Singapore and Malaysia- A Tale of Two Nations

May 13, 2013

by Mariam Mokhtar@http://www.malaysiakini.com

The greatest fear of the Singapore government is a Malaysia that is better governed and less corrupt. The extraordinary events in Malaysia over the past few years, plus the courageous stand of her citizens in the last few days, has been closely monitored from across the causeway.

If the infection spreads, the pent up feelings of Singaporeans may be unleashed. The two nations have a shared history.

Singapore may be a first world nation, but when it comes to an outpouring of feelings, the Singaporeans still look up to their cousins in Malaysia.

Dictatorship could be described as the new democracy in our neck of the woods; UMNO Baru’s Najib Abdul Razak together with his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, have every reason to be rattled by the ‘Anwar Ibrahim phenomenon’.

Not since independence has Malaysia been rocked by a political force which has captured the rakyat’s sense of frustration at the nation’s existing archaic order.

The older generation are weary of the wanton waste of resources, the lack of discipline shown by its leaders and the disintegration of society. The young yearn for a new order where their contributions are acknowledged, where everyone is treated as equals and where they are rewarded for hard work, rather than their connections or lineage.

Anwar has articulated their needs and galvanised the rakyat into action. Two weeks ago, some Malaysians residing in Singapore were cautioned by the Singapore Police for reminding Malaysians to return home to vote. A few days ago, some were arrested in Merlion Park for protesting about the fraud perpetrated during GE13. The Singaporean government does not like its citizens to have a mind of their own.

Najib wants Malaysia to be “the best democracy in the world”, but the hallmarks of his version of democracy are cheating, intimidation and bribery. In Singapore, the authorities also intimidate and take legal action against anyone who dares besmirch the characters of its leaders.

In Malaysia, insecure Malays reject the DAP because of the implied threat that Malaysia will be swallowed up by Singapore. Their fears are enhanced by some Chinese Malaysians, who look up to an idealised version of Singapore. Singapore absorbed many of them into learning institutions, gave them scholarships and jobs. These Malaysians forget that the price paid for Singapore’s transformation into a first world nation has been high.

‘Soulless inhabitants’

What use are towers that reach up to the sky when deep down, its inhabitants lack a soul?  Children suffer from mental health issues because of academic pressures. Adults complain of a poor work-life balance. Many Singaporeans are unhappy and a number of them have migrated.

When Anwar held a talk at the London School of Economics a few years ago, the event was oversubscribed and several hundred participants were accommodated in an adjoining lecture theatre to listen to him via video link.

The audience were mainly young adults in their early twenties, but the most amazing thing, was that a sizeable proportion were Singaporeans.

Many people disagreed with me, when in an article, I mentioned the possibility that Singapore feared a strong, successful and less corrupt Malaysia, and that the People’s Action Party (PAP) would prefer UMNO Baru to govern Malaysia, rather than an Anwar-led administration.

Without a doubt, Singapore is clean, its public transport is efficient, the entertainment and the promotion of the arts is good, English is widely spoken, it is very safe, local and international cuisines are easily available, and the island state is an important international transport hub.

In many ways, Singapore is like Malaysia. Both have state-controlled media, its Armed forces are dominated by one race, and they are ruled by autocratic governments. The cost of living is high, housing and car ownership are expensive.

Both Malaysia’s UMNO Baru government and the Singapore PAP have alienated themselves from the population.

Although change is within the grasp of the ordinary Malaysian, change in the near future is only a dream for many Singaporeans. Wasn’t it Lee Kuan Yew (left) who once said, “…I spent a whole lifetime building this, and as long as I am in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”

Like Dr Mahathir Mohamad, will Lee ever relinquish his hold on the island?

Last month’s Global Witness exposé highlighted the flip-side of the financial world of Singapore. It appears that dodgy South-East Asian governments and drug barons find Singapore a convenient place to launder money.

To add to Singapore’s woes, there are the worldwide syndicated football rigging and sex scandals which have rocked the world.  Only the naive would think that corruption does not exist in Singapore – they are simply better at concealing their underhanded practices. An acquaintance who handled the Malaysian side of business for a Singapore firm, alleged that he was given a sizeable allocation to sweeten any business deals in Malaysia.

The Singaporeans like to project a clean image, but it is the Malaysians who gets the bad  reputation.

The government of Singapore is concerned by the moral awakening in their people, but they fear most the economic repercussions if UMNO Baru were to be replaced. If Anwar’s administration gave Malaysians meritocracy, and excellent learning institutions were open to all, the majority of Malaysians would not need to go to Singapore to study.

No more brain drain?

There are tales of children being woken up at 4am to travel to Singapore to go to school because their parents could not enrol them in a local Malaysian school. Bright children are deprived of scholarships because they belong to the wrong race or religion. Families are broken up when some family members moved to Singapore for employment.

Singapore has every right to be scared if UMNO Baru were ousted. The brain drain would stop. If working conditions in Malaysia were improved, the daily migration of workers to Singapore would be stemmed and Singapore might suffer a shortage of workers. If corruption was reduced, Malaysia would attract more foreign investment.

The feeling of xenophobia is high in Singapore, and is mostly directed at the Chinese from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Singaporeans consider them to be loud, brash, arrogant and lacking in culture. They are wary of their government’s desire to attract more people from the PRC to increase the dwindling population, to take care of the elderly and to bolster the economy.

The recent wave of xenophobia in Malaysia was generated by UMNO Baru because it gave away identity cards (ICs) to foreigners – like the Filipinos and Indonesians – in exchange for votes to stay in power.

Leaders in UMNO Baru have lost valuable Malaysian land to the Singaporeans, such as the Pedra Banca island off Johor and the land swap deal involving Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) land in Singapore.

To increase their land mass, Singaporeans have obtained sand from Malaysia, through legal and illegal means. The buying power of the Singapore currency means that they can buy property cheaply in Malaysia and in some places, have priced the locals out of the housing market.

In Ipoh, Singaporeans have built skyscrapers beside limestone hills and many locals fear that this has set a precedent and before long, the natural beauty of Ipoh will be marred forever. The Perak UMNO Baru seem oblivious to the concerns of the locals.

A clean and efficient government can improve our economy, but UMNO Baru will continue to hamper our progress. Without cronyism and corruption, Malaysia will emerge a stronger, richer nation, no longer the poor relation of Singapore.

From ASA to ASEAN

April 19, 2013

By Datuk Dr. Ananda Kumaraseri | akumaraseri@yahoo.com

http://www.nst.com.my

REGIONAL TIES: ASA paved the way for a more palpable multilateral cooperation outfit

IT would be recalled that the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) was a foreign policy goal that Tunku Abdul Rahman had envisioned, from the outset of newly independent Malaya, as the country’s major thrust of diplomacy.

His primary motive for ASA’s formation is to be viewed against the backdrop of the Cold War rivalry that triggered a growing concern over the future security and peace of member states.

Defined blandly, ASA represented a regional and inter-governmental organisation aimed at promoting cohesiveness among Southeast Asian states which external powers had for centuries fiercely contested over for rich natural resources and to gain strategic and geo-political advantage in the region.

However, in terms of substance, ASA’s collaborative activities since its formation in 1961 were generally confined to promoting technical and cultural cooperation among its members.

The modest performance on the part of ASA — the first-ever indigenous undertaking among independent Southeast Asian states in regional cooperation — was understandable, especially given the political and cultural diversity of the member states and the turbulent state of the regional environment. This perception of ASA was self-evident in my personal involvement with the Malaysian secretariat of ASA, as a young desk officer in 1966, under Walter Ayaduray, the principal assistant secretary who was at the helm during its pioneering years.

Here, I cannot help but digress a bit to acknowledge that as my immediate superior, Ayaduray was more of a mentor than a boss.

I am ever grateful that I had the good fortune of commencing my diplomatic career under his highly competent and caring tutelage. His sudden death in 1979 robbed Wisma Putra of a brilliant officer possessed of a genius mind that had so much to offer towards Malaysia’s diplomatic prowess.

As Ayaduray used to pacify us in our moments of professional frustration over the lethargic pace of regional cooperation: “ASA is a nascent inter-governmental organisation. We must be realistic and move forward in small incremental steps and not expect earth-shattering developments to manifest in a poof with the stroke of a wizard’s wand.”

Furthermore, the hopeful expectations of regional cooperation were battered by serious impasses virtually from the very outset of ASA’s creation.

Indonesia’s Konfrontasi against Malaysia, the Philippines’ Sabah claim and Singapore’s separation from Malaysia had the effect of weighing down heavily on any remarkable progress in regional cooperation.

These were indeed unsettling times for the whole of Southeast Asia that impelled ASA to remain dormant and exist more in terms of name than in substance. In fact, ASA ceased to be operational for a period as a result of the strain in Malaysia-Philippines relations arising from the Sabah claim.

In the midst of the strained relations, president Diosdado Macapagal floated the concept of a larger Malay Confederation or Union of Malay peoples in the region that was encapsulated in his initiative to form a new regional grouping, Maphilindo.

A summit conference of the heads of government of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia was convened in Manila from July 30 to August 5, 1963 to endorse the creation of the Pan-Malay grouping.

Maphilindo, however, suffered a still birth because of severe suffocation of mutual suspicion, distrust and enmity that beset the rather loosely defined ambiguous grouping. Moreover, the Maphilindo concept was ethnic-based in a narrow sense and was retrograde in a modern global village context.

Looking back, it can be said that notwithstanding its modest track record, ASA paved the way for a more palpable multilateral cooperation outfit. This came about on Aug 8, 1967 as a result of the mutually agreed subsumation of ASA to form a larger grouping, namely, the Association of Southeast Asian States, acronymed Asean, comprising five member states. They were the three founder members of ASA, plus the new players, Indonesia and Singapore.

The timing as well as the circumstances surrounding the birth of Asean were certainly more propitious than when its precursor ASA was formed. The new ASEAN grouping evolved closely on the heels of the downfall of president Sukarno and the annihilation of Parti Kommunist Indonesia.

The regime of new Indonesian leaders, under President Suharto, was distinctively receptive to regional cooperation.

Indeed, an underlying motivation among ASEAN’s founding fathers was a desire to reconcile differences that had cropped up in the recent past and to seek genuine cooperation.

Against the backdrop of the escalating wars in the Indo-China peninsula bearing ominous security implications, the move to establish a new and larger regional grouping appeared pertinent and urgent as well.

In addition, leaders of the member states embraced a common believe that an environment of peace in the region would enable individual states to harness national resources to focus on building strong economic, social and political national fabrics.

