Phl’s Sabah claim discussed in Noy’s KL trip

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines and Malaysia discussed the ticklish issue of the claim over Sabah during President Aquino’s state visit in Kuala Lumpur and agreed not to make it a source of conflict at this time.

Aquino told reporters in Malaysia that after the Lahad Datu incident, it became clearer that positive engagement is needed and the study on the country’s claim is continuing.
Last year, followers of the late Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III occupied Lahad Datu to press their Sabah claim. They said they were being left out of the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front being facilitated by Malaysia.

Before Aquino left he said Sabah was not part of his trip’s agenda. However, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak brought up the matter of a Philippine consulate being set up in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s capital.

Some sectors oppose this move because it will mean giving up the Philippines’ claim since consulates are established only in foreign territories.

Aquino said without good relations with Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur could have just sent home all the thousands of Filipinos in Sabah after the Lahad Datu incident.

“How do you address generating employment for hundreds of thousands or at least a couple of hundred thousands?” Aquino asked.

“So we thank them that they...were very selective. They were very conscious of what the negative effects are if they sent all of them back at the same time. We recognize also the anxieties on their concerns. So that’s just more or less the extent of our discussion on that particular topic,” the President said, referring to the reported crackdown on Filipinos in Sabah.

He also noted that the Sabah issue itself is too complex and its history is long, thus the need for meticulous study.

Aquino showed a three-page briefer on Sabah that “grabs us into exactly what transpired in all of these centuries.”

“Now, what is written here is not what is the common or the conventional wisdom of what our people perceive to be. We tasked (Justice) Secretary Leila (de Lima) to come up with a study on the Sabah issue, and also I think we will be going to one of the institutions under UP (University of the Philippines) to fully flesh out all of these things,” the President said.

“This is part of the effort to understand exactly what has transpired. Then we told our Malaysian counterparts, first of all we’re not after conflict with anybody. But we want to be able to tell our people the real score, and in that sense, come up to a consensus based on that which is right,” he explained.

Aquino added that the Department of Foreign Affairs is re-examining the request to set up the consulate in Sabah and the claim that Kota Kinabalu is not part of the property being claimed by the whole of the Sulu sultanate.

Najib also announced that during his talk with Aquino, they agreed on the importance of the timely exchange of intelligence as well as ensuring a high degree of deterrent.

He added that the Philippines and Malaysia are also looking at the possibility of establishing a hotline between their security forces to immediately respond to any security incident or threat.

The Philippines and Malaysia reviewed the aspects of their defense relations, particularly on training and education exchanges between their armed forces and defense officials. The two countries are looking at continued joint training activities and intelligence exchanges.

“We need to ensure immediate interdiction on our Malaysian side as well as the Philippine side, so that is a very important facet. Once we have peace and security, then trade and investment will flow in the southern Philippines as well as in Sabah,” Najib said.

source:  Philippine Star

MLQ III: North Borneo (Sabah): An annotated timeline 1640s-present

http://www.quezon.ph/2013/03/01/north-borneo-sabah-an-annotated-timeline-1640s-present/

Kissinger on the Mutual Defense Treaty

With the Philippine population made nervous by Chinese claims and activity in the Spratlys, a year ago Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario issued a statement offering reassurance that the USA would honor its obligations under the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) signed in 1951. Perhaps significantly, none of the US statepersons he quoted mentioned the islands by name. One therefore wonders whether Washington still subscribes to the State Department view of 1975.

On June 9, 1975, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sent a lengthy telegram (hence the occasional absence of definite and indefinite articles in the following) to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, with a copy to the Manila Embassy, in which he stated that Washington’s “legal interpretation is that MDT commitments do not repeat not apply in event of attack on Spratlys or on GRP (Government of  the Philippines) forces stationed there.” Originally classified “secret” but declassified in July 2006, the communication has more recently been WikiLeaked.

Principally, the MDT covers the metropolitan territory of each party and “islands under its jurisdiction in the Pacific Ocean,” but Washington’s view was that the Spratlys were neither.

