MANILA: Followers of a Philippine sultan who crossed to Sabah this month will not leave and are reclaiming the area as their ancestral territory, the sultan said Sunday amid a tense standoff.
Sultan Jamalul Kiram said his followers – some 400 people including 20 gunmen – were resolute in staying despite being cornered by security forces, with the Malaysian government insisting the group return to the Philippines.
“Why should we leave our own home? “Our followers will stay in (the Sabah town of) Lahad Datu. Nobody will be sent to the Philippines. Sabah is our home,” he said.
The sultan did not directly threaten violence but said “there will be no turning back for us”.
Malaysian officials have said that many of the group have weapons, but Kiram insisted his followers made the trip unarmed.
“If they have arms, they were already in Sabah,” the sultan said.
Kiram said he was prompted to send the group to Sabah after the sultanate was left out of a framework agreement sealed in October between Manila and Filipino Muslim rebels, which paves the way for an autonomous area in the southern Philippines that is home to the Muslim minority of the largely-Christian nation. The sultanate’s spokesman, Abraham Idjirani, later said the sultan’s brother Raja Muda Abimuddin Kiram, who led the group to Sabah, had told him via telephone that the party was preparing to stay.
“The objective is to reside now in that place permanently, considering the sultanate owns Sabah by rights of sovereignty,” he told AFP.
Idjirani said there were about 400 followers of the sultanate in the area, including about 20 who were armed.
On Thursday Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein put the number at between 80 to 100 gunmen.
Idjirani said the group would not instigate violence but would resist if provoked.
“We recognise the capability of Malaysia. We don’t have the arms and capacity but we have the historical truth,” he said, adding that the group’s “fate is to see the recognition they are entitled to … or they die defending their ancestral rights.” — AFP