They were further convinced that this would in turn help to forestall internal communist subversion as well as preempt external powers harbouring narrow self-interest from continuing to dictate the stability, security and peace in the region.

akumaraseri@yahoo.com

Tunku Abdul Rahman with (right) talking to Philippine ambassador Romeo Busuego (left) and Thai ambassador Prasong Bunchoem in 1967. Tunku had envisioned ASA as Malaysia’s major thrust of diplomacy.

Regionalism in Diplomacy

April 5, 2013

by Datuk Dr Ananda Kumaraseri@http://www.nst.com.my

COOPERATION:Forging regional economic cooperation in Southeast Asia was by no means smooth sailing

IN a sense it can be said that regionalism and regional economic cooperation have been key features of Malaysia’s foreign policy even before its formation.

Being the visionary he was, ever since Malaya’s independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman had consistently favoured the fostering of close cooperative relations with the country’s immediate neighbours as a prerequisite of foreign policy.

What was truly significant in the Tunku’s foreign policy perception of regionalism was his earnest departure from the conventional route of promoting good neighbourly relations through bilateral endeavours.

No doubt, the legendary Burmese leader, General Aung San (left) had articulated his vision of regional economic cooperation among the countries in Southeast Asia a decade earlier. However, this foreign policy goal died along with his tragic assassination in 1947.

The Tunku’s foreign policy initiative in forging a regional economic cooperation grouping among the non-communist states of Southeast Asia was by no means smooth sailing.

Its beginnings in fact were greeted with false starts before it steered full steam ahead in the turbulent sea of Southeast Asian geopolitics and its unpredictable conflict-ridden regional environment.

In reminiscing over these turbulent years, it is indeed noteworthy that the proposal for establishing a regional economic cooperation grouping in Southeast Asia was among the very first foreign policy pronouncements of newly independent Malaya.

Inspired by the vision of a closely knit and unified Southeast Asia, the Tunku, on an official visit to Sri Lanka (Ceylon then), in February 1958, formally proposed his dream of a Southeast Asian regional grouping.

Today, of course, it is fashionable to talk about regionalism and regional cooperation. But this was certainly not the temperament when the Tunku articulated his proposal to his Sri Lankan host.

Interestingly, many have wondered why the Tunku had chosen distant Colombo instead of a more proximate capital as the venue to launch his innovative regional grouping proposal.

Moreover, he did so just several months after the country had gained independence. A cogent reason was that the very coinage of the modern-day term Southeast Asia originated out of Sri Lanka.

It would be recalled that it was in Sri Lanka, to be more precise, the hill city of Kandy, that the British had set up their Southeast Asia Military Operations Headquarters of their engagements in the Pacific War.

Thus, the term Southeast Asia historically as well as geo-politically was Sri Lanka-based. By definition, therefore, a regional grouping of Southeast Asia was to include Sri Lanka.

There was also another important consideration for the Tunku to choose Colombo to moot his regional cooperation proposal which has not been given due attention.

In part, this is because not many are privy to it, namely, the confidence reposed in the Tunku from the close personal friendship he had forged with Sri Lankan leaders since his student days in England.

His intimate circle of influential Sri Lankan friends included the then Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake, Solomon Bandaranaike who succeeded him and several other leaders such as his buddies, the ever-popular, Savaranamutu brothers.

The latter interestingly were siblings of his close friend and confidant, Manicasothy Savaranamuttu, of the Straits Echo.

As it turned out, however, the high hopes the Tunku had placed on securing the support of Sri Lanka for his regional initiative were dashed. Contrary to assurances given by his highly influential Sri Lankan friends, the proposal failed to survive the vibrant Sri Lankan domestic politics that was seized with an anti-imperialist fervour.

The Sri Lanka government perforce had to concede to domestic criticism that the country’s participation in such a regional grouping would compromise its non-aligned credentials, which it felt beholden to uphold.

Furthermore, the virulent leftist-slanted Sri Lankan media that viewed the proposal with scepticism, even suspect as being a Western imperialist tool, dismissed it as inimical to the country’s interest.

On hindsight, it would appear that Sri Lanka lost a golden opportunity to play a definitive role in the regional diplomacy that was to unfold later with the emergence of ASEANan as a robust regional organisation.

By the time Sri Lanka tried to redeem itself and seek membership of Asean in the mid-1980s, it found to its dismay, the doors to ASEAN membership shut.

Despite the disappointing Sri Lankan response meted out to the Tunku’s proposal, he persisted in actualising his visionary regional grouping for Southeast Asia.

Numerous high-level consultations transpired and exchange of visits with leaders of neighbouring countries were actively pursued to give meaning and substance to his regional grouping proposition.

The Tunku’s daunting initiative finally took real tangible form in 1961 with the formal agreement among the Philippines, Thailand and Malaya to form the Association of Southeast Asia, with the acronym ASA.

The “Sabah Claim”: Disrespect for UN Charter On Right of Self-Determination

April 5, 2013

by Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail@http://www.nst.com.my

U.N. APPROVAL: The Cobbold Commission ascertained views of the people of North Borneo and Sarawak on the proposal to join Malaysia

THE catalyst for the United Kingdom’s agreement to grant independence to its colonies, including Malaya and later Sabah (and Sarawak), lies in the establishment of the United Nations.

With its establishment in 1945, the international community showed growing concern with regard to the position of territories of all kinds which had not attained independence and the condition of their inhabitants.

Self-determination, usually leading to independence, accordingly became the standard proclaimed by the international community.

The UN Charter in Chapter XI contains the “Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories” in which member states of the UN administering territories “whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognise the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost … the wellbeing of the inhabitants of these territories”.

That obligation includes in particular the duty enshrined in Article 73(b) of the UN Charter “to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement”.

The principle of self-determination has gradually transformed from a mere acknowledged principle in Article 1(2) of the UN Charter into a legal right recognised in international legal instruments under the auspices of the UN.

In 1970, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States, the principles of which are declared to “constitute basic principles of international law, elaborated the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

An important element in the principle of self-determination recognised in UN instruments is that self-determination must respect the freely expressed wishes of the people in question.

Article 73 of the UN Charter lays down that the interests of the inhabitants are “para-mount”; and the International Court of Justice has emphasised the need to pay regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned.

These wishes are normally to be established by the usual political processes of the territory (for example, elections), but in some circumstances it may be necessary to make special arrangements, for example by holding a referendum or arranging for a UN mission to verify the expression of the peoples’ views.

In fact, further visiting missions may be ordered by the UN to satisfy itself of the will of the people. Based on the UN practice in ascertaining the valid exercise of self-determination, it appears that requiring a referendum or a UN mission is considered only when necessary. Otherwise the UN will not intervene in the self-determination process.

The integration of Sabah (and Sarawak) into Malaysia was unconditionally accepted by the UN as a valid exercise of self-determination by its peoples, firstly through the findings of the UN Malaysia Mission and subsequently by the removal of North Borneo (and Sarawak) from the list of non-self-governing territories maintained by the UN.

Members of the Cobbold Commission

In April 1962, the Cobbold Commission was formed to ascertain the views of the peoples of North Borneo and Sarawak on the agreement of the governments of the United Kingdom and the Federation of Malaya to include North Borneo and Sarawak (together with other territories) in the proposed Federation of Malaysia and to make recommendations in the light of their assessment of these views.

The Cobbold Commission spent a total of about four weeks in North Borneo and managed to complete all its sessions with the people before concluding its enquiry on April 18, 1962.

The commission unanimously agreed, in the light of their assessment of the views of the peoples of North Borneo and Sarawak, that a Federation of Malaysia was in the best interests of North Borneo and Sarawak.

On June 21, 1962, the Report of the Cobbold Commission and its findings were completed and submitted to the Prime Ministers of Britain and Malaya.

The report was considered in detail in a series of meetings between British and Malayan ministers in London in July 1962.The final report was published on Aug 1, 1962. The Cobbold Commission determined from the enquiry that two-thirds of the peoples of North Borneo were agreeable to the proposal for Sabah to join Malaysia while less than 20 per cent of the people disagreed with the proposal.

The Manila Accord of July 31, 1963, between the Federation of Malaya, the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of the Philippines, entrusted the United Nations Secretary-General with the task of ascertaining the wishes of the people of North Borneo.

He reported that the majority of the peoples of North Borneo had given serious and thoughtful consideration to their future and to the implications for them of participation in a Federation of Malaysia.

He believed that the majority of the peoples of Sabah (North Borneo) and of Sarawak “have concluded that they wish to bring their dependent status to an end and to realise their independence through freely chosen association with other peoples in their region”.

He further added that the “fundamental agreement of the three participating governments in the Manila meetings, and the statements by the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Philippines that they would welcome the formation of Malaysia provided that the support of the people of the territories by me and that, in my opinion, complete compliance with the principle of self-determination within the requirements of General Assembly Resolution 1541 (XV) Principal IX of the Annex was ensured; my conclusion based on the findings of the mission is that on both these counts there is no doubt about the wishes of a sizeable majority of the peoples of these territories to join in the Federation of Malaysia”.

In fact, in the 2001 Application by the Philippines for Permission to Intervene in the Case Concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia/ Malaysia), the International Court of Justice per Ad Hoc Judge Franck discussed the impact of the principle of self-determination on historic titles and emphasised that it is basic to the international rule of law that historic titles cannot, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, prevail in law over the rights of non-self-governing people to claim independence and establish their sovereignty through the exercise of bona fide self-determination.

The independence of North Borneo was brought about as the result of the expressed wish of the majority of the people of the territory in a 1963 election.

It is established fact that the state of Sabah has been, is and remains a legitimate and integral part of Malaysia since September 16, 1963, Sabah having joined the Federation of Malaysia as a newly independent state following its decolonisation by the United Kingdom, based on the wishes of the people of Sabah.

The independence of Sabah before it joined Malaysia having been gained and established through the legitimate exercise of the right of self-determination, as expounded under the UN Charter and international law, its status as part of Malaysia today is firmly established under international law and beyond dispute.

Therefore, any purported claim put forward by the self-styled sultan of Sulu on behalf of the self-proclaimed Sultanate of Sulu today to the territory of Sabah or any part of it has no legitimacy or merit.

Sabahans are now enjoying a higher standard of living and maintaining their traditions.