The US government, said Kissinger, “regards question of sovereignty over Spratlys (including ‘Freedomland’ or ‘Kalayaan’) as undetermined and we take no position on merits of claims of various disputants. We note that at time MDT signed, GRP had asserted no claim to any of Spratly Islands, and had protested neither Vietnamese nor Chinese claims, which had been reiterated at time of negotiation of 1951 Japanese peace treaty. USG (US Government) announced publicly at that time it considered sovereignty question undetermined.”

Moreover, the Spratlys were not included in the territory ceded by Spain to the USA in 1898, and they were also excluded from the “maps accompanying presentation of MDT.” The Spratlys did not qualify as “islands under its jurisdiction” because, says Kissinger, this formulation was intended “to cover other territory which a party administered by international agreement but was not sovereign over, e.g. UN trust territories and (at that time) Okinawa. We are not aware of any Philippine administered territory falling within this category.”
Even so, in theory the Philippines could expand the territory over which it was sovereign, although the US government did “not see legal basis at this time … for supporting the claim to Spratlys of one country over that of other claimants. Continuous, effective and uncontested occupation and administration of territory is a primary foundation for establishing sovereignty in the absence of international settlement, but Philippine occupation could hardly be termed uncontested in face of claims and protests of Chinese and Vietnamese.”

In view of the above, the State Department agreed with the view of the Manila Embassy, i.e. that the Philippine government was more likely to invoke a third category, which concerned an attack on “its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.” Even here, Kissinger saw problems, as Washington did “not believe that this aspect of the treaty gives either party carte blanche to deploy forces anywhere in the Pacific with the assurance that the other party will be bound by the MDT in the event of attack on those forces.”

Due regard, said Kissinger, must be paid to the “overall purpose and provisions of MDT,” the preamble of which “sets forth collective defense purpose of MDT and reaffirms parties’ commitments to principles and purposes of UN Charter, while in Article I parties undertake to refrain from ‘threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with UN Charter.’”

So in what circumstances could the MDT be invoked? “Under most foreseeable circumstances,” said Kissinger, “the treaty would apply if either party were attacked on high seas or in international air space” — or if the armed forces of either party were deployed in a third country in the Pacific, with that country’s consent and they came under an “external armed attack.”

Washington took the same view regarding its mutual defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand (the “Anzus” Treaty), which could be invoked in the event of an attack on US forces stationed in Japan or on Anzus forces “stationed in countries in Pacific to which they have security obligations.” Even here, however, Washington insisted that it must be consulted on deployments potentially affecting its treaty obligations and that it must have discretion on how it would act.

“On the other hand,” the telegram reads, “deployment of forces to a third country without its consent and without legitimate provocation would in most circumstances be contrary to Article I of MDT, and therefore would not, in our view, create obligations under Articles IV and V on the other party in event of attack on such forces.”

 A hypothetical attack on Philippine garrisons in the Spratlys would be a different case. Although the USA had not recognized the sovereignty of any country over the islands, a Philippine occupation would not be viewed as an illegal invasion of another state, but neither could the Philippine deployment be viewed as an “aspect of collective defense purpose of MDT. Rather, we view purpose of GRP garrison as establishing and enforcing a claim to sovereignty over openly disputed territory. MDT in our view does not obligate us to support this type of deployment in event of armed attack.”

This, concluded Kissinger, represented the legal rationale of Washington’s position.

“As a practical matter, we see precious little chance Congress or the American people would support US intervention in Spratly dispute.” Politically, he said, it was surely less harmful “to deny our obligations on legal grounds, than to leave unfulfilled an acknowledged commitment. Furthermore, contrary interpretation would also create difficulty for US if Philippines ever tried to invoke MDT with respect to Sabah…”

As we’ll see next week, two years earlier Ferdinand Marcos had hinted that he might do precisely that.

source:  Tribune by  Ken Fuller

The Philippines and Sabah in the 1970s — 4

As attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the problems between the Philippines and Malaysia were flagging, on Aug. 26, 1973 President Ferdinand Marcos told US Ambassador William Sullivan that the key to a peaceful solution in the Sulu archipelago lay with Sabah’s Chief Minister Tun Mustapha, and he was seeking a deal with him both directly and through the talks brokered by Indonesia.

