sultan of Brunei by crushing a rebellion in 1846. The Brookes kept Sarawak "unspoiled" - no missionaries, no railways, no plantations. The Brookes were loved by the Dayaks and Ibans of Sarawak as a result. The Dents modernised furiously, bringing in Malay and Indian labour for their plantations and their railway, and had to put down a couple of rebellions in consequence.

The end was the same; the Japanese wrecked both places and in 1946 both the Brookes and the Dents handed over their states to the British Empire because neither could afford to rebuild.

The Lease was therefore taken over by the British Government, who continued to pay the five thousand three hundred dollars a year, although the last Sultan of Sulu had died childless (but not for want of trying - he had a hundred wives and concubines!) in 1936. The payment was now made to the Kiram family as a whole.

In 1963 two things happened.

Britain, decolonising fast, held a referendum in Sabah, as British North Borneo was now known, to decide its future on independence, and the voters chose to federate with Malaysia. This hugely annoyed President Sukarno of Indonesia, who tried to invade (the Konfrontasi, or Confrontation - a small war - result Britain 1, Indonesia 0) and President Magcapagal, father of President Arroyo, of the Philippines, who claimed that since the Philippine Republic was the heir of the Sultan of Sulu, Sabah belonged to the Philippines.

This claim got nowhere and Sabah joined Malaysia.

Marcos tried to do a "Bay of Pigs" by secretly recruiting Moslems from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi into the Philippine Army to invade Sabah and claim it for the Philippines, but when the recruits found out what they were being trained for, they mutinied and were all shot - this was the notorious Jabidah Massacre:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabidah_massacre

which was the trigger for the Moslem insurgencies in Mindanao that have continued to this day (oddly, the very similar Northern Irish "troubles" began in the same year) .

Carelessly, the Phillipine Army allowed one survivor to escape... and so the tale got out, there was a big fuss in the Press, Malaysia broke off diplomatic relations, and that was that.

Since then diplomatic relations with Malaysia have been restored but the formal apology demanded by Malaysia has never been given - it is one of the "third rails" of Filipino politics.

Bringing this sorry tale up to date, Malaysia has from time to time supplied arms to the MNLF and MILF, and has arranged training for them in Sabah. These arms very often came from Gaddafi's Libya. At the same time, Malaysia turned a fairly blind eye to Filipino immigration into Sabah - the DFA estimate that there are 538,000 Filipinos living in Sabah of whom 447,000 are illegal immigrants.

The attack by the self appointed Sultan's private army may well make Malaysia change its mind about allowing Filipinos to live in Sabah, in which case the Philippines will have a Moslem refugee problem.

(The arms used were originally supplied by Malaysia, of course...)

And the final twist to the tale is that Kiram and his henchmen almost certainly planned their little venture because they had been excluded from the Phillipine Government's peace talks with the MILF, brokered by Malaysia, which led to the peace agreement and the setting up of Bangsamoro as a national homeland for the Moro peoples. The MNLF were likewise excluded which is why some of their people joined the expedition - Nur Misuari, founder of the MNLF, is a member of the fairly vast "royal family" of Sulu.

The rent is still paid but these days it is only 77,000 pesos a year, which, as we all know, does not go very far these days...

Er, that's it. Wait for tomorrow's exciting episode.

Well. That does explain things a little. And I note Mr Gaddafi's role in it too!

The parallels between Northern Ireland and the Mindanao/Sulu/Tawi-Tawi/Sabah issues are very close - and shocking.

If you understand Norn Iron, you understand the South in the Philippines.

Thanks for that again. I was reading the BBC news online with a little more enlightenment today, consequently and noticed this bit....the question of lease or sale....

"Under this contract known as pajak, the company could occupy Sabah in perpetuity as long as it paid a regular sum of money.

Even today, Malaysia pays about 5,000 Malaysian ringgit (£1,000, $1,500) a year to the Sultanate of Sulu.

But the British and, after that an independent Malaysia, interpreted pajak to mean sale, while the Sulu Sultanate has always maintained it means lease.

"In my opinion, this is more consistent with a lease rather than a sale, because you can't have a purchase price which is not fixed and which is payable until kingdom come," said Harry Roque, a law professor at the University of the Philippines."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21545162

I have been discussing this with Bob Couttie, who points out that what was really happening was that the Sultan was securing himself a pension. In 1878 - the year he signed the lease - he also signed articles of surrender to Spain, ceding Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. The Spanish had been advancing on Sulu for years - the modern myth is that they never conquered it, but they did - in 1878.

That meant that the Sultan would have been unable to collect the taxes from Sabah. he parlayed those into a pension which he could collect anywhere - and by 1900 we find him living in Singapore as a merchant.

Amazing really. 1878 isn't that long ago. My old nan was born just over 20 years later.