ASEAN’s chairmanship in 2013 and 2014

April 3, 2013

by Rodolfo C. Severino, ISEAS (04-02-13)

For the first time in the organisation’s history, ASEAN Foreign Ministers failed to issue the normal joint communiqué at the end of their annual meeting last July.

Many people fear the same historic debacle could repeat itself this year and the next. They cite the small size of Brunei Darussalam, this year’s ASEAN chair, and the relative inexperience and geographic location of Myanmar, which will take its turn as ASEAN chair in 2014, as reasons for their concern. They argue that Brunei’s economy depends almost entirely on oil and gas exports. Myanmar is deeply divided ethnically and is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. These weaknesses are supposed to render the two countries vulnerable to political pressure from interested great powers, as, it is claimed, Cambodia was from China last year.

The disputes over sovereignty and jurisdiction in the South China Sea, on which the joint communiqué supposedly foundered, seem only to have escalated. China’s military ability to pursue its claims is reported to have increased, and Beijing’s assertiveness in the pursuit of those claims is said to have intensified.

On these counts, many people view the 2013 and 2014 chairmanships and the future of ASEAN itself with deep pessimism. Yet there is still cause for a touch more optimism.

First, we can safely assume that, as a matter of regional pride and practicality, the ASEAN foreign ministers will not allow an ASEAN ministerial meeting to take place again without adopting a joint communiqué.

Secondly, both Brunei and Myanmar enjoy the services of experienced diplomats. Brunei joined ASEAN in January 1984 and has chaired several ASEAN ministerial meetings, ASEAN summits and other ASEAN-organised gatherings. Spearheaded by the redoubtable second Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Lim Jock Seng, the long-time Foreign Minister, Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, and the Sultan himself, Brunei Darussalam’s leaders and diplomats — and their past performance — should reassure us that Brunei’s chairmanship of ASEAN, which started in January 2013, will proceed without missing a beat.

Myanmar, which joined ASEAN in 1997, or almost 16 years ago, has its share of competent diplomats. Although 2014 will be the first year the country chairs ASEAN as a whole and hosts ASEAN’s most high profile meetings, it has chaired and hosted many ministerial and other high-level meetings in the past.

The issues surrounding the conflicting claims in the South China Sea, which are said to have caused the foreign ministers’ failure to adopt a joint communiqué in Phnom Penh in July 2012, are old ones. Disagreements within ASEAN over the formulation of the paragraphs on the South China Sea have not, in the past, prevented ASEAN from adopting a common position.

Indeed, on July 20, 2012, a few days after their Phnom Penh meeting, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a statement on the South China Sea embodying the basic ASEAN position on the disputes, namely the ‘full implementation’ of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties, the ‘early conclusion’ of a Code of Conduct for the area, ‘full respect’ for international law, the exercise of self-restraint and the non-use of force.

This statement of principles was paraphrased in the paragraphs on the South China Sea in the Chairman’s statement of the ASEAN Summit in November 2012 in Phnom Penh.

Finally, the strongest source of confidence in the leadership of ASEAN in 2013 and 2014 is that it is in the national interest of the major world powers, as well as ASEAN’s member states, that ASEAN remains united on the principles governing the conduct of international relations in Southeast Asia. These principles are consistent both with the values proclaimed by the United States and with the safeguards insisted upon by China.

Rodolfo C. Severino is the Head of the ASEAN Studies Centre, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He is a former ASEAN Secretary-General. The views expressed here are solely his own.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/02/aseans-chairmanship-in-2013-and-2014/

ASEAN needs to remain on course for integration by 2015

April 1, 2013

by Farish A. Noor@http://www.nst.com.my

DEALING WITH FUTURE CHALLENGES: Southeast Asia needs to remain on course for integration by 2015

IN the space of a week, several worrying developments have taken place close to our Southeast Asian region which merit our attention.

It was reported that a flare-up occurred in the South China Sea when a Chinese vessel fired flares at a Vietnamese fishing boat. China has since stated that the clash was due to the fact that the Vietnamese vessel was fishing in Chinese territorial waters — though China’s claim on vast areas of the South China Sea is precisely the issue that has to be resolved in the first place.

Then came the news that North Korea has decided to cut off its military hotline to South Korea, coming at a time when North Korea has demonstrated an increasingly bellicose stance towards the South, and its allies.

North Korea’s threats of engaging in war with its neighbour, and the even more serious threat of taking its confrontation further afield, has stirred anxiety among other countries in East Asia that wish to de-escalate the potential for conflict in the region.

While all of this is happening, we in ASEAN need to remain on the course towards ASEAN integration by 2015. For, whether we like it or not, and whether we are ready for it or not, the pace and momentum have been set by developments that have accumulated over the past decade.

ASEAN today is more integrated than ever before, with ASEAN countries spreading their investments far and wide across the region, and building floating economies where their capital has been dispersed overseas as well: a smart strategy of not putting all of one’s eggs in one basket, and to link our economies closer with the awareness that what-ever happens to one Asean country in the future will impact on the rest of ASEAN as well.

It is with these factors in mind that we need to retain faith in ASEAN and ASEAN’s capacity to absorb changes and contingency whenever they arise.

The recent security crisis as a result of the incursion by some armed Filipinos into Malaysian territory cannot, and should not, be a reason to stall the process of ASEAN integration in the near future.

I raise these concerns now as I feel that we need to do more to boost the level of inter-ASEAN contacts and co-operation in the years to come as we will be dealing with some real challenges in the decade ahead.

For a start, ASEAN needs to come together to deal with the very real shift of power that we will see soon.

China’s forays into the South China Sea have to be understood in the context of its internal regional politics, and the need to feed the country’s massive population.

The relative decentralisation that has taken place in China over the past decade means that the southern provincial governments have been left to fend for themselves when dealing with the challenge of food production and food distribution.

The growth of China’s fishing fleet and their increased visibility further south of the Chinese coast is an indication of China’s growing need to feed itself, and the changing demographics of China’s southern cities and coastal regions.

Like it or not, ASEAN has to find a way to cater to its own food security needs while not antagonising a powerful neighbour like China.This can only happen if ASEAN can work in cooperation with one another, and not when some ASEAN countries are harbouring long-held primordial historical claims on other parts of neighbouring countries.

To put it bluntly: ASEAN cannot continue to bicker about historical claims of the past when the pressing needs of the moment are more urgent.Then there will be the challenge of dealing with the waning of American power, as well as the decline of Europe as an economic partner.

Here, too, ASEAN needs to come together to adjust to the new realities on the ground and to work together rather than against each other.

The decline of American power, coupled with the rise of China’s economic power, entails a shift in the polarities of regional power as well. But for ASEAN to adjust to these changes, and to benefit from them as a region, it has to behave like a regional pact in the first place.

In the recent past, some ASEAN countries have opted to deal with either the US or China unilaterally.The Philippines, for instance, cooperated with China when it came to the survey of the South China Sea, without inviting its other ASEAN neighbours (though Vietnam was later brought into the project as well).

Ideally, ASEAN states should recognise that what is good for the region is good for them as well, and the spirit of ASEAN cooperation needs to be upheld and further strengthened all the time.

As the countdown to ASEAN integration in 2015 continues, it is hoped that the ASEAN spirit and its culture of inter-state dialogue will be further enhanced.

ASEAN has come in for a bit of criticism over the past decade, and accused of institutional inertia and group-think among elites.

But this does not mean that more meaningful people-to-people contact cannot be enhanced as well, or that ASEAN cannot think out of the box to deal with complex issues such as diaspora communities, overlapping communities and our complex past.

What is needed, however, is faith in the ASEAN dialogue process; and also the awareness that apart from the European Union, ASEAN is the only other multi-state body that has prevented wars between states since 1967.

Anyone who doubts the importance of that can simply look at the deteriorating situation between the two Koreas and learn to appreciate the value of dialogue and cooperation.

ASEAN won’t accept the idea of a “state within a state”

March 26, 2012

by Farish A. Noor @http://www.nst.com.my

INTRUSION: Unlawful for Kiram to have private army and wage war on another nation.

THE security breach in Sabah remains a lingering problem, thanks largely to the claims made by one person who has sparked off what is really a complex internal debate within Philippine society itself.

Jamalul Kiram III’s demand that he be recognised as the Sultan of Sulu with a claim on some parts of Sabah has raised an even deeper question that the Philippines has to address: can the Philippine republic accept the idea that within its republican framework there are citizens who claim to be more than citizens, and who claim that they have power and authority over parts of the republic which they argue are part of their own kingdom?

In short, can the Philippine republic accept the idea of a state within a state, or in this case a kingdom within a republic?The initial answer to this might seem to be a straightforward “no”.

As President Benigno Aquino himself noted during one of his press conferences, it is technically unconstitutional for any Philippine citizen to have a private army, to bear arms without licences and to declare war on another country. On legal grounds, Kiram’s stand seems shaky indeed.

But Kiram continues to probe into the soft underbelly of the post colonial state by invoking primordial attachments to the past, and this is where the modern post colonial state of the Philippines — like all other ASEAN states — has to address the question of its own complicated origins and genesis.

Let us remember that the states of ASEAN are a varied lot: when the countries of Southeast Asia became independent from the 1940s to 1960s, they emerged on the stage of world politics in different shapes and forms.

Today, when we look at the ASEAN region we see constitutional democracies, constitutional monarchies, republics, single-party states and so on. Each ASEAN country has had to find its own way of dealing with the legacy of the past.

But in this respect, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand are more alike for none of these states has marginalised or eclipsed the older polities that pre-existed before independence.

The Federation of Malaysia, for one, maintains some degree of relative authority over the nine kingdoms where the Sultans of Malaysia remain as important figures in the context of their respective kingdoms.

Like Thailand, Malaysia is also a country with a constitutional head of state. But in Malaysia, as in Thailand, it is the government that prints the national currency, deals with other states and manages things like international relations and diplomacy.

The Philippines, on the other hand, is more akin to Indonesia and Myanmar which have opted to become republics, and where the former ruling elites have been integrated into the broader framework of universal citizenship.

Myanmar’s Royal family practically ceased to exist after the Third Anglo-Burmese war of 1885, and though traces remain in terms of some of their descendants, there has never been an attempt to revive the Burmese kingship in modern-day Myanmar. Indonesia, too, once had many royal courts in Java, Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi and Kalimantan. But most of the Royal houses were brought under the auspices of the centralised state after the tumultuous years of Indonesia’s war of independence between 1945 and 1949. Today, they exist in name only, but with no real political power or authority.