Marcos said he had told Mustapha that if he stopped interfering in Sulu he would withdraw the Sabah claim — and if Mustapha wanted independence for Sabah (which, as we will see, he did from time to time espouse), he would, through the trilateral talks, support that. Marcos blamed the lack of progress of the talks after Hong Kong on Malaysia’s Ghazali, who he described as a “picador,” and the perceptive Sullivan expressed the view that Marcos’s offer of support for Sabah independence might be intended as a counter to the Malaysian’s “pics.”

But the search for a diplomatic solution seemed dead in the water, and by mid-September Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said that he had, due to the lack of progress, opted out of the role as intermediary. According to him, the best hope was for the Philippines and Malaysia to “keep quiet on the subject” of Sabah. A month later, he told US Ambassador Francis Galbraith that Marcos had agreed to “eliminate” the Philippine claim to Sabah but that Malaysian Prime Minister Razak had failed to respond and so there “is nothing more I can do.”

If the apparent absence of relevant cable traffic over the next few months is any guide, the Philippines and Malaysia did indeed “keep quiet on the subject,” but then on March 5, 1974 Marcos told Sullivan of “disturbing intelligence which tied Malaysia directly into training, supplying and organizing anti-government forces in Mindanao and Sulu.” Moreover, Marcos said he was convinced that Razak was involved. He praised the mediation efforts of Indonesia’s Suharto and Malik and suspected that Malaysia “had frustrated these efforts and is playing some larger game with Libya and the Arab states.”

Marcos’s fear was that Malaysia would attempt to rally the Arab oil-producers against the Philippines at the Islamic Conference due to convene in Kuala Lumpur in May, and so he was attempting through Suharto to arrange a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Razak and Tun Mustapha before that date. He was prepared to drop the Philippine claim to Sabah, but if Razak sought the detachment of the Sulus from the Philippines “or some larger scheme,” this could be “explosive.”

During the visit to Manila of Saudi Minister of State Omar Saqqaf just over a week later, Marcos wooed him on oil security and the Southern Philippines, advising him that “ancestral lands currently occupied by Muslims would be set aside for exclusive ownership of Muslim communities.” Malaysia attempted to counter these attempts, but Saqqaf refused to meet its ambassador. He vowed Saudi commitment to assisting the Philippines to reach a solution in the south and to the provision of substantial financial assistance after hostilities had ceased.

Sullivan thought that Marcos had probably “clinched the case by showing Saqqaf excerpts” from the document allegedly providing proof of Malaysian support of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The document, which was leaked to Associated Press correspondent Arnold Zeitlin, claimed to demonstrate that: since 1969 Malaysia had trained MNLF members, including chairman Nur Misuari, at various sites in Malaysia; since December 1972 there had been at least 58 landings during which the MNLF had received at least 200,000 rounds of ammunition and 5,407 weapons, the last shipment being delivered by two Malaysian naval vessels on Dec. 31, 1973; and that according to an intercepted letter, Tun Mustapha had provided P750,000 (then worth $112,500) to MNLF leaders.

This provoked the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur to seek the Malaysian view of these allegations. Responding to such an advance, on March 21, Secretary-General Zaiton of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made an extended presentation to the Ambassador in which he asserted that the Muslim problem in the Southern Philippines was deep-rooted and internal, and one which could only be solved by Filipinos. Neither the Malaysian government nor Sabah’s Tun Mustapha was involved. For both domestic and regional reasons, Malaysia wanted peace, because violence was disruptive.

