Who Is Laughing? Silly Suspicious Sabah Sulu Standoff!

By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

If Malaysia is clumsy about handling the Sabah standoff, 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.

Malaysia is in a no-win situation as a result of the standoff 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 Tausogs 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 neighbors.

A case of scratching each other’s back?

By Jude Wang

In 1985, Tun Mustapha said perhaps the federal government
wanted to use Manila's claim on Sabah against its people as
a bargaining chip to make them behave.

KOTA KINABALU: With the 13th General Election drawing near, it seems to be a fishy coincidence that the Sultan of Sulu and his family have suddenly decided to revive their claim to Sabah as part of their ancestral right.

In an interview with the Philippines’ Daily Inquirer, Crown Prince Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram, reportedly said that they will have to pursue the Sabah claim on their own since the Philippines government appeared to have ignored their demand to include their claim to Sabah as an “integral and essential” aspect of the peace agreement involving “any armed group in Mindanao”.

‘Flag-burning sultan’ says Sulu army fake

If the authorities allow the armed intruders in Lahad Datu
to leave peacefully, it only shows that the government is
 involved in this drama.

LAHAD DATU: A claimant to the North Borneo Sulu Sultanate is opposing the claim of the Sulu armed group that Sabah is their ancestral homeland.

“My family is the rightful owner to the throne,” said the 45-year-old Lahad Datu businessman Abdul Rajak Aliuddin who has proclaimed himself as the Sixth Sultan of North Borneo.

The controversial Rajak, who was once detained and charged for burning the Sabah flag and raising the North Borneo Sultanate flag with the red lion symbol, said based on history the Sulu armed group led by Raja Muda Azzimudie Kiram has no rights to Sabah or North Borneo.

Isu di Lahad Datu tak ubah seperti kes Sauk: Mat Zain

Seorang bekas pegawai tinggi polis berkata rakyat sepatutnya menuntut agar kumpulan warga asing bersenjata yang dikepung pihak berkuasa di Lahad Datu, Sabah ditangani dengan keras seperti tindakan ke atas kumpulan al-Maunah dalam insiden tahun 2000 di Sauk, Perak.

Bekas Pengarah Jabatan Siasatan Jenayah Kuala Lumpur Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim memberi alasan, situasi yang berlaku di Kampung Tandou, Lahad Datu itu tidak banyak berbeza dengan peristiwa di Bukit Jenalik itu.

Sulu sultan rejects MILF peace deal

Reuters
Posted at 02/20/2013 3:16 PM | Updated as of 02/20/2013 8:40 PM

MANILA, Philippines - The sultan of Sulu region on Wednesday rejected the peace deal between the Philippines and Muslim rebels, and said he will not ask his men to pull out from Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah.

About 100 armed men have occupied a village in Sabah in the stand-off with police.

Security analysts had warned that the historic peace deal signed by the Philippine government and Muslim rebels last October to end 40 years of conflict in the Philippine south risked stirring instability by alienating powerful clan leaders.

Sulu Sultan heirs to ask US help on Sabah

Malaysia won’t compromise sovereignty in standoff with armed Filipinos

The heirs of the Sultan of Sulu are considering asking the help of the United States in the ongoing standoff between government forces and armed Filipinos in a Sabah village, over which Malaysia says it won’t compromise its sovereignty.

“The American government has a record of always protecting the rights of its citizens, unlike our government here,” former senator Santanina Rasul, one of the heirs who lays claim over Sabah, which is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo, said.

 

Jeffrey Asks if Lahad Datu Standoff a Charade to Scare Voters

Does the government led by BN trying to divert voters attention?

By Junior Fendi 
KOTA KINABALU: The State Reform Party suspects that the Barisan Nasional government is trying to gain political mileage from the Lahad Datu standoff, using it to scare the people into voting for the BN in the coming general elections.

 

“It is even possible that this is an elaborate BN military strategy choreographed to achieve that purpose,” its state chairman, Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan said in a statement. “This new form of fear mongering makes sense knowing BN’s desperation in wanting to hold on to power in the light of the ruling coalition’s lowest level of popularity and support at the moment.”

 

Is Lahad Datu siege a Umno-BN plan?

The government's 'unconvincing actions' via negotiations
had 'legitimised' the Sulu army's demands and made us
a laughing stock, said STAR chief Jeffrey Kitingan.

By Raymond Tombung

KOTA KINABALU: Is the incursion of more than 100 armed Filipino men from the alleged royal Sulu army an elaborate federal level Umno strategy to scare Sabahans into voting back the Barisan Nasional in the 13th general election?

Is that why the federal government and its top leaders – Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak included – seem unperturbed by the threats and demands of the Manila-acknowledged Sultan of Sulu Jamalul Kiram III and his men led by brother Raja Muda Abimuddin who are holed up in Lahad Datu since Feb 9?

Isn’t it possible that Putrajaya and Manila are in cahoots? After all, it has been reported in the Philippine media that President Benigno Aquino was “informed of the incursions from Day One”. Also noteworthy is that Malaysia took credit as peacemaker in the long-drawn insurgency in the southern Philippines.

Can Najib guarantee Sabah’s security?

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