This has the potential to become very silly and dangerous indeed, because both the Philippines and Malaysia have elections coming up - the Philippines have a mid-term Congressional and Senate election in May and Malaysia has a General Election in June - and the ratcheting up of silly nationalism is already well under way.

Sabah is notriously the most corrupt and least developed province in Malaysia, and Sulu and Tawi-Tawi are the poorest places in the Philippines. The Kirams don't live in Sulu - they dare not - the purported Sultan - one of many who claim the title - lives in a mansion in a nice part of Manila.

The population of Sabah is around three million and odd, of whom 23% are foreigners - both Filipinos and Indonesians. There are according to the DFA 538,000 Filipinos in Sabah 447,000 of whom are there illegally - these are mostly Tausugs living in squatter communities.

You will notice that nobody in the Philippines is interested in what the Sabahans might want - this is because most of them want nothing to do with the Sultanate of Sulu. So a good many Filipinos who don't know better are plastering demands for "ethnic cleansing" all over the Internet.

Latest developments....

Malaysia incursion toll rises to 60 after new clashes

"Malaysia said clashes between intruding Filipino militants and its security forces had left 60 people dead as of late Thursday, as it rejected a ceasefire offer from the fighters' leader."

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-may-seek-philippine-sultan-extradition-033512445.html

I'd like to post here a very well thought through comment by a Filipino friend - who is in fact a journalist, of a specialised kind.

Lito Dailisan writes:

The Great Wall of Sabah.
Malaysia's defense ministry said this afternoon that it is finalizing plans to create a special security area in north and eastern Sabah. Five battalions of military will be assigned permanently to the area.

The Tausug diaspora. It is reasonable to assume that at least half of the 200,000 Tausug that reside in the marshes and near shores of northeastern Sabah are undocumented. They will feel the brunt of the stricter Malaysian security regulations. Many will have to decide to select their citizenship - Malaysian or Filipino -- and in so doing the vagabond culture of the Tausug will end for those who decide to put down roots south of Sandakan. Ironically, the Tausug in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will be able to receive more government attention, services and leadership -- something that their failed sultanate and its various pretenders to the throne failed to provide.

What does this mean for security? It means that the notorious southern backdoor, through which smugglers, illicit goods including drugs and weapons, illegal immigrants and criminals pass, will soon be a thing of the past. As the most convenient landmass beyond the porous maritime border, Sabah will logically become a key immigration, border security and customs inspection zone for both the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Kirams? Who? The Kirams will want to solicit funds for a museum. That is where the artefacts go.

UMNO and PM Najib. Will likely win the June election as the glow of the victory of the Suluk intruders wash over them.

President Aquino. Will likely carry on, somewhat bloodied but not much so, by the episode. His political enemies will not gain much traction from the event. After all, nobody loves a loser. While not being a clear winner, Aquino will be seen as a steady hand at the till.

Misuari and the MNLF. Add one more museum.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). For having shown steady nerves in not getting itself involved in the melee, the MILF will gain more respect from both sides of the Celebes, as well the Tausug.

The Sabah Claim. Will remain in the back burner. It has not actually been affected by the Lahad Datu incident. The ASEAN common market of 2014 will likely revive the issue, but in a more constructive mechanism.

I see that backdoor and porous maritime border.

You come up with some good stuff Mr Meathersgate.

Lito's perceptive comments are not unique but they are certainly unusual - most Filipinos posting on the Internet seem to be frothing at the mouth in nationalistic fury - this of course encouraged by the opponents of President Aquino, who seems to have played this one right.

James Warren's The Sulu Zone is worth reading for background, as is the World Court's opinion regarding a Philippine government demand to intervene in the conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia:
" Accordingly, in light of the clear exercise by the people of North Borneo of their right to self-determination, it cannot matter whether this Court, in any interpretation it might give to any historic instrument or efficacy, sustains or not the Philippines claim to historic title. Modern international law does not recognize the survival of a right of sovereignty based solely on historic title; not, in any event, after an exercise of self-determination conducted in accordance with the requisites of international law, the bona fides of which has received international recognition by the political organs of the United Nations. Against this, historic claims and feudal pre-colonial titles are mere relics of another international legal era, one that ended with the setting of the sun on the age of colonial imperium.

16. The lands and people claimed by the Philippines formerly constituted most of an integral British dependency. In accordance with the law pertaining to decolonization, its population exercised their right of self-determination. What remains is no mere boundary dispute. It is an attempt to keep alive a right to reverse the free and fair decision taken almost 40 years ago by the people of North Borneo in the exercise of their legal right to self-determination. The Court cannot be a witting party to that. "

Thank you Bob. It is starting to look a bit like a nine days' wonder. Two months to go till election day...