ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 9 October 2004 — Malaysia said yesterday it would protect its rights over Sabah amid resurgent claims by the royal houses in the southern Philippines over the disputed the oil rich state.
Malaysia’s parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Ministry, Datuk Zainal Abidin Osman, said Kuala Lumpur is firm about its rights and sovereignty over Sabah.
“The government is firm on this. Sabah is ours and will continue to be ours, and the people of Sabah are the people of this country,” Zainal Abidin was quoted by Bernama news agency as saying yesterday.
Zainal was reacting to a statement by one of the new sultan of Sulu, Rodinood Julaspi Kiram II, who vowed to renew their claims over Sabah after he was crowned in Manila as the 29th sultan of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo.
“Malaysia is illegally occupying Sabah. Sabah is ours, we will take it back,” said 56-year old Rodinood, who lamented that the Philippine government had abandoned the claim.
Rodinood also accused Malaysia of previously supporting the Muslim insurgency in the southern Philippines, but this was strongly denied by Zainal Abidin.
Rodinood also said that Malayian authorities were maltreating illegal Filipino immigrants in Sabah, but this was strongly denied by Sabah Police Commissioner, Datuk Mangsor Ismail.
Franklin Ebdalin, the acting Philippine foreign affairs secretary, said on Thursday that the Philippines has not completely abandoned its claim to a Malaysian state on the northern tip of the island of Borneo, even as the government works to improve ties with Kuala Lumpur.
Ebdalin said the government places greater value on the welfare of 200,000 Filipinos in Sabah and its bilateral relations with Malaysia in putting the territorial dispute on the backburner. “We have filed our claim already, and we could pursue it any time,” Ebdalin told reporters.
“While there is no official position on whether to aggressively pursue this or not, we all know it has somewhat remained on the backburner.” He said relations with Malaysia were more important because there were more than 80,000 Filipinos working without legal documents on plantations, factories and hotels in Sabah.
Malaysia is also brokering peace talks between the government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to try to end a 35-year conflict in the southern Philippines that has killed at least 120,000 people. The Philippines made its claim to Sabah in 1962 after the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu and North Borneo gave the government, then under the late president Diosdado Macapagal, legal authority to negotiate on their behalf.
The Sultanate of Sulu obtained Sabah from the Sultanate of Brunei as a gift for helping put down a rebellion.
The British leased Sabah and transferred control of the territory to Malaysia when it gained independence in the 1960s. Even though Sabah became part of Malaysia in 1963, Kuala Lumpur still pays an annual rent of 5,300 ringgit ($1,600) to the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu.