As far as the structure of the state is concerned, the Philippines bears a much closer resemblance to Indonesia than it does to Malaysia, and this is where the problem lies — though it has to be emphasised that this is a Philippine problem, and not Malaysia’s.

Like Indonesia, the Philippines does not accept the idea that there can be a state within a state in the republic, which is why Kiram is no different in terms of his rights and obligations from any other citizen.

In Indonesia, too, there remain many sultans such as the rulers of Cirebon, Yogjakarta and Surakarta in Java. But they, too, have no special powers or rights, and they too come under the law of the republic.

Indonesia has been better able to deal with some of the claims of the former rulers of the country, for the central government has displayed more sensitivity in according them the respect that is their due: in the history books of Indonesia, Indonesian children learn about the role played by the sultans in the anti-colonial struggle for instance.

And today the kingdom of Yogjakarta has been able to reposition itself very well, packaging itself as a tourist destination and presenting itself as the custodian of Javanese art, culture and heritage.

 Some of the less fortunate kingdoms in Sumatra and Kalimantan, however, have fallen into a state of despair and ruin. The fate of the sultanate of Sulu seems to be similar to that of some of the now-defunct Royal houses of Indonesia.

 Bereft of funds and with no real political authority, it relies on cultural capital and its claims to history to project itself.But Kiram’s armed incursion into Malaysia was probably one of his “biggest miscalculations”, to quote the Philippine analyst Joseph Franco; and has now turned into a major own goal that has robbed him and his followers of whatever residual sympathy others may have had for his cause.

The Royal families of Indonesia have also tried to project themselves internationally, but through their promotion of the arts, by appealing to UNESCO, and by maintaining their relevance as a bastion of culture and history — and certainly not by waging war against the Indonesian republic, which would be politically self-defeating.

However this crisis pans out in the near future is anyone’s guess at the moment, though one thing is clear for now: ASEAN, for all its strengths and weaknesses, is a still a region where no country accepts the notion of states within states, and that is not likely to change tomorrow.

CIMB Chief endorses Najib Tun Razak as Prime Minister

March 21, 2013

by Chong Pooi Koon@http://www.bloomberg.com

Nazir Razak, Head of Malaysia’s second-largest bank, is speaking out for his brother to be returned as Prime Minister amid concern the ruling alliance could lose more seats in polls that must be held within weeks.

“The present Prime Minister has a very clear path forwards in terms of the transformation of the economy,” Nazir, the chief executive officer of CIMBGroup Holdings Bhd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Susan Li in Hong Kong. “If there’s a change there, it would disappoint investors and they would have to relook at their view of Malaysia.”

Elder brother, Najib Razak, is facing the most competitive general election in Malaysia’s history after the National Front coalition won the last poll in 2008 by its narrowest margin in more than five decades. The Opposition, campaigning on an anti- corruption platform, is heading for victory, its leader Anwar Ibrahim, said this month.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index has fallen 3.7 percent after closing at a record on January 7, the worst performing major gauge in Southeast Asia this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The ringgit has slumped 2 percent this year.

CIMB has been Malaysia’s biggest debt arranger and most prolific underwriter of initial public offerings for the past four years since Nazir’s brother became Prime Minister, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The stock more than doubled in value between Najib’s inauguration in April 2009 and the end of 2012. It has since slumped six percent as polls approach, the worst performing lender on the KLCI, Bloomberg data show.

‘Election proxy’

“CIMB is seen as a direct election proxy because of the relationship of the CEO to the Prime Minister,” Alan Richardson, a Hong Kong-based fund manager who helps oversee about $110 billion for Samsung Asset Management Company, said by phone. “If the election result is seen as comfortable for Najib and Barisan Nasional, that stock will go up.”

The Kuala Lumpur-based lender helped to arrange the country’s three biggest share-sales last year. Palm oil producer Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd. raised $3.3 billion, IHH Healthcare Bhd. sold $2.1 billion of stock and Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd. issued $1.5 billion of shares.

Malaysia’s IPO market grew to become the world’s fifth largest last year, up from 14th in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It overtook more established financial hubs, raising $6.8 billion, the data show.

Najib, 59, has streamlined bureaucracy and opened up more industries to foreign investors. Private sector spending has tripled since 2009, with government revenue at a record last year and the budget deficit shrinking, according to a government report released this week.

Corruption, monopolies

Najib’s National Front coalition is seeking re-election after holding power for more than five decades in the face of a resurgent opposition led by Anwar. The prime minister took over mid-term after Abdullah Ahmad Badawi stood aside to take responsibility for the 2008 election result. The Premier must dissolve parliament by April 28 for vote to be held within 60 days.

Anwar’s People’s Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat) has promised to clamp down on corruption, abolish monopolies and bring down living costs if it comes to power, according to its manifesto.

“If there’s a change in government, it’s actually an opportunity for investors to gain more in the long term,” Ong Kian Ming, a political analyst at Kuala Lumpur’s UCSI University and an opposition election strategist, said by phone. “In the short term, yes, there would be some jitters. Significant structural reform would lead to better economic policies that would make the country more competitive in the long run.”

ASEAN expansion

CIMB has also grown abroad through acquisitions, most recently buying some of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s Asia- Pacific investment banking interests and a controlling stake in Bank of Commerce in the Philippines.

Southeast Asia will see more investment banking deals this year, albeit smaller in size compared to 2012, Nazir said.

“Thailand will be very active this year and Indonesia too will be interesting,” the 46-year-old said in yesterday’s interview. “The action in ASEAN will be more broad-based. Last year was more like Malaysia leading the show.”

The nation’s $288 billion economy grew at the fastest pace in 2 1/2 years last quarter as Najib boosted spending ahead of the election. GDP rose 6.4 percent in the three months through December from a year earlier, after a revised 5.3 percent gain in the previous quarter.

Transformation plan

Najib’s government has identified $444 billion of private- sector-led projects, including a mass-transit railway and oil storage, to steer growth in the current decade under an economic plan unveiled after he came into power in 2009. He also aims to cut Malaysia’s budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2015 from 4.5 percent last year, according to the government report this week.

“I totally understand why the market can be a little bit edgy,” Nazir said. “Relevant to many markets, the role of government in the Malaysian economy is important.” The election outcome is “important to the future direction of the country economically.”

-BLOOMBERG

Sabah Insurgency: A Setback for Malaysia’s Role as Regional Conflict Mediator

March 17, 2013

Sabah Insurgency: A Setback for Malaysia’s Role as Regional Conflict Mediator

by Dr. Johan Saravanamuttu* (March 15, 2013)

The month-long crisis in Sabah, which has seen an incursion of rebel fighters from the Philippine island of Sulu into Malaysia’s northern-most state on the island of Borneo, is a stark reminder that Southeast Asia remains engulfed in unresolved territorial disputes and conflicts.

Malaysia has been deeply involved in several of these conflicts as both a stakeholder and a mediator. The Sabah crisis now presents Malaysia with a thorny domestic security challenge that also has implications for its regional role.

As a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia has so far subscribed actively to the ASEAN principle of “pacific settlement of conflicts” espoused in the organization’s 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, of which Malaysia was a founding signatory. Malaysia played a major role, as both host and mediator, in the negotiations that recently brought the conflict in the southern Philippines to a peaceful resolution.

On October 15, 2012, after 15 years of negotiations and 27 rounds of talks in Kuala Lumpur, the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed a comprehensive peace accord establishing a political settlement to the Islamic insurgency in the Muslim-majority region of Mindanao.

Malaysia also recently agreed to help try to broker an end to the conflict involving Muslim insurgents in four provinces in the deep south of Thailand. In a state visit to Malaysia on Feb. 28, 2013, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra agreed to begin talks in Kuala Lumpur with the “Barisan Revolusi Nasional” (“National Revolutionary Front”), the main Muslim group involved in southern Thailand’s conflict.

In the past decade, Malaysia has also peacefully resolved external territorial disputes with both Indonesia and Singapore. Indonesia took a dispute over the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan off the Sabah coast to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in 2002 deemed the islands to be Malaysian. Singapore and Malaysia settled the dispute over Pedra Branca, called Pulau Batu Puteh in Malaysia, in 2008, again through the ICJ, with Singapore retaining the island.

Malaysia still has claims in the Celebes and South China Seas involving other Southeast Asian states and China. In all these instances, Malaysia has maintained a stance of peaceful conflict resolution and, where expedient and possible, has brought matters to international arbitration.

As an internal conflict with an external dimension, the current crisis in Sabah constitutes a hybrid case of the region’s conflicts and territorial disputes. When Sabah was included into the new Federation of Malaysia in 1963, Manila maintained that Sabah belonged to the Philippines instead. However, after a U.N. observer team ascertained that the majority of Sabah’s people supported joining Malaysia, the Philippines stopped pressing its claim, though no Philippine government ever formally rescinded it. Over the years, the dispute was shelved due to good relations between the two states.

But in the current crisis, a century-old sovereignty claim over Sabah has been revived by Jamalul Kiram III, the self-proclaimed sultan of Sulu, an autonomous Philippine island province in Mindanao that historically included the area of north Borneo now known as Sabah. Kiram says that his ancestors merely leased and did not cede the territory to the British in 1878.

On February 12, more than 200 fighters of the self-styled “Royal Sulu Sultanate” landed in Malaysia, near the southeast Sabah coast, and holed themselves up in a nearby village, ignoring calls by Philippine President Benigno Aquino to return home.

In Malaysia’s initial Police response, 12 armed men were killed along with two Malaysian Policemen. Malaysia then conducted air strikes on the village and sent in some seven army battalions, killing 32. Other incidents occurring nearby left five Malaysian policemen dead. At the time of writing, the Malaysian authorities have rounded up almost 100 intruders and the death toll has reached 63, including two Malaysian soldiers, making the crisis the most serious military action involving Malaysian forces since the communist insurgency of 1948-1960.

More ominously, Malaysia, a promoter of regional conflict resolution for Muslims, is for the first time engaged in a shooting war with Muslim insurgents within its own territorial boundaries.

With the initial standoff having given way to a series of one-sided skirmishes, the Sabah situation risks becoming an internal Malaysian insurgency, with the Tausugs — the main ethnic group from Sulu in the Philippines, where they are known as Suluks — as the principle protagonists. The crisis is further embedded in the fluid character of local politics in Sabah, where large numbers of the population are Muslim.

In recent hearings held by a Malaysian Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigration in Sabah, it was revealed that Kuala Lumpur had awarded Malaysian citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Muslims from the southern Philippines for the sake of gaining an electoral advantage for the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO).

