MANIPULATIVE: With his rag-tag army on the run, Sulu sultan Jamalul Kiram Jamalul now turns to waging what seems like a futile propaganda war to advance the cause of his claim on Sabah.
AS the hopelessly outgunned intruders from the Southern Philippines are fighting a losing battle against the Malaysian armed forces in Sabah, the self-proclaimed Sulu sultan Jamalul Kiram is waging a propaganda war against Malaysia in Manila.
He is turning to the media to paint himself and his followers as victims of Malaysian military aggression and the people from Sulu living in Sabah as being oppressed, persecuted and living in fear.
His operation centre in Manila is churning out ‘horror’ stories of women and children being shot at and prisoners taken by the Malaysian security forces being tortured.
The fact that it was Jamalul who ordered his followers to intrude into Lahad Datu in the first place has been conveniently ignored.
His ability to deflect responsibility for the loss of so many lives and the suffering of his own people has been helped largely by a sympathetic Filipino press and social media which highlighted his sob stories without any semblance of verification.
Although Manila, under the then president Marcos, officially dropped all claims on Sabah in 1977, leading to the normalisation of relations between the Philippines and Malaysia, the sense of injustice over losing what they believed was their land still lingers among many Filipinos, especially in the south.
Jamalul’s foolhardy decision to press his claim over Sabah through the intrusion on Feb 12 by some 200 armed followers, led by his brother Agbimuddin Kiram, and the subsequent clashes that ensued, has opened up the old wound that never really healed.
Faced with certain military defeat and the loss of so many of the gunmen they sent to Sabah, Jamalul and his backers tried to wriggle their way out by offering to negotiate a ceasefire with the Malaysian government.
It was a clever but preposterous gambit which Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib did not fall for as doing so would tantamount to recognising Sulu as a sovereign state and Jamalul as its legitimate leader.
There is no room for talks with anyone who invaded our nation and laid claim to one of the states.
As the conflict drags on, Jamalul is losing grip not only of the situation in the combat zone in Sabah but, more significantly, among his own followers as well.
Contrary to his initial claims that his armed followers were fired by patriotism and willing to die for their cause, it has now emerged from admissions by some of the captured gunmen that they were actually driven by promises of $600 in wages, land and position.
The mounting casualties among the Sulu invaders are also beginning to tell on the resolve of Jamalul’s followers.
This was exposed by the spokesman of self-proclaimed sultan Abraham Idjirani who said when calling for the ceasefire: “The achievement of Sulu obtained over the last few days cannot compare to the value of lives lost.”
Now that the intruders have been cornered into a desperate situation by an overwhelmingly superior force, the question on the wisdom – of the lack of it – behind Jamalul’s real objective in sparking the conflict comes in focus.
No one in his right mind would have thought he could wrest a state from a nation with just a rag-tag band of gunmen.
Surely, Jamalul could not have dreamt of a military victory when ordering a tragically flawed incursion into Sabah. Undoubtedly his plan was to draw international attention to his ‘claim.’
On this score, he has succeeded to a certain extent as the Lahad Datu intrusion and its ramifications are widely reported in the Philippines media and several Filipino NGOs have called for Asean member countries to intervene.
The executive director of Philippine International Dialogue was reported as saying: “In this time of need for resolute leadership in our region, we find Asean’s voice markedly silent on Sabah. We feel it is time for Asean to step up and lead in this time of crisis.”
Almost all of the international news networks have reported on the clashes in Sabah, notably BBC and Al Jazeera.
With his call for unilateral ceasefire rebuffed, the manipulative Jamalul has turned to the United Nations, calling on the international body to probe human rights violations of Filipinos in Malaysia.
It is perhaps a tat early to assess the damages Jamalul’s folly has done to the bilateral relations between Putrajaya and Manila.
How it is going to affect the Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace accord, facilitated by Malaysia, is yet to be seen.
The pressure is not so much on Kuala Lumpur as on Manila as while Najib is getting approval from Malaysians for his handling of the situation, Acquino is facing pressure from his own people for what they perceived as “mishandling the Sabah issue.”
President Acquino’s website was hacked recently with one hacker posting: “We are silent witnesses as to how you are mishandling the Sabah issue. You did nothing while our fellow brothers are being butchered by the Malaysian forces and while our women and children become subject of human rights abuses. If you can’t act on the issue as Philippine President, at least do something as a fellow Filipino. We are watching.”
Jamalul’s quixotic quest to claim Sabah on behalf of a defunct sultanate has stirred up a storm that will not subside soon.
How will it end? The world is watching.