On the other hand, many Sabahans had family and friendship ties in the Sulu archipelago and there was considerable popular sympathy for the plight of Filipino Muslims. Then again, the Philippine claim to Sabah caused “suspicion and antipathy,” and the Jabidah incident of 1968, when Marcos had been training a unit to be used in the taking of Sabah, was fresh in Malaysians’ memories. Even so, Malaysia, far from attempting to orchestrate Muslim state sanctions against the Philippines, had argued against Libyan “punitive proposals.”
Even now, Zaiton pointed out, the Philippines had made no official statement alleging Malaysian interference. Both governments had agreed to “let sleeping dogs lie,” and work through Asean for regional cooperation. The bottom line was that Malaysia would never accept the linking of the Sabah and Southern Philippines issues as this would imply that it was responsible for the problems of the latter.

The Ambassador was of the view that this was a “highly professional presentation, of clean hands and good intentions, and as far as it went, truthful.” He said, however, that the remarks on the sympathy of Sabah residents implied “that some people in private capacity might be providing tangible evidence of their sympathy, but that even if they were,” it did not add significantly to Manila’s problem.
Was this view naive? We’ll see next week.

source:  Tribune by  Ken Fuller

The Philippines and Sabah in the 1970s — 3

By May 1973, diplomatic efforts were underway within Asean to broker a deal whereby Ferdinand Marcos would drop the Philippine claim to Sabah in return for Malaysia stopping the flow of arms to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), thought to be facilitated by Sabah Chief Minister Tun Mustapha.
However, little seems to have been achieved at the meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister Razak and Indonesia’s President Suharto in Palembang, South Sumatra on May 7. Razak even denied that they had discussed the possibility of a three-nation summit, saying that, although he would welcome it, he had received no offer of mediation by Indonesia. Those hoping for a solution to the problem probably took no comfort from the fact that Razak returned home in the private jet of Tun Mustapha, who welcomed him on his arrival.
It transpired, in fact, that the cause of Indonesian mediation had received a setback when, on May 1, Suharto aide Ali Murtopo had, without presidential approval, made what the US Embassy in Jakarta judged to be an “ill-advised statement” in which he had publicly urged the Philippines to drop its claim to Sabah, arguing that unless this was done, Indonesia might be subject to similar claims in the future. This, said the Embassy had “stunned and perplexed” Indonesia’s Foreign Department. A week later, Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik denied to the press that Indonesia had asked the Philippines to drop its claim, dismissing the possibility of any future claim affecting Indonesia.

Despite his public denial two days earlier, on May 9 Malaysian Prime Minister Razak told the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur that Indonesia was, in fact, “committed” to act as intermediary and that Foreign Minister Malik was planning a meeting, hopefully in the near future. There was, indeed, a meeting of sorts between Philippine and Malaysian representatives in Jakarta at this time, although it was obviously not a summit. At this stage, Malik was confident that Marcos would drop the Sabah claim, although he advised that, due to Murtopo’s unwise statement, there would be no decision for “some weeks.”

On May 11, secretary general Zaiton of Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there would be a meeting in a “week or two.” He predicted — correctly — that the Philippines would not be pleased by the fact that Malaysia would be represented by Minister of Special Functions Ghazali Shafie, as in the past he had been the “principal contestor” of the Philippines’ claim to Sabah.
The tripartite meeting eventually took place in Hong Kong on June 1. The UK High Commission advised the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur that the Malaysians were not optimistic because the Philippine delegation was composed of “Marcos politicians.” This pessimism was shared by the Indonesians, Malik’s chief of personal staff Alex Alatas telling US Ambassador Francis Galbraith that the Philippine position “seemed to have hardened,” and so he expected no breakthrough. He was right, although the Malaysians agreed to join with Indonesia in assisting the Philippines to resolve the problems in the south of that country, and a further meeting, at which an Indonesia formula would be agreed, was planned.

Thereafter, Malaysia changed its line and by July the Indonesians conceded that they were no longer “pushing hard” for a resumption of talks. Neither was Malaysia, for according to Razak’s foreign affairs adviser Zain Azraai the government no longer agreed that the issues of Sabah and the MNLF rebellion should be linked, as the Philippine claim on Sabah was “completely unjustified” and the latter was only soluble by unilateral Philippine action. Linking them, he said, would allow Marcos to use Malaysia as a “whipping boy” if the situation worsened. In any case, Malaysian distrust of Marcos (who, it was feared, could always revive the Sabah claim at a later date) was a “fundamental factor.”