For years, UMNO has considered Sabah to be a “fixed deposit,” safely delivering 24 seats to the ruling coalition in the 222-seat national parliament. The large Filipino Muslim population in Sabah that helped deliver these seats in the past could now turn against its former protector and patron, with implications for the UMNO’s supremacy in national politics in the general election that must be held by late-June.

Given Malaysia’s prized role as regional peacemaker, it is a bitter irony that the pendulum of internal conflict has swung from Mindanao to Sabah, with the gloomy prospect of the Malaysian government facing a long-term low-intensity war with the Suluks and their supporters. That would not only represent a disruptive distraction in the run-up to the general elections, but also a huge blow to Malaysia’s role as a promoter of regional conflict resolution.

Dr.Johan Saravanamuttu is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/

Suluk Invaders only flog a dead horse (kuda mati)

March 17, 2013

by Bunn Nagara @www.thestar.com.my

EVEN though foreign insurgents make a historical claim to Sabah, the facts of history refute it.

AS Malaysian troops and police continue mopping-up operations to flush out straying remnants of the Lahad Datu standoff, partisans on both sides trade emotive claims and insults.

Analysts, meanwhile, weigh the terms in historical documents like “rent”, “lease” and “cession money” to determine Sabah’s actual status. But not only are these documents read differently in translation (English and Sulu), the terms are also interpreted differently.

It makes more sense to focus on the events and circumstances of history. The known facts reveal at least 16 reasons why the Filipino Sulu claim to Sabah is unwarranted and unworthy of consideration.

First, today’s Philippines as a modern nation state and a republic by definition abrogates a former sultanate whose territory it occupies and whose sovereignty it denies.

The Republic of the Philippines has no claim to Sabah of its own. The on-off claim, originating from Sulu sovereignty made by certain quarters, is only a private matter of some revisionist individuals.

The second reason is that the Sulu Sultanate no longer exists, since there was no provision even for a constitutional monarch. Any claim requires a claimant and the property/territory in question, whether anyone else has effective control and ownership over it. If the claimant or the territory does not exist, the claim cannot stand.

The insurgents and their leader Jamalul Kiram III (right) are only pressing a notional claim, since they cannot represent a defunct entity.

Third, there is no agreed rightful heir to the last Sultan of Sulu, even if an heir were to press the claim. Jamalul’s claim to be that heir is disputed by nearly a dozen other hereditary “royal” personages.

Another reason for rejecting his claim to Sabah comes with denial of his claim to the throne: 10 other “heirs” had renounced all claim to Sabah in 2007. Nine did so in a signed statement, and Rodinood Julaspi Kiram II in a separate declaration.

It does not matter whether Jamalul was among the nine. If he was, he had unlawfully reneged on the signed agreement, and if he wasn’t, he is outnumbered and is challenged 10 ways.

Fifth, when Spain took over the Sulu Sultanate as part of the Philippines, it left North Borneo (Sabah) in British hands. Spain disrupted the Sultanate by removing 18-year-old Sultan Jamalul Kiram II in 1886, replacing him with a rival, only to “reappoint” him six years later.

Britain made North Borneo a protectorate in 1888. Under Spain, the Philippines and most of the Sulu Sultanate with it were going in one direction, while North Borneo and the British went in another.

Eventually, the sultanate was divested of political and administrative powers until it exercised authority only over religious matters. No effective, functioning sultanate existed any more.

Sixth, the death of Sultan Jamalul Kiram II in 1936 saw no successor, since he died childless. His younger brother and anointed successor, Mawalil Wasit, died the same year before he was crowned.

Thus ended the Royal House of Sulu’s lineage. After Spain passed the Philippines, including the territory of the former sultanate (excluding North Borneo) to the United States, the US officially abolished what remained of the sultanate in 1936.

Eighth, the British North Borneo Company also ceased payment to the sultanate that year, indicating that the business sector had considered the 1878 agreement voided. (Payment later resumed only after relatives of the deceased sultan brought the matter to court.)

Ninth, President Manuel L. Quezon (left) of the (then) Commonwealth of the Philippines declared in 1936 that Jamalul Kiram II was the last Sultan of Sulu. To emphasise the point, Quezon said the Philippine government would no longer recognise a Sulu Sultanate.

Britain had been exercising increasing proprietary moves over North Borneo, earning two rebukes from the US (1906, 1920). Britain ignored those reminders and annexed North Borneo in 1946, turning it into a crown colony.

Whatever the moral issues there, it again spelled the end of any vestige of Sulu royalty. For London, it was a justifiable move since it had taken over all the legal obligations of North Borneo.

Tenth, there was no question later (in the 1960s) about Sabah having to obtain independence from Britain. This underlined the fact that Britain was the sole governing authority up to that point.

Then as Sabah’s independence and the Cobbold Commission’s findings led to the scheduled formation of Malaysia on August 31, 1963, agitation flared from the Philippines. The date was postponed to September 16, such that Sabah was an independent entity for 16 days, ending any remaining claim from an extinct sultanate or the Philippines as belonging to it.

Twelfth, the very act of freely becoming part of the Malaysian federation negated all further claims on the territory by foreign partisans. The new state of Malaysia in its present form is recognised in all international organisations, including the United Nations and ASEAN, of which the Philippines is also a member.

Although former President Marcos tried to retake Sabah in the 1960s, the claim was later abandoned. At the Second Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur in 1977, Marcos declared that the Philippines was taking concrete steps to end the claim.

Later, as Marcos’ rule clearly became a dictatorship, he made Punjungan Kiram “interim sultan” for Sulu. But this candidate ran off to Sabah, preferring to be a Malaysian instead.

Marcos then “appointed” Punjungan’s son Jamalul Kiram III successor to a non-existent sultan. This instigator of Lahad Datu is not only a dubious candidate since he is not the son of a sultan, but his claim to authority comes from a discredited and ousted dictator of a republic.

Not least, when President Corazon Aquino’s post-Marcos government planned a new Philippine Constitution in 1987, Malaysia lobbied for wording to end the disturbing claim to Sabah for good.

This would replace “historical right or legal title” with “over which the government exercises sovereign jurisdiction” (i.e. the status quo), which was accepted after the third reading in Congress.

So for Philippine citizens to invade Sabah to lay claim to it clearly violates their country’s Constitution. President Benigno Aquino III’s prosecution of these criminals is fully in accordance with the law.

It is also said that no rightful Filipino claim to Sabah exists because as a country, it had not consistently engaged in the activities of a de facto power there. Not only that, there has also been no consistent Filipino claim to Sabah.

No Deal on Sabah Claim by the Philippines, Please

March 11, 2013

by Emeritus Prof D. S. Ranjit Singh (03-10-13)@http://www.thestar.com.my

A major shift in Malaysia’s position on the Philippine claim to Sabah is needed.

THE Philippines Government officially announced their claim to North Borneo (now Sabah) on June 22, 1962. Despite numerous attempts to settle the issue, it still festers on, exemplified by the latest tragic events unfolding in Lahad Datu on the east coast of Sabah.

The Philippine claim is based on two documents dated January 22, 1878. By the first document, Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzam granted (pajak) all his territorial possessions in Borneo (tanah besar Pulau Berunai) to Gustavus Baron de Overbeck and Alfred Dent Esquire as representatives of a British Company for a yearly payment/ quit rent (hasil pajakan) of five thousand dollars (Spanish dollars).

By the second document, the said Sultan appointed Overbeck as “Dato’ Bendahara and Rajah of Sandakan” with the fullest powers of a “supreme ruler” (penghulu pemerintah atas kerajaan yang tersebut itu).

Descendants of Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzam (the number cannot be ascertained, but is large), represented by the Kiram Corporation and the Philippine Government, have always claimed that this 1878 grant was a lease (pajakan) and not a cession as claimed by Malaysia. The continuous annual payment of the quit rent or cession monies of five thousand dollars (now RM5,300) to these descendants is cited as further proof of this contention. Based on these grounds, they claim, Sabah belongs to the Philippines/ the Sultan of Sulu’s descendants.

Before discussing how Malaysia has been responding to this assertion and how it should alter its position drastically, a little bit of historical narrative is in order.

Without going too far back in time, it is suffice to say historical documents confirm that both the Sultanate of Brunei and the Sultanate of Sulu exercised political control over parts of present-day Sabah (there was no State or Negeri Sabah at that time) in the late 19th century. Brunei had defacto jurisdiction on the west coast from Kimanis to Pandasan, while Sulu ruled the east coast from Marudu to the Sibuku River. The interior was largely independent under local indigenous suku chiefs.

Both Sultanates, however, claimed dejure jurisdiction from the Pandasan on the west coast to the Sibuku River on the east. Both Sultanates were also in a state of decline. Brunei was suffering from internal decay while large parts of its territories were being swallowed up by the new state of Sarawak under the Brookes.

In the Philippine region, the Spanish authorities in Manila had been trying to subjugate the independent and powerful kingdom of Sulu for three centuries without success. In 1871, the Spaniards launched another exerted campaign to conquer the stubborn kingdom.

It was in this kind of environment that a number of European and American speculators became interested in obtaining territorial concessions from the two weak Sultanates for speculative purposes. Among them were Lee Moses and Joseph Torrey of America; and Baron von Overbeck and Alfred Dent who had formed a company called the Overbeck-Dent Association on March 27, 1877 in London for the purpose of obtaining land concessions in Sabah and selling them for a profit.

Overbeck and Dent acquired Brunei’s jurisdiction over its Sabah possessions in five documents dated Dec 29, 1877 from the Sultan of Brunei and his ministers. After this, Overbeck sailed to Jolo where he also obtained the rights of the Sultan of Sulu in Sabah through two agreements concluded on Jan 22, 1878.

Why was Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzan prepared to lease/ grant/ pajak his territories in Sabah to Overbeck and Dent? Sulu was on the brink of capitulating to the Spaniards and as such Sultan Muhammad was hopeful of obtaining some assistance from the Overbeck-Dent Association and possibly even from Britain. Placed in such dire straits, he was therefore not adverse to giving Overbeck and Dent territorial concessions in Sabah with some hope of salvation.

In the event, no such aid came either from the Overbeck-Dent Association or the British Government. Six months after the Overbeck-Dent grants were concluded, Sulu was conquered by the Spanish authorities on July 2 1878. With the fall of Sulu, the said Sultanate ceased to be an independent entity as it was incorporated as part of the Spanish colonial administration of the Philippines.

