PRESERVATION OF SULU SULTANATE 3
Preservation of Sulu Sultanate History and Rights by DD Krishna D Kiram
8th Series: End of the Series
Malaysia Mobilized Its Mighty Thirteen BN Military Forces during the February-March 2013 Sabah Stand-Off
The interception of the 37 followers outside the Sabah controlled sea already invited the Malaysian Royal Navy to strengthen their blockade. On the other hand, the faith of the 37 followers also made the last 23 followers to be certain of the right course they had to take.
Making the sparkling light in nearby islands mostly traditional as compass, they were able to reach the island where the Datu Raja Muda sought shelter. Having made the breakthrough for their safety and survival from the shackles of the Malaysian Forces and Royal Navy around the Sabah Controlled sea, they marked that day as beginning of offering their gratitude to the creator for giving them another chance to live and continue to dedicate their services to the Sultanate of Sulu.
The lives, physical loss, the sufferings, and emotional distress the Datu Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram and the surviving followers had encountered since the eruption of the 2013 Sabah Stand-Off from Day 1 were of no concerns of the PNoy Aquino administration. Their welfare and well-beings became optional as the objectivity of mission of the PNoy Aquino administration was entirely focused with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in the fulfillment to the GPH-MILF on-going discussion of the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement and the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). The PNoy Presidential Declaration openly accused them of spoilers of peace.
The Philippine and Malaysian Governments treated the Journey to Sabah (North Borneo) of Datu Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram and the 235 Followers without historic and legal basis. During the stand-off, the PNoy Administration looked forward only for their complete annihilation by the mighty Malaysian Military Forces. In order to maintain composure in the wake of stand-off, the Raja Muda’s followers locked up their spirit of bond of unity and duty along one ideological line – the defense of what rightfully belonged to the Sultanate of Sulu. Their spirit became the product of the social contract established in 1450 between the First Sultan of Sulu and the Bangsa Suluk/Sug people.
The 2013 Sabah Stand Off, however, rekindled the moral reflections on what ought to be done by leaders and constituents of the Sultanate of Sulu in the face of indeterminate subjectivity of their rights and freedom by the barrels of guns, shelling, and bombs of the Malaysian Forces. The Malaysian Government had only during the 2013 Sabah Stand Off one determination to emasculate and end the rights of the Sulu Sultanate’s ancestral constituents to exist in Sabah (North Borneo) similar to that of the Bumiputra (inhabitants), Malaysia’s determination was despite the guarantee of the Sulu Sultanate’s historic and legal rights, the mutual agreement embodied in the 1963 Manila Accord and the yearly rendering by Malaysia of the annual rental lease payment to the Sultan of Sulu and the heirs on their proprietary ownership, rights and power over the disputed territory, Sabah (North Borneo).
The Malaysia Government’s unilateral act in executing the armed confrontation was showed firstly in firing the first shot to kill Datu Raja Muda while a peaceful negotiation on March 1, 2013 was held but missed him. They used the might of their military forces from February 15 until March 8, 2013 to make the Sulu Sultanate feel of their country’s accumulated frightful assemblage of cruelty, injustice, and greed against Datu Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram and his 235 helpless followers.
During the entire military operations in Tanduo Village, Sabah, the Malaysian Political and Military Leaders adopted also impudent prostitution of reasons to trample the symbolisms of demand for truth, equality and justice and virtues the Datu Raja Muda had declared before the Malaysian Military Authority during the entire process of negotiation from February 15 until February 28, 2013. But Malaysia’s choice of falsehood prevailed and trampled the truth of the Sabah (North Borneo) issue. Malaysia’s act caused the death of nearly twenty followers of Datu Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram as first martyrs of the Sulu Sultanate’s cause. Others were wounded, captured, and imprisoned in Malaysia awaiting the penalty of death.
From the standpoint of military strategic point of view and that of body politics, if the journey of the Datu Raja Muda and the 235 followers in February 2013 armed merely with hand guns was planned to invade and intrude Sabah (North Borneo), the journey carried in itself the cause and essence of self-destruction and the diminishing point of the Sabah (North Borneo) claim still pending resolution in the United Nations since 1962.
What compelled the Datu Raja Muda to act on the 2013 journey was the economic crisis that kept the marginalized Bangsa Suluk followers in abject poverty, political bondage, insecurity and instability that continued since the outbreak of the Mindanao War in 1972 to enslave them and the future of their children and even their children yet to come. The conception of the Mindanao War begun when Malaysia allowed the ninety Muslim youths from Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan to use the Island of Pangkor in Johor, Malaysia, for a guerilla warfare training ground with a mission to secede Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan from the national boundary of the Republic of the Philippines. The four decades conflict also made the inhabitants of the afore-mentioned places divided in goal, aspiration, interest, and ideological strategy and plans in the promotion of peace and development
The recognition of the proprietary rights, power, and authority of the Sulu Sultan and his-co heirs was promulgated thru a decision by C. F. C. Macaskie of the British Court in 1939 was casted aside. Its promulgation and issuance existed twenty-four years prior to the establishment of Federation of Malaysia in 1963 by Great Britain, the British Monarch and the Federation of Malaya,
The Sulu Sultanate acquired title of sovereignty rights over North Borneo (Sabah) after it fought and engaged in two battles for the survival of the Sultanate of Brunei in the late part of 16th century. Part of their descendants were the 235 followers that journeyed back to Sabah (North Borneo). They were a fraction only of the tens of thousands of the Sulu Sultanate’s supporters molded for the cause and repossession of Sabah (North Borneo).
The 2013 Sabah (North Borneo) Stand-Off already formed part of the monumental episode of the Sulu Sultanate’s sacrifices. The patriotic act to defend against the onslaught of the Malaysian forces changed the nature of the journey and hallowed the ground of Tanduo Village, Sabah, with their precious blood and soul when the Malaysian Military Forces unilaterally imposed an armed confrontation against the Datu Raja Muda and his 235 followers. The reward to the souls of the sixty martyrs of the 2013 Sabah Stand Off is unity among the royal children and descendants of 32md Sultan Punjungan Kiram and to continue remembering the perspirations, sacrifices, and blood that spilled at Tandou Village, Lahad Datu, Sabah, in 2013.
IN BEHALF OF
35TH SULTAN PHUGDALUN KIRAM II
and Other Children and Descendants of Five Deceased Brothers
and the Bangsa Suluk/Sug Leaders and People
Dayang Dayang Sitti Krishna Kiram (Idjirani)
and Dayang Dayang Putlih Shieha Kiram (Julkipli)
Royal Daughters of
32nd SULTAN PUNJUNGAN KIRAM
The duly APPOINTED ADMINISTRATOR of ESTATE TERRITORY of NORTH BORNEO (SABAH)
BY VIRTUE of the DECISION PROMULGATED by the BRITISH SESSIONS COURT OF NORTH BORNEO,
SANDAKAN, NORTH BORNEO, in 1939