According to the US’ Kuala Lumpur Embassy, Zain stated that “clear evidence of Marcos’s desire and ability to meet demands of Philippine Muslims” was more important to Malaysia than settlement of the Sabah claim. Embassy official Cheslaw commented that Zain’s remarks were “somewhat typical” of Malaysia’s attitude, and that “deeply pervasive distrust of Marcos … appears to be their principal inhibition in moving toward a solution.”

In Jakarta on Aug. 2, US Ambassador Galbraith asked Malik how his mediation efforts were going. Malik expressed “some impatience and irritation” with the Malaysians, who had departed from their Hong Kong undertaking by saying that they wanted no involvement in the Southern Philippines problem but that the Sabah claim should be dropped anyway, and that they feared that Muslims in Malaysia and elsewhere would blame them if they assisted Marcos. The Malaysians had asked Malik whether he trusted Marcos, and he had replied that he did, and that he would make no more effort if they were not prepared to support his formula.

It did indeed seem as if Malaysia was unprepared to become involved in seeking a solution to the problems of the Southern Philippines, although Prime Minister Razak told Ambassador Lydman on Aug. 25 that both Malaysia and Indonesia were prepared to offer assistance in the rehabilitation of Muslim areas affected by the war — but only after the Philippine government had ceased fighting and began to gain the confidence of Muslim leaders “for a meaningful program of social and economic rehabilitation.” The rebels, said Razak, were “desperate men who, knowing that they could not win against the government forces, nevertheless were forced into violence because of the hopelessness of their situation.”

Thus, the hopes of those who had foreseen a swift conclusion to the problem of Sabah and the amelioration of that in the Sulu archipelago were dashed. Slowly, and not particularly successfully, attempts to find a solution would continue.

source:  Tribune by  Ken Fuller

The Philippines and Sabah in the 1970s — 2

We saw last week that when, in March 1973, President Ferdinand Marcos told US Ambassador Henry Byroade that he was thinking of placing the issue of the arming of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) by Malaysia before the Mutual Defense Board (created by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines and the USA), Byroade recommended to Washington that the possibility of Marcos invoking the MDT be headed off by a series of actions by other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members.

Essentially, that is what happened, with Indonesia playing the major role. For the next few years, the agreement sought involved Marcos dropping the Philippine claim to Sabah in return for Malaysia ensuring that the flow of arms and ammunition from Sabah to the MNLF was stopped.

Just days after the Marcos-Byroade meeting, Indonesian foreign minister Adam Malik was assuring the US Embassy in Jakarta that he was trying to calm the Malaysians, and that Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo had agreed with him (Malik) and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein (father of the current leader Najib Razak) that he would attempt to persuade Marcos to drop the Sabah claim; if this was successful Malik would mount an “all-out effort” to help defuse the Mindanao situation.

Malik was not particularly optimistic, however, feeling that the Kuala Lumpur government had little leverage over Sabah Chief Minister Tun Mustapha (who, with numerous friends and relations in Sulu, was thought to be behind the arms shipments). Meanwhile, Indonesian director-general for political affairs Didi Djajadiningrat asked the Embassy whether the US could also be of assistance, whereupon Ambassador  Francis Galbraith told him that Washington wanted to leave Asean relations to its members — a position that was maintained thereafter.