In 1898, Spain lost the Philippines to the United States by the Peace of Paris (Dec 10, 1898), which ended the Spanish-American War. The US ruled the Philippines till 1946 when independence was granted.

Meanwhile, in 1936, the US colonial administration of the Philippines abolished the Sulu Sultanate upon the death of Sultan Jamalul Kiram II (1894-1936) in the same year in an attempt to create a unitary State of the Philippines. Jamalul Kiram III is a self- appointed “Sultan” with a dubious legal status.

Now, coming back to the question of Malaysia’s ongoing treatment of the claim, and why and how it should completely alter this position. Since the official announcement of the claim by the Philippine Government on June 22, 1962, Malaysia has been pursuing an ambivalent policy. On the one hand, it has persistently rejected the Philippines claim, but on the other it has compromised Malaysia’s sovereignty by agreeing to settle the “dispute” by peaceful means (such as the Manila Agreement, Aug 3, 1963) and a number of other mutual agreements between the two countries.

Most damaging of all is Malaysia’s willingness to honour the clause in the 1878 Sulu grant pertaining to the payment of the annual quit rent or cession monies as Malaysia says, of RM5,300, to the descendants of the former Sulu Sultanate. To this day, Malaysia is still paying this quit rent, lending credence to the claimants’ argument that the 1878 grant was a lease and not a cession and therefore it still belongs to them.

If Malaysia continues to follow this policy, there will be no end to this problem except to buy out the rights of the descendents of the Sultan of Sulu. But this course is fraught with danger as it will lead to further legal complications with the Philippines and even endless litigation with the descendants.

My proposal is that Malaysia should go by the laws of “effectivities”, as in the case of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) judgement pertaining to the issue of sovereignty over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands, and the law of acts of a’titre de souverain as in the case of Pulau Batu Puteh.

No title, however strong, is valid once the original owner fails to exercise acts consistent with the position of a’titre de souverain. The opposite is true, that is, the holder of the lease may not have original title but he ultimately gains permanent possession of the lease by virtue of continuous state “effectivities”.

In this case, the Sultan of Sulu and its successors including the Philippine government have failed to conduct any acts of a’titre de souverain since 1882, and so they have legally lost their title.

On the other hand, the successors of the Overbeck-Dent Association, that is the British North Borneo Company (1882-1946); the British Colonial Administration (1946-1963); and Malaysia, (from 1963) have been exercising continuous acts of a’titre de souverain for a period of 131 years.

Since we have all this evidence on our side, Malaysia should now take a new stand by totally rejecting the validity of the 1878 grants on the grounds of “effectivitie” and a’titre de souverain. It should also immediately stop paying the so-called annual quit rent or cession monies. This payment has always brought huge embarrassment to Malaysia and has in fact compromised its sovereignty.

We should also never agree to go to the International Court of Justice not because our case is weak (it is very strong), but because we don’t want to trade the fate of sovereign territories and people through the judgment of any court, even the ICJ.

There’s one more point that should be pondered upon. No country or state or nation which has obtained independence has ever paid ownership monies to its former masters. The 13 Colonies of America did not do so, India did not do so, the Federation of Malaya did not do so.

Sabah became an independent state on August 31, 1963 and decided to form the Federation of Malaysia with three other partners on Sept 16, 1963. It is strange indeed, if not preposterous, that a sovereign state is paying ownership or cession monies to certain people based on a colonial, pre-independence treaty that is 131 years old!

Emeritus Prof D. S. Ranjit Singh is Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Government and International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia (ranjit@uum.edu.my).

Lahad Datu: Between a Fluid Region and a Hard State

February 5, 2013

by Farish A. Noor (03-04-13)@http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT: Allow me to begin by stating categorically that I am a committed South-East Asian-ist and a committed ASEAN-ist.

In my work as a lecturer I have constantly reminded my students of the constructed nature of South-East Asia today, the relative newness of our political borders, and the newness of our nation-states. I have also emphasised the shared overlapping histories of the many diasporas that populate this complex and sometimes confounding archipelago of ours.

I long for the day when the people of South-East Asia can see themselves ASEAN citizens, but despite the fact that the ASEAN Community is almost upon us (by 2015), many of us in the region are still driven by primordial attachments to place, identity, language and culture.

It can be summed up thus: We, South-East Asians, are caught between a fluid region and a hard state.

No matter how hard some of the hyper-nationalists among us may try, they cannot deny the fact that we share a common, interconnected history/histories.

These histories often overlap, make contesting demands and claims, and contradict each other. But that is the nature of history as a discourse, for it is a narrative without a full-stop and is a discursive terrain that has to be looked at from a multiplicity of angles.

There can never be a final history to any area or subject, for as soon as we put the pen down, time marches on and we are forced to return and revise our settled assumptions.

For those who seek a happy panacea to their existential angst, history is not the remedy because every single historical claim can and will be contested by another.

That makes history a soft and unstable foundation for any political-economic claim, but thankfully it is also the reason why historians like me won’t be unemployed any time soon.

So much for fluidity and shifting historical parameters. Now comes the hard part: We, South-East Asians, also happen to be living in the present-day post-colonial world of ASEAN, made up of nation-states that do what nation-states do: Compartmentalise, categorise, delimit and demarcate, fix boundaries and police them.

I have to state here that I am not a big fan of the post-colonial nation-state for the simple reason that in my opinion the post-colonial nation-state is simply the inheritor of the proclivities, bias, myopia and solipsism of the colonial state of the past.

Look around us in South-East Asia today and what do we see, but post-colonial nation-states that continue to police their people, their borders, their identities and the very epistemology and vocabulary that frames our understanding of ourselves and the Other. Categories like ‘citizen’ and ‘foreigner’ are modern labels that we, South-East Asians, have inherited from our colonial past along with dubious concepts like racial difference.

Contradiction

What, then, are we today? It would appear to me at least that we South-East Asians are a hybrid, mongrel lot of communities and peoples with a complicated past.

On the one hand we still retain the residual traces of our primordial roots to land and sea that tell us that this region is our shared home. But we also happen to be modern citizen-subjects living under the modern regime of the racial census, the identity card, the passport and the national flag.

We cannot escape this contradiction because this is what our common history has bequeathed us today. We are modern South-East Asian citizen-subjects who live in a region with a complex history that predates modernity, colonialism and the nation-state, and we cannot escape our past any more than we can escape our present.

But this contradiction is now manifest in what is happening in Sabah. In the midst of the chest-thumping, saber-rattling jingoism and hyper-nationalism we see rising in both the Philippines and Malaysia today, we ought to take a step back and look at ourselves honestly in the face.

It seems that what is confronting us now is a clash between the modern state, driven as it is by its modernist logic of governmentality; and the primordial attachment of some people to land and space that exceeds the confines of temporality and space.

That has happened is that a group of non-state actors, namely those who claim to be the descendants of the Sultan of Sulu, have unilaterally and without the consent of the government of the Philippines, entered into the territory of another state – Malaysia – bearing arms and demanding their right to settle there.

Both the Malaysian and Philippine states are at a loss as to what to do, for both are now forced to deal with a non-state actor that does not play by the rules of the modern state.

Such a situation can be extended hypothetically in a million directions: What if a bunch of Malaysian citizens unilaterally entered Singapore and claimed it on the grounds that it was formerly a part of the Malay kingdom of Johor? What if a bunch of Thais entered northern Malaysia and claimed the state of Kelantan on the grounds that it was formerly part of the Siamese kingdom?

The possibilities are endless, and dizzying to boot – but the problem would remain the same: How should a state or states deal with non-state actors?

Reviewing history

Two historical details ought to be brought into play at this point:

The first is that the history of Sabah itself ought to be foregrounded at this stage, as Philippine and Malaysian nationalists have failed to ask what do the people of Sabah think about this.

Let us note that Sabah was never an empty space that was passed on from one power to another. In the past, Sabah came under the domination of the Kingdom of Brunei, and it was Brunei that then gifted parts of Sabah to the Kingdom of Sulu, and it was both the kingdoms of Brunei and Sulu that then passed it on to the British North Borneo Company. But Sabah has its own past, its own history and its own people – who seem to have been left out of the discussion altogether.

The indigenous people of Sabah happen to be the Kadazandusuns and the Muruts, who consist of the Bonggis (Banggi island, Kudat), the Idaan/Tindals (Tempasuk, Kota Belud), the Dumpaas Kadazans (Orang Sungai, Kinabatangan), the Bagahaks (Orang Sungai, also Kinabatangan), the Tombinuo and Buludupis Kadazans (Orang Sungai, also Kinabatangan), the Kimaragang Kadazans (Tandek and Kota Marudu), the Liwans (Ranau and Tambunan), the Tangaah Kadazans (Panampat and Papar), the Rungus (Matunggong and Kudat), the Tatanah Kadazans (Kuala Penyu), the Lotuds (Tuaran), the Bisayas (Beaufort), the Tidongs (Tawau) and the Kedayans (Sipitang). Then there are the Muruts who consist of the Nabais, Piluans, Bokans, Taguls, Timoguns, Lundayehs, Tangaras, Semambus, Kolors and Melikops.

These are the indigenous communities of Sabah, and if anyone has a right to the land of Sabah it ought to be them. Nobody denies that Bruneians, Suluks, Ilanuns, Bugis, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Arabs and other communities have resided in Sabah too in the past, but the latter came from other kingdoms and polities, and in the case of the Bruneians and Suluks of Sulu, they also happened to be outsiders who imposed their dominance over the indigenous people of Sabah.

This brings me to the second point I want to make: It has to be remembered that both Brunei and Sulu held sway over Sabah as a territory under their dominion, in a manner that seems more akin to the way the British North Borneo company held sway over Sabah from the 1880s to 1940s.

When the descendants of the Sultan of Sulu claim to ‘own’ Sabah today, what exactly does this deed of ownership entail and mean? Does it signify Sulu’s former political dominance over a territory that was gifted to it by another domineering power?

If so, then how is this any different from making a colonial claim over a land whose people may not even recognise Sulu’s right to govern over them?

It is ironic that while the self-proclaimed sultan of Sulu bemoans his loss of dominance, nobody (not even the Sultan) has asked if the Kadazandusuns, Muruts and other indigenous people of Sabah want to live under his dominion.

Furthermore, it seems to only underscore the fact that Sulu’s claim (like Brunei’s and Britain’s) was that of an external polity claiming a territory that was not part of their homeland proper.

