Sabah: A Problematic Mix That Requires Tending 
International Herald Tribune
April 27, 1993
Philip Bowring 

- What is the nearest thing East Asia has to Bosnia, meeting point of diverse cultural, religious and historical loyalties and ambitions? No, not the killing fields of homogeneous Cambodia or the rebellious hill country on Burma's borders. The most likely candidate is the juncture of the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo with the Muslim Philippine lands of the Sulu Archipelago and western Mindanao. These areas are little more in the news now than Bosnia was a decade ago. But they are a touchstone of Southeast Asia's ability to manage the centrifugal tendencies of political entities created by colonialism and the competing ambitions of the new nation-states. Since the end of Indonesia's armed confrontation with Malaysia in 1966, the states concerned - all of them members of the Association of South East Asian Nations - have been managing well, preferring to get on with development and to look to the future rather than to the rectification of history. But the underlying problems refuse to vanish. Sabah has no fewer than six potential claimants, including Malaysia: Indonesia, the neighboring giant that violently challenged Sabah's incorporation into Malaysia in 1963 but accepted it when President Sukarno lost power. The Philippines, whose claim rests on historic rights of the sultan of Sulu, who leased Sabah to a British company in 1878. In 1962, a successor sultan transferred his rights to the Philippine government, but with the proviso that it had to succeed in exercising sovereignty. Sultans of Sulu, who can claim that their sovereignty has not lapsed and want to bring their old lands together in a mostly Muslim state. Brunei, which ceded Sabah to the Sulu sultanate in 1704. Brunei does not challenge the status quo, but in the 1960s opposition elements in Brunei wanted to unite it with Sabah and Sarawak and stay outside Malaysia. The people of Sabah. The Malaysian federal government in Kuala Lumpur has always been wary of the separatist tendencies of this resource-rich state, and never more so than now that the state government is led by a predominantly Christian party aligned with political groups opposed to Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad. Sabah is an ethnic patchwork. It has a large Christian population in a country in which Islam has a special place, while Sulu and western Mindanao are Muslim regions in a country in which Catholicism has a special place. Sabah also has several hundred thousand illegal Filipino Muslim migrants. They are tolerated for religious reasons, because of a labor shortage and because locals have never taken much notice of the national frontier across the Sulu Sea, except as an opportunity for smuggling. Two developments this year show willingness to solve internal and international problems, but underline their intractability. Elections were held in March for a government of the Muslim Autonomous Region of Mindanao. Set up in 1990, the autonomous region is an attempt by Manila to deflect Muslims away from support for the Moro National Liberation Front secessionist movement. This has been moderately successful, despite continuing sporadic violence. The liberation front is on the wane, and much of the violence now has more to do with internecine rivalries than with secession. But the area is only tenuously under central authority. Meanwhile, the strengthening of political forces in the region other than the liberation front has buttressed opposition to formal abandonment of Manila's claim to Sabah. The other positive sign was the state visit to Malaysia by the Philippine president, Fidel Ramos, in January, the first since 1968. Malaysia had previously shunned high-level visits, except within the context of ASEAN, because of Manila's failure to drop its claim to Sabah. Mr. Ramos and Mr. Mahathir agreed to set up a joint commission to deal with problems. They also agreed to establish embassy "extension offices" in Mindanao and Sabah to allow effective consular representation without treading on the sovereignty issue. But for the Philippines to drop the claim to Sabah requires legal changes that would be no easier to get through Congress now than when President Corazon Aquino tried and failed in 1987. Even the country's late strongman, Ferdinand Marcos, at the height of his power, never took formal steps to end the claim, although he promised to do so. Today most Filipinos recognize that rich and relatively stable Sabah has no wish to join an impoverished and lawless southern Philippines. However, many Filipinos argue that the current weakness of their country is reason not to drop the claim now. The Sulu heirs would need to be bought off, and their price may be too high even for Malaysia. The more accommodating position Malaysia has adopted toward the Philippines may be partly driven by concerns about the political situation in Sabah, which on joining the Malaysian federation was given considerable autonomy - even the power to keep other Malaysians out of the state. Hostility between Mr. Mahathir and Pairin Kitingan, the chief minister of Sabah, is entrenched and has recently led to intense political maneuvering against Mr. Pairin. Many expect a showdown later this year, perhaps including efforts by Kuala Lumpur to reduce Sabah's constitutional privileges. But Kuala Lumpur must keep a balance between state and federal interests if it is not to risk alienating Sabah, which for all its ethnic and religious complexity has a strong sense of identity. The problem of Sabah/Sulu occasionally worries Indonesia. Since 1967, Jakarta has been scrupulous in its dealings with its neighbors. But Indonesia frets at the possibility of any other country bringing instability to its borders, whether through the politics of religion or irredentism. Bosnia is a warning to economically dynamic East Asia that such issues need constant and careful management.

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