ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 19, 2013) – Malaysia has deployed more armoured vehicles and combat helicopters, including naval boats to Sabah in an effort to flush out dozens of remaining followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram who have been fighting security forces on the oil-rich island being claimed by both sides.
About a dozen armoured personnel vehicles arrived in the town of Lahad Datu to support ground troops hunting down at least 50 members of the Sultanate of Sulu headed by Raja Muda Agbimuddin, the sultan’s younger brother.
The group intruded Sabah in February to exert claim over the island, citing historical and legal claims, but Malaysia rejected this and launched a massive assault on about 200 of the sultan’s men following a deadline for them to surrender peacefully.
The assault by Malaysian jets and ground artilleries left at least 62 intruders dead, but the fighting between the two groups also killed and wounded 18 Malaysian policemen and soldiers.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad also said that people living in houses on stilts in Sabah should be relocated immediately because they could be exposed to threats from external aggressors. But many of those living in the settlement there are Filipino Muslims from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
He said the settlement complicates security matters in the area. “We need to move them, but we need to find land for them and we need to identify among them who are our citizens, those who are foreign citizens and those who do not have a certificate of identity,” he said in a report by the Malaysian news agency Bernama.
The former, but influential politician, earlier urged Malaysia to stop paying “cession money” to the Sultanate of Sulu because of the intrusion of its armed followers. But the Sultanate of Sulu considers the payment as rental money for Sabah.
Malaysia is still paying cession money to the Sultanate of Sulu although it lays claim on the Sabah, a gift given by Brunei to the Sultan of Sulu for helping quell a rebellion in 1658.
Malaysia arrested more than 300 Filipinos who are suspected of supporting or aiding Raja Muda Agbimuddin’s group under a strict anti-terrorism law. Just recently, three more men, who were acting suspiciously, had been detained in Kampung Sim-Sim in Sandakan after villagers phoned the police about the trio.
Their identities were not immediately known, but one of them allegedly has links with a detained Jemaah Islamiya militant Yazid Sufaat.
More than 2,000 Filipino Muslims have returned to Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces after fleeing Sabah for fear they would be arrested in a massive crackdown launched by Malaysian on illegal immigrants and Filipino communities on the island.
Many Indonesian workers and immigrants also fled Sabah and Jakarta has deployed an armed naval flotilla to guard its border with Malaysia and the Philippines, and to ferry its citizens affected by the hostilities between Malaysian security forces and the Sultanate of Sulu.
Sabah, just several nautical miles off Tawi-Tawi, is home to about 2.3 million Malaysians and 889,000 non-Malaysians, based on its 2010 population survey.
Both Manila and Kuala Lumpur suspect that some group in the Philippines and Malaysia is financing Sultan Jamalul to destabilize the two countries ahead of its own elections this year. But the ailing 74-year old leader denied all accusations about this. (Mindanao Examiner)
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