Cosmopolitan Sabah

None of this alters the fact that Sabah has always been, and remains, an extraordinarily cosmopolitan space where cultures and peoples overlap and share common lives and interests. In comparison to other parts of Malaysia, for instance, Sabahan society retains its fluid and dynamic identity until today.

In Sabah it is not uncommon to come across indigenous families where the siblings happen to be Muslim and Christian, all living under the same roof and celebrating Muslim and Christian festivals together.

Sabah society also seems more decentred compared to other communities in the region: The Kadazandusuns do not have a concept of Kingship, and instead govern themselves along the lines of communal leaders (Orang Kaya Kaya) and their symbolic grand leader called the ‘Huguan Siou’.

So tolerant and open is Sabah society that inter-ethnic marriages are common, with Kadazandusuns and Muruts marrying Malays, Chinese, Arabs as well as Suluks, Bugis, Bajaos, Bruneians. It has been like this for hundreds of years; and I hasten to add that I actually grew up in Sabah between the years 1981-1984, and recall how open, eclectic and mobile Sabah society was then.

Sabahans have never had a problem with other communities settling there, and that is why we still see large numbers of Suluks, Bajaos, Malays and Chinese across the state, settling into mixed families or into smaller settlements.

Furthermore Sabahans are attuned to the reality of living in a fluid archipelago, which is why its coastal settlements have always been transit points where people from abroad come in and out with ease.

Just before the Lahad Datu incident I was informed that a large number of Suluks had arrived for a wedding, and they came in without passports and visas, and left peacefully afterwards.

It has been like that in Sabah since my childhood. But my fear is that culture of openness and fluidity came to an untimely and graceless end when some of the followers of the sultan of Sulu landed with guns and rocket-launchers.

Fluid borders only exist under one assumption: that the visitor is a friend, and not an aggressor. The moment guns come into the picture, the fluid border dries up and becomes hard.

Hardened borders, hardened hearts

I hate nationalism. I said at the beginning that I am a committed South-East Asian-ist and Asean-ist, and this debacle in Sabah has not weakened my resolve, as both an academic and an activist, to work towards closer ASEAN integration.

Here in my institute in NTU, I see the faces of ASEAN every single day: My students come from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, in fact all of ASEAN. Being childless myself, I regard them as my wards and responsibility and like all teachers I want them to succeed in the future. I also want them to succeed in an Asean region where every Asean citizen feels that the entire region is his or her home, a place he/she belongs to, a place where he/she would not feel like a foreigner.

But as I said at the beginning, we, ASEAN citizens, also live in the age of the modern nation-state, and there is no escaping the fact that we are modern citizen-subjects as well. Being caught between a fluid region and a hard modern state is not an existential crisis that we cannot resolve, for we can bring to the modern nation-state our subjective longings to see greater integration on a people-to-people level that takes the nation-state one step further.

Already we see that the modern nation-state is beginning to transcend itself in ASEAN: The communicative infrastructure that we have built – through roads, rail and cheap airline communications – means that more Southeast Asians are travelling, studying, working and living in different parts of the region than ever before.

Gone are the days when a Malaysian, Filipino or Singaporean would be born in his country, study in the same country, work and die in the same country. In the near future, we may well live to see the birth of the first Asean generation who are born in one country, study in another, work in another and die in another, all the while feeling that he or she is still at home, in Southeast Asia.

But for this to happen, we cannot bypass the nation-state entirely; for we need the nation-state in order to transcend the nation-state. We need the nation-state to evolve where it may one day accept the reality that its citizens have multiple origins, multiple destinies, multiple and combined loyalties.

We need to work towards an ASEAN future where our governments may come to accept our complex, confounding hyphenated identities as something normal, and not an anomaly; when someone who is Javanese-Dutch-Indian-Arab like me can claim to come from Indonesia, be born in Malaysia, work in Singapore and love the Philippines.

Ironically, this is the impasse we are at today: To revive our collective memory of a shared South-East Asian past, we need to work with and through the nation-state as the dominant paradigm that governs international relations.

What we cannot and should not do is selectively appropriate history to make outlandish claims that further only our own limited ends, the way China has been doing by turning to its own China-centric history books in order to claim the South China Sea as theirs.

Such selectivity, be it in the case of China’s or the Sultan of Sulu’s, denies the fact that history will always remain contested by others. Unless we are prepared to accept that whatever view we have of the ASEAN region is only one of many views, and that we need to accept that multi-perspectivism is the only way to navigate ourselves on the choppy waters of history, we will remain forever trapped in our own myopic delusions.

At present, the Sabah impasse has stirred violent emotions among nationalists in Malaysia and the Philippines, with armchair tacticians talking of more violence.

Such idle talk is unbecoming of us, a people who share a complex history whose richness we ought to be celebrating instead.

And my final appeal is this: End this incursion into Sabah for the sake of the Sabahans as well as Filipinos and Malaysians; for what this has done is engendered feelings of deep fear and distrust among the Sabahans who have for centuries been among the most open communities in the region.

The thousands of Suluks, Bugis, Bajaos and others who have settled in Sabah for decades have done so with relative ease, but no longer. The Sulu gunmen who landed in Sabah did not only bring their M-16s and rocket-launchers with them, but also the divisive dichotomy of ‘Self’ and ‘Other/Foreigner’, and the last thing this academic wants to see is yet another wall being built to divide South-East Asians all over again.

DR FARISH A NOOR is Associate Professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU University Singapore. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent his institution.

Army General: Intruders ‘well-trained’

http://www.malaysiakini.com

by Nigel Aw | 1:08PM March 3, 2013

Army General Zulkifli Zainal Abidin opinied that armed intruders in Sabah have shown combat experience and adeptness in insurgency tactics.

“From our intelligence and observation, they have combat experience and their insurgency guerilla tactics are quite good, I would say,” he said.He said that the group has positioned snipers in one area with a large public space. He did not name the area.

“They know we are not able to go in without casualties because of the open area,” he told a press conference in Felda Sahabat Residence, Lahad Datu.

Today was the first ever joint press conference by the Police and Army, more than three weeks after the first standoff in Kampung Tandou, some 15km away from here.

The press conference was held following another landing by intruders in Kunak and an ambush on a police team in Sempoerna. It is still unconfirmed if the two incidents are related to armed intruders loyal to the Sulu Sultanate.

IGP: More armed intruders have landed

• IGP: More armed intruders have landed
• Nigel Aw | 12:43PM Mar 3, 2013

• More armed intruders have landed in Sabah following clashes between Malaysian security personnel and followers of the Sulu Sultanate.

  Inspector-general of police Ismail Omar confirmed that the intruders had infiltrated two villages in Kunak, a town between Semporna and Lahad Datu – both flashpoints over the past two days.

  Ismail said the authorities were alerted late last night that at least ten intruders were present in Kampung Lormalong and Kampung Dasar Lama near Kunak.

  “There were sightings of a group of ten men, three of them were in military fatigues similar to those in Kampung Tandou,” he told a press conference in Lahad Datu.

  He added that security forces have moved in to contain the group within the area and a manhunt is underway.

• 

The Lahad Datu Standoff: Another Point of View

February 27, 2013

http://www.nst.com.my

by Lt Gen (Rtd) Datuk Seri Zaini Mohd Said  | panglima_sauk70@hotmail.com

LIKE many happenings in the realm of national security, the ones often thought unlikely and even impossible to happen will. Old military hands had already learned this and will constantly remind themselves to expect the unexpected to occur, somehow.

Long ago, the United States experienced Pearl Harbour and then the 9/11 attack. We had among others, things like the Al Maunah arms heist at our military camps, the two-person samurai sword attack in Putrajaya and now the incursion and entrenchment in Sabah of armed soldiers of the Sultanate of Sulu on Feb 12. All of these were mostly unexpected.

Those in the business of defence and security are conscious of threats that can emanate from outside or from within the country. However, they can never predict and picture fully the actual and detailed form these threats can manifest themselves. These, therefore, can still surprise.

We were surprised by the incursion of the soldiers and their demand for Sabah to be handed back to the Sultanate of Sulu or else they would fight — to the death if necessary. It was also some surprise to many as to the manner they made their demand, with more than 100 armed men, in Sabah, and, headed by a royal member from the sultanate.

Not unexpectedly, many are questioning why they were able to land in the first place and why it is taking so long to evict or apprehend them, forcibly if need be.

Understandable, questions from reasonable minds but since the operation and delicate process of urging them to leave is ongoing, it is best to let the authorities go about doing their job and wait for the complete answers to come once there is full closure of the matter.

In the meantime, there is little need for worry or cause for alarm. Indications are that the authorities and Police are on top of the situation and are prepared for any eventuality.

The Sulu soldiers are also reported to begin to lose their nerve and tiring fast. Even our military is close by and ready to come in if needed. It should not be too difficult for the security forces to end the standoff by use of force at all.

We should, however, pray that this will not be necessary. It would certainly affect and jeopardise the effort and our role as the facilitator towards getting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Manila peace accord finalised and the establishment of the Bangsamoro state in southern Philippines.

If force were to result in many casualties on the Sulu side, then Malaysia’s plans and prospects of helping and participating in the development in the land of the Moros will diminish. It cannot be easy when there are to be vengeful and angry people from within the population there.

In any case, it is believed that they had not come intending to fight us or our security forces. That they came led and dressed in recognisable military uniforms with clear insignias is not to appear intimidating but to be identified as a bona fide and organised military body and not terrorists or common criminals.

A recognition that would entitle them to be regarded and treated under all the provisions of the international law on land warfare and the Geneva Convention as military combatants. A status they could nevertheless lose if they were to make monetary or other material demands over what has already been stated.

This must have been clear to our authorities and that probably explains the present strategy of urging them to leave peacefully and not giving in to any inappropriate demand, being the most appropriate option to pursue.

Avoid the shooting part at all costs for it will never ever end in that part of the world and not with the Moros.

 

Philippines Press: Stand-off is Malaysia’s ‘karma’

February 26, 2013

Luke Rintod |http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com

The whole saga is a “karma” on Malaysia for its clandestine role in supporting the Muslim Sulu insurgence against Manila government in southern Mindanao, says a writer.

Philippines dailies are having a field day reporting on the ‘invasion’ of Sabah’s east-coast town of Lahad Datu by men claiming to be members of the “Royal Sulu Sultanate Army”.

One writer by the name of Ramon Tulfo of the Philippine Daily Inquirer recently wrote that the whole saga was a “karma” on Malaysia for its clandestine role in supporting the Muslim Sulu insurgence against Manila government in southern Mindanao in the 1970s and 1980s.

