The Game of South-East Asian Thrones: The Man Who Would Be Sultan of Sabah

[ace99]

A standoff between the Malaysian army and a Filipino armed group that claims a part of Malaysia is moving into its second week.

The group of 100 armed men refuses to move from a village in Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah that they have occupied, despite pleas from both the Malaysian and Philippine governments to return to the Sulu archipelago on the Philippine side of the sea border.

On Wednesday, Jamalul Kiram III, a former sultan of Sulu and brother of the man Philippine provincial authorities regard as sultan, rejected a historic peace deal between the Philippines and Muslim rebels and said he would not ask his men to pull out from Sabah.

Security analysts had warned that the 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.

'Sultanate ignored'

Jamalul said the peace deal had handed control of much of Sulu to Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, ignoring the sultanate.

"I cannot understand what our government is doing. I cannot understand why, instead of siding with us because we are Filipinos, they are siding with the Malaysians," he said.

Jamalul said the group of sultan loyalists had gone to Malaysia as a protest action in response to what they saw as the unfair peace deal, and they would not back down, despite growing shortages in food and water from the week-long standoff.

"We will not budge, we will not leave. If we die, then we die," he said.

Malaysian police armed with machine guns have surrounded the village in a palm-oil plantation area.

Malaysian officials said over the weekend that the group's demands would not be met and that the men would be deported soon, without specifying how.

Jamalul said his followers were demanding recognition from Malaysia as the rightful owners of Sabah and renegotiation of the original terms of the lease with a British trading company.

In an arrangement that stretches back to British colonial times, Malaysia pays a token amount to the Sulu sultanate each year for the "rental" of Sabah.

Jamalul said the Sulu royal family had asked to take part in the peace negotiations because the old sultanate's territories would be part of a new autonomous Muslim area, but they were rebuffed by the Philippine government.

He said their group was open to negotiations with Malaysia to settle the standoff quickly.

The Man Who Would Be King.

Yes there is indeed a renegade Sultan with an army intent on recovering his lost domains!

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/02/201322102345987766.html

The Game of South-East Asian Thrones.

 

[Phrossack]

Well, you don't see that every day. He'll probably get very hungry and cave, though.

 

[SamSniped]

Well, this should be fun. If this is A Game of Southeast Asian Thrones, though, when's the first sex scene?

 

[Sonereal]

Who is Jaime in this? As soon as we figure out, you have your answer.

 

[ace99]

It's over:

Malaysian police say they have arrested more than 50 people in the province of Sabah for suspected links to a deadly invasion by Filipino fighters.

Authorities said they made the arrests on Friday amid clashes between security forces and members of the Sulu Royal Army, a group from the southern Philippines that claims Sabah as their own.

About 60 people, including 52 fighters and eight Malaysian police officers, have been killed in fighting that erupted a week ago.

Malaysia has rejected a call by the fighters' leader for a ceasefire in a farming region where the fighters are being pursued.

Scores of followers of a self-proclaimed Philippine sultan landed in the state on Borneo island last month to assert a long-dormant territorial claim in what has become Malaysia's worst security crisis in years.

Villagers 'afraid'

The main group of fighters were holed up in a farming village for three weeks until two deadly shootouts with security forces last weekend triggered a military assault that scattered them amid vast oil palm plantations.

There have been reports of other gunmen elsewhere along Sabah's coast that have raised fears of a wider infiltration by fighters and the possibility they may have been aided by sympathisers already in Malaysia.

"I am afraid when I am working, worrying something will happen when I am on the road," said truck driver Mohammad Macor, a resident of Felda Sahabat 22, a village 2km from the cordoned-off conflict zone.

In the Philippines, the government of President Benigno Aquino has said it has formally asked Malaysia to ensure humanitarian treatment for 10 Filipinos who it says have been captured. Malaysia has not confirmed that account.

The incursion was carried out by a group of followers of Jamalul Kiram III, the self-proclaimed heir to the former southern Philippine sultanate of Sulu, which had a historical claim to Sabah.

Kiram's people say about 235 people took part in the incursion. They also said that 10 had been captured.