On March 13, after a palace luncheon, Marcos asked Byroade for a discussion on Mindanao, during which Byroade noted that in recent diplomatic discussions the Philippine claim on Sabah was always mentioned. Marcos told him of the meeting Romulo had held with Razak in Kuala Lumpur a month earlier, where Razak had promised that if the claim was dropped he would travel to Manila to discuss how he might help to defuse the Mindanao situation. Marcos, however, told Byroade that it would have to be the other way round: if Malaysia restored the situation in the Sulu archipelago “to what it was prior to the outbreak of this new crisis,” he would go to Kuala Lumpur “and hold talks on the broader picture, including Sabah…”

 “I gained the impression,” Byroade reported, “that Sabah was not all that important to Marcos’ future scheme of things, but it was not likely that he could agree to drop the claim under existing circumstances.”
In Jakarta, Ambassador Galbraith suggested that the best hope for securing Malaysian cooperation in reducing foreign support for the MNLF “might be some kind of prearranged meeting between Marcos and Razak in which it would have to be agreed that Marcos would give his personal, oral assurance that he would work to further downplay the Philippine claim to Sabah and authorizing Razak to inform Tun Mustapha that in return for hands off Mindanao and Malaysian influence to discourage Mindanao rebels, Marcos would continue to neglect Ph claim to Sabah with objective finally dropping it when it could be done without showing weakness.”

In Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Zaiton Ibrahim Ahmad, secretary general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called in US Ambassador Jack Lydman to advise him that only a deal on Sabah could persuade his government to call off Tun Mustapha. Zaiton said that Malaysia did not expect Marcos to “publicly bow his head in defeat on the Sabah issue.” At the same time, he warned that there was no guarantee that any action by Malaysia would resolve the situation in the Southern Philippines, which was deep-rooted, although “there was at least a fair chance” that it could be helpful.

Zaiton told Lydman that Prime Minister Razak had advised Romulo in February that Malaysia was not encouraging the MNLF, although Tun Mustapha probably was, and that Razak was “unable to control these activities.” This was contradicted a few days later when Senate speaker Ong Yoke Lin told the Embassy that Razak would welcome an abandonment of the Philippine claim to Sabah so that he could then “clamp down on Mustapha…”
So was Mustapha controllable or not? The failure of Razak to act against him lends credence to the claim made by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew during a private conversation in Washington that the Malaysia-Philippine problems were “mostly Malaysia’s fault,” although even he acknowledged that a deal on Sabah would not resolve the problem of the Southern Philippines as it was “basically internal.”

Indonesia, about to act as intermediary, had its own reasons for adopting this role. Foreign Minister Malik told an Embassy official at a Jakarta social gathering that he had warned Tun Mustapha that if he brought about a situation in Sulu that could be exploited by Philippine Maoists, “he should realize what Indonesia would have to do” — a veiled warning, said the official, “of Indonesia’s determination to crush all forms of communism in or near its borders.” For his part, Mustapha told Malik that he was not involved in promoting conflict but that, having been born in Sulu, he often received requests for assistance from friends and relatives.

By April 30, 1973, Malik was sounding more optimistic than previously, telling the US charge d’affaires that it was likely that “something will be worked out.” The issue had received a thorough airing at the Asean meeting in Pattaya, where it was suggested that Indonesia act as intermediary, and Malik had therefore arranged a confidential meeting between Philippine and Malaysian envoys for May 7 and was confident of success.

But Malik was, as we will see next week, to be disappointed.

source:  Tribune by  Ken Fuller  (Feedback to: outsiders.view@yahoo.com)

The Philippines and Sabah in the 1970s

This is the first installment in a series on this subject. All columns in the series are based on US diplomatic cables declassified in 2005 and 2006 and  now available in WikLeaks’ Public Library of US Diplomacy at wikileaks.org/plusd.

Last week, we saw that in 1975 US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that any attempt by the Philippines to invoke the provisions of the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) over Sabah would “create difficulty” for the USA, but the Marcos government had come close to doing that just two years earlier.
As a result of the events earlier this year, the Philippine claim to Sabah is now widely-known, the argument being that the Sultan of Brunei ceded territory in North Borneo to the Sultan of Sulu in the mid-17th or early 18th century (depending on which version one reads), whose descendent in 1877 to 1878 leased (or, in the opposing view, ceded) that territory to the British North Borneo Company. In 1963, Sabah became part of the Federation of Malaysia.