“When the (Philippines) government was fighting the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) in the 1970s through the 1980s, Malaysia was secretly supporting the rebellion in the South. Weapons coming from Libya and other Middle East countries passed through Malaysia on their way to the MNLF.

“Now, it seems the shoe is on the other foot. The law of karma is being played out,” wrote Tulfo.

The Sulu men called Tausugs entered Sabah’s coast about two weeks ago armed with automatic weapons, seeking Malaysian’s recognition to establish their own territory under the name of their Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram.

The Sultan himself, sometimes reportedly making statement from a hospital bed in Manila, said there are in fact 400 of his men in the state and that if they are armed, the arms were already in Sabah prior to their arrival, according to sources, made possible via a tourist boat!

Now if the Sultan’s version is to be the correct one, where are the remaining 300 or so Sulu army soldiers now? Does this give credence to earlier rumours that they had made it to Kota Kinabalu and even set a cell in Keningau?

Tulfo argued that Malaysia is in no-win situation from the current stand-off in Lahad Datu.

The Malaysian Home Affairs is bird watching in Lahad Datu

“If Malaysia is clumsy about handling the Sabah stand-off, it will have the same problem the Philippine government had when it fought a Muslim rebellion in the South in the 1970s up to the 1980s,” he warned.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer writer observed that “Malaysia is in a no-win situation as a result of the stand- off in Sabah. If it uses deadly force on a small group of armed Filipino Muslims now holed up in the village of Tanduo in Lahad Datu town in Sabah, members of the fiercest of Philippine Moro tribe, the Tausugs of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, will retaliate.

“If, on the other hand, Malaysia compromises with the armed group purportedly belonging to the Sultanate of Sulu, it will be perceived as a weakling by its neighbours.

“Which will Malaysia choose, fighting a rebellion in the Sabah state or swallowing its pride and compromise with the Sultanate of Sulu?”

Tulfo said it would be better for Malaysia to be perceived as a weakling rather than have a bloody civil war in Sabah.

“Tausugs love to fight and look for reasons to pick a fight. It’s very easy for armed Tausugs to enter Sabah and wage a guerrilla war against the Malaysian government should hostilities break out between the Sultanate group and Malaysian Police.

“If Malaysia assumes a violent stance against the Sulu Sultanate group, the Tausugs will have a reason to fight them,” he said adding that more from the southern Philippines would enter Sabah’s wide coastline to be with their brothers.

Revolt in Sabah

Malaysia, meanwhile, is on the verge of a general election and its security force, especially the police, are already gearing for a possible chaos or even violence by groups already alleging vote-rigging by the ruling the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional coalition.

There is no record of the number of Filipinos, mostly Tausugs, in Sabah, but a former Philippine military intelligence official once estimated that up to a third of the population in the Malaysian state is Tausug.

“Many of the people in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have relatives in Sabah, which is just one hour by speedboat from Simunul in Tawi-Tawi. If the Tausugs in Sabah rise up in revolt against the Malaysian government, their relatives in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will go to Sabah and fight with them.

“And to the Tausugs, the claim of the group purporting to represent the Sultanate of Sulu that Sabah belongs to the sultanate is legitimate,” further opined by Tulfo adding that the Sulu Sultanate, long dormant and somewhat forgotten because of the war waged by the Tausug-led MNLF against the government, is still revered by Moros in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Tulfo said that the Tausugs respect the Sultan of Sulu in much the same way Malaysians pay homage to their royal family.“If harm is done to Rajah Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, brother of Sultan Jamalul Kiram, who ordered the Muda Agbimuddin to enter Sabah, his fellow Tausugs in Sabah and in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will take up arms against the Malaysian government.

“Filipino Muslims declare a “rido” or vendetta against people who harm their relatives. The “rido” has set off feuds between families or clans that last for decades,” he said.

Most of the Tausugs in Sabah have relatives in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi who are ready to take revenge if harm is done to Rajah Muda Agbimuddin Kiram and his armed followers in Lahad Datu town, he further wrote.

Tulfo also claimed that his sources within the Sulu fraternity told him that even before the landing of the about 200 men in Lahad Datu two weeks ago, the sultanate had already sent armed men in small groups to Sabah to escape notice of the authorities.

“The armed groups are being coddled by Tausugs in the Malaysian state. The sea border between Sabah and the Philippines is porous or easily penetrated. Most of the tens of thousands of Filipino illegal immigrants in Sabah entered through this porous border…” he said.

Meanwhile, Malaysian authorities who say they are in control of the tense stand-off within a palm oil plantation in Tandiau, Lahad Datu, have cordoned the whole perimeter and declared curfew around it, making it impossible to come near the site.

Reporters were barred from entering and those brave enough to seek their own way like the al-Jazeera investigative team who tried to reach the village by boat were detained for several hours for questioning.

Both Manila and Kuala Lumpur are still negotiating for a safe passage home for these Sulu armed men and women, and pressure is mounting on the Malaysian security forces to end the stand-off.

While they know it must end sooner or later, Sabahans are angry with the way the authorities are pussy-footing around the issue.Opposition leaders from State Reform Party (STAR) and Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) have both accused the Federal government of having failed to protect the safety and security of the state and Sabahans.

Smooth Transfer of Power to Pakatan Rakyat,says Anwar Ibrahim

February 22, 2013

http://www.malaysiakini.com (02-21-13)

by Matthew Winkler and Ranjeetha Pakiam, Bloomberg

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed for corruption and sodomy, predicted a smooth transition when his coalition ousts the government that has ruled Malaysia for 55 years in elections that may be held within weeks.

“The Police has changed in the last few months,” Anwar said. “There’s hardly been any harassment from the Police in all our programmes. It’s a pure change.”Anwar said the election will be close and will be won in the rural battleground states of Sabah and Sarawak. He said the ideological differences in his alliance won’t derail the success of the coalition in an hour-long interview at his PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya, outside Kuala Lumpur. Prime Minister Najib Razak must dissolve Parliament by April 28 and hold elections within 60 days.

A victory by the Opposition, after the governing BN had its narrowest win five years ago, would end more than five decades of unbroken rule in Malaysia. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index has fallen 4.8 percent since reaching a record January 7 on concern the ruling BN may slip further at the ballot box, making it the only Asian benchmark stock index that has dropped this year.

Anwar, who said his imprisonment was politically motivated, considers his acquittal in 2012 on a second sodomy charge an indication that theJjudiciary will accept the outcome of the election, even if the opposition triumphs. He also said that the police didn’t obstruct an Opposition rally in Kuala Lumpur last month and helped to “facilitate” it.

While the Opposition hasn’t announced who would head a government if it wins, Anwar said “it is widely expected or assumed” it will be him.

Last chance for Anwar

Since his release from prison in 2004, Anwar has taken charge of an ideologically disparate and multi-ethnic Opposition, pledging to roll back racial preferences for the ethnic Malay majority and trim the budget deficit if he wins power. His Pakatan Rakyat coalition, which includes PAS that wants to enforce syariah law and the DAP, won five of 13 states in the 2008 election before losing one (Perak) a year later when three state assembly members defected.

“This is his last chance to be Prime Minister,” said James Chin, a professor of political science at the Malaysian campus of Australia’s Monash University, referring to Anwar. “Part of it is age. The other part is that the alliance he holds is more of a marriage of convenience.”

Najib’s approval rating slid to 63 percent in December, the lowest level in 16 months, with support among ethnic Chinese voters, who make up about a quarter of Malaysia’s 29 million people, declining to 34 percent, the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research said last month.

The survey of 1,018 voters conducted December 15-28 on the country’s peninsula and published January 10, showed 45 percent of respondents said they were “happy” with the government.The ringgit has fallen more than 1 percent against the dollar this year, after strengthening more than 3.5 percent in 2012.

“An Opposition win would be destabilising for the market in the short term,” Alan Richardson, a Singapore-based fund manager who helps oversee about $110 billion for Samsung Asset Management Co, said by phone. “We haven’t had a history of political transition in Malaysia and there will be uncertainty.”

Rural heartland

Anwar said he was confident his opposition alliance would make gains in the rural heartland of Sabah and Sarawak, which has long been the stronghold of BN. Najib’s coalition won 55 out of 71 seats when Sarawak held its state election in April 2011.

“In Sabah and Sarawak, we’ve never seen that level of support among indigenous tribes,” he said. “People do concede that there’s going to be a substantial change in Sabah and Sarawak, enough to alter the shift in balance of power nationwide.”

Anwar’s alliance holds 75 of 222 parliamentary seats, while BN holds 137 seats, according to the Malaysian parliament website. The election will be “very soon,” Bernama reported Feb 15, citing Najib.

Anwar backed mass demonstrations last year and in 2011 that were organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, or Bersih, to demand changes to the country’s voting laws. At one of the gatherings in April, police arrested more than 500 people for defying a ban on street protests introduced by Najib’s government a month earlier.

The government has acceded to some of the demands. The Election Commission will use indelible ink for the first time to mark voters’ fingers to prevent double counting. BERSIH’s call for a minimum 21-day campaign period hasn’t been met.

Najib, 59, passed a security law last year that reduced the period a detainee could be held without a judicial review. He also changed media legislation, making licenses permanent rather than subject to annual renewal.

Anwar said he is committed to dismantling “obsolete” policies that benefit ethnic Malays and indigenous people, and which were put in place by Najib’s father, Abdul Razak Hussein, who was Malaysia’s second prime minister. Since taking office in April 2009, Najib has peeled back benefits to ethnic Malays, easing rules on foreign investment and property purchases. Ethnic Malays and indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak comprise more than half the country’s population, according to government data.

Cash handouts

Najib will be counting on a series of election sweeteners, as well as economic growth that has exceeded 5 percent for six consecutive quarters, to sway voters. His proposed RM251.6 billion budget for this year includes cash handouts for low-income families and higher pensions for civil servants. Inflation, which rose 1.3 percent in January from a year earlier, is the lowest among major economies in Southeast Asia.

Anwar served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1993 to 1998 under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled Malaysia from 1981 to 2003. He was removed from office and tried in 1998 for abuse of power and having sex with a man, which is an offence in Muslim-majority Malaysia and carries a maximum sentence of as much as 20 years in prison. He was jailed for almost six years before the sodomy charge was overturned.

Anwar was cleared of the second sodomy charge in January last year after the High Court ruled there was no evidence to corroborate the claims made by a former aide of a sexual encounter in 2008. The public prosecutor is seeking an appeal against the acquittal.

- Bloomberg