Peace Deal With MILF Behind Sabah Crisis

From the Manila Times (Feb 20): Peace Deal With MILF Behind Sabah Crisis

Alienation from the peace process, particularly the drafting of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, prompted the current sultan of Sulu province and some members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to establish permanent residence in a village in Sabah, an expert on Islamic studies said on Tuesday.

Dean Julkipli Wadi of the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Islamic Studies, said that the standoff “is partly the result of a parochial peace policy that has developed these past months.”

“While the framework agreement and the intimacy of the relationship between Malaysia and the Philippines were major developments indeed these past months, these have isolated a number of critical players. And one of these is the sultanate,” Wadi explained.

Asked what he meant by a “parochial” peace process, the university dean said that he meant “the lack of critical participation of institutions and critical players in the shaping of the framework agreement.”

Forged in October 2012 by the negotiating panels of the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the agreement provided the framework that would guide further negotiations, particularly on the establishment of an autonomous Bangsamoro state and the terms of wealth sharing of the government and the political entity.

Wadi said that the sultanate, as a traditional institution in the Muslim society of Mindanao, was slighted by its apparent exclusion from the shaping of the agreement.

Earlier, Jamalul Kiram, current sultan of Sulu, admitted that he was prompted to send a group of some 400 people to Sabah because the sultanate was excluded from the drafting of the agreement.

“[The framework agreement appeared] like a deal only between the government and the MILF, but the domain, or the scope of the agreement actually talks a lot about resources, about territories. The people of Sulu, particularly the sultan, felt that they had not been given ample representation in the process,” Wadi said.

“It simply doesn’t make sense for any entity, or party to negotiate and even talk about wealth sharing in areas like the Sulu archipelago when the major players and stakeholders, including traditional institutions like the sultanate, are isolated if not totally neglected in the whole process,” the dean added.

Posturings

The isolation, apparently, was not only felt by the sultan of Sulu, but also by the MNLF.

Earlier reports said that among Kiram’s supporters were some 20 armed men. The Islamist group claimed that these men were their members.

“It’s not only the sultanate that has been left out, it also includes the MNLF, and the MNLF has also been making some posture this past several months in order to make itself relevant again,” Wadi told The Manila Times.

He mentioned that the recent clash of the MNLF and the Abu Sayyaf group in an operation to retrieve the Filipino crew of an abducted Jordanian journalist was one example of such posturing.

Wadi went as far as suggesting that there might be a brewing alliance between the MNLF and the sultanate of Sulu.

Vital nerve

Wadi, moreover, saw as ironic the neglect to include the sultanate and its claim over Sabah as a crucial part of the peace negotiations between the government and the MILF.

“I would say that the Sabah issue is a vital nerve in the Mindanao conflict—it is the heart of the Mindanao conflict,” Wadi stressed.

He explained that the creation of the MNLF and, subsequently, its splinter group, the MILF, was spurred by a botched Marcos-era plan to occupy Sabah over which the sultanate holds proprietary interests.

In 1972, the Marcos regime secretly gathered a group of Muslim-Filipinos in Corregidor to train them to occupy Sabah. The recruits, however, learned of the plan and rebelled. As a result, they were allegedly killed by government troops. The event was dubbed the Jabidah Massacre and would eventually stoke the anger of Muslim Filipinos and lead to the formation of the MNLF, an organization that would mount a decades-long armed secessionist struggle in Mindanao.

Without the long-standing claim over Sabah, “Nur Misuari would have remained a professor in UP and maybe Hashim Salamat would have remained a librarian in a university,” Wadi said.

Misuari, former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was the founder of the MNLF. Salamat was the founder of the MILF, a splinter group of the MNLF, which separated from the latter because of reported ideological differences.

Call for attention

While the situation in Lahad Datu in Sabah seem tense, Wadi doubted that the standoff will result in a bloody confrontation between the Malaysian government and Kiram’s group.

“I think the standoff is just a way to call for attention but it is not really intended to create problems or result in bloodshed,” he said.

The university dean is also confident that the Malaysian government will not respond harshly to the standoff.

“We are quite glad that Malaysia is also addressing [the standoff] in a calibrated manner because it knows that the Sabah issue is deeply rooted in terms of the sultan’s historical rights and many others. Therefore, it cannot also engage harshly against the followers of the sultan,” Wadi said.

He also noted that Malaysia will avoid an armed confrontation because it does not want international attention on the issue.

“There would be international attention given to the sultanate and the long historical issue would be dug up,” Wadi opined.

The dean, however, believes that the standoff would not necessarily lead to the revitalization of the Philippine claim over Sabah. The incident, meanwhile, should prompt the government and MILF peace panels to be more inclusive in their negotiations, Wadi said.

“The peace panels should be creative enough to raise the question: how do we integrate or address traditional sentiments like the issues of the sultanate so they would be integrated and be a part of the framing of the Bangsamoro?” the dean added.
http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/headlines-mt/41878-peace-deal-with-milf-behind-sabah-crisis