It was claimed that in 1968 President Ferdinand Marcos had trained a Muslim force called Jabidah on Corregidor with the intention of using this to regain Sabah for the Philippines. According to some sources, this came to grief when the trainees rebelled and, in the most widely-circulated account, were massacred as a result. This latter has been disputed recently, but in any case the operation was aborted.

Nevertheless, there were two serious and inter-related consequences. It is widely accepted that the Jabidah massacre was a crucial factor leading to the formation of the Moro National Liberation Force (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari; secondly, Marcos would claim that from 1969 onwards Malaysia had trained MNLF rebels, including Misuari, at Pulao Panghor, an island twelve hours’ drive from Kuala Lumpur, with other training exercises being held at Lahad Datu and Banguey Island, Sabah, and that arms and ammunition were being provided by Tun Mustapha, Sabah’s Chief Minister.

Ferdinand Marcos would sometimes surprise the Americans by his nuanced view of the Muslim conflict. US Ambassador William Sullivan reported that in a meeting on Aug. 26, 1973 Marcos made a clear distinction between the situation in the Sulu archipelago and that on Mindanao itself. While he saw the former as arising from “outside agitation from Sabah,” with regard to the latter he “showed a surprising sympathy for the rebels and a caustic criticism of his fellow Christians. He placed the basic blame for the current situation on Christian greed for Moslem lands and the insensitivity of Christian governors, military leaders, and Constabulary. He felt the Mindanao situation was more “fundamentally significant than the Sulus…”

Earlier that same year, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) appeared to be on the defensive in many areas of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, and on March 5 Marcos related his deepening concern to Sullivan’s predecessor as US Ambassador, Henry Byroade, stressing the need for military equipment and inferring  that the MNLF had the initiative. Rather more ominously, he stated that the Philippine government would probably discuss the “deteriorating situation” with the Mutual Defense Board (MDB), which administered the 1951 MDT. When Marcos asked him what he thought of that proposal, Byroade guardedly replied that the US members would be able to merely listen, as decisions would be made elsewhere.

Mention of the MDB, of course, raised the question of the treaty itself, under which either party could in certain circumstances call upon the support of the other in the event of attack by a third party in the Pacific area. Byroade was far from happy at this turn of events, advising Washington that in such “deteriorating circumstances” a Philippine attempt to “engage our bilateral mechanisms” would “pose some problems” for the US government. “It would therefore be in our interests,” he said, “to head off such moves while we deal with military supply matter in most appropriate fashion.”

Byroade therefore recommended a “series of demarches” (courses of action or maneuvers) “on Malacañang by Asean members Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore and also Australia as well as ourselves” in order to persuade the Malaysian government “to restrain role of Sabah and Tun Mustapha…” Direct approaches by the Philippines to Malaysia had been unsuccessful due to the “Sabah claim issue” and so “it is clear greater pressure needs to be exerted on Malaysians.” It would also be useful, he continued, for the UK and Australia (fellow-members with Malaysia in the British Commonwealth) to indicate to Malaysia “how unwise and unrealistic it is to seek abandonment of Philippine Sabah claim under pressure of these circumstances.”
It is clear from this that the Americans did not seriously doubt that the MNLF was receiving arms from Sabah, if not from Malaysia itself, and this would become clearer still over the next few years.

In March 1975, for example, French military attaché Col. Loussouarn, resident in Jakarta, made a brief visit to Manila during which he was shown some French 81-mm mortar rounds recently captured by Philippine troops in Cotabato, where in recent months over a hundred had been fired at the AFP’s regional headquarters. Loussouarn had the serial numbers checked and reported that they came from a batch recently sold to Malaysia. According to Ambassador Sullivan, the Filipinos had previously assumed that such weapons had been coming from Libya.

A few days later, the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reported that a non-resident American businessman, active in Malaysia and Asia for nearly a quarter of a century, had told Embassy officials than a former British civil servant, now a private businessman based in Singapore, was “involved in the arms trade with Sabah with ultimate objective of supplying weapons to Filipino Muslims.”
In succeeding weeks, we’ll examine the progress of those “demarches” recommended by Byroade.

source:  Tribune by  Ken Fuller