10 years on, scars from Lahad Datu incursion remain unhealed
At least 68 of 100 Sulu insurgents who landed in Lahad Datu, Sabah, in 2013 were killed in battles with Malaysian security forces. (Reuters pic)
PETALING JAYA: It’s been 10 years since 100 Sulu insurgents made an armed attack on Lahad Datu, Sabah, but their actions have left deep scars.
While most of the insurgents were killed in a two-month-long bloody battle with Malaysian security forces, thousands of migrants from the southern Philippines who call Sabah home are still paying the price for the group’s actions.
“The stigma surrounding the Philippines claim over Sabah remains. This has always been an issue for Sabahans because it threatens the state’s sovereignty,” said activist and former senator Adrian Lasimbang.
Lasimbang, president of Pertubuhan Suara Anak Sabah, said the general sentiment in Sabah is that southern Filipino migrants are not welcome, despite having come to Sabah from the 1960s.
He told FMT that feelings were worsened by “Project IC” in the 1990s, carried out under the Mahathir Mohamad government, which led to the granting of citizenship to migrants by providing them identification cards.
The presence of a large number of undocumented migrants in the state remains “the elephant in the room” even though security had been beefed up through the establishment of Eastern Sabah Security Command.
In the early 1970s, thousands of refugees fled civil war in the southern Philippines, increasing labour migration to the state and improving manpower shortage in the construction, oil palm and service industries.
The refugees remained in Sabah with their families, spanning nearly three to four generations, holding the immigration stay pass (IMM13) despite peace returning to the Philippines in the 1990s.
There are also almost a thousand cases of children from marriages between migrants and locals lacking identity papers because the parents lacked a marriage certificates or the children were abandoned by either parent.
Sabah is believed to have between 800,000 and one million migrants without identity documents. “We want to see a permanent solution and also to deal with the illegal immigrants in Sabah,” said Lasimbang.
“Unless the federal and state governments come up with a solution, the story of the Sulu invasion will continue to haunt Sabahans,” he said.
Another Sabah-based group, Advocates for Non-discrimination and Access to Knowledge, said the intrusion changed the lives of many Sabahans.
“Marginalised communities whose livelihoods heavily depend on the sea have to learn to adapt to other forms of livelihood or risk not being able to earn a living for their families,” a spokesman for the group told FMT.
“These ‘scars’ will take time to heal. As long as there is continuous deprivation of basic rights and poverty, it will have a negative impact on these affected communities and the larger society.
“So, it is important to take care of society as a whole, only then, can we progress,” the spokesman said.
The incursion into Lahad Datu by the Sulu group was led by a claimant to the defunct Sulu sultanate. The group landed on the beach at Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu on Feb 11, 2013. At least 68 were killed in the following two months in battles with Malaysian security forces, while 10 members of the security forces also lost their lives.
PETALING JAYA: It’s been 10 years since 100 Sulu insurgents made an armed attack on Lahad Datu, Sabah, but their actions have left deep scars.
While most of the insurgents were killed in a two-month-long bloody battle with Malaysian security forces, thousands of migrants from the southern Philippines who call Sabah home are still paying the price for the group’s actions.
“The stigma surrounding the Philippines claim over Sabah remains. This has always been an issue for Sabahans because it threatens the state’s sovereignty,” said activist and former senator Adrian Lasimbang.
Lasimbang, president of Pertubuhan Suara Anak Sabah, said the general sentiment in Sabah is that southern Filipino migrants are not welcome, despite having come to Sabah from the 1960s.
He told FMT that feelings were worsened by “Project IC” in the 1990s, carried out under the Mahathir Mohamad government, which led to the granting of citizenship to migrants by providing them identification cards.
The presence of a large number of undocumented migrants in the state remains “the elephant in the room” even though security had been beefed up through the establishment of Eastern Sabah Security Command.
In the early 1970s, thousands of refugees fled civil war in the southern Philippines, increasing labour migration to the state and improving manpower shortage in the construction, oil palm and service industries.
The refugees remained in Sabah with their families, spanning nearly three to four generations, holding the immigration stay pass (IMM13) despite peace returning to the Philippines in the 1990s.
There are also almost a thousand cases of children from marriages between migrants and locals lacking identity papers because the parents lacked a marriage certificates or the children were abandoned by either parent.
Sabah is believed to have between 800,000 and one million migrants without identity documents. “We want to see a permanent solution and also to deal with the illegal immigrants in Sabah,” said Lasimbang.
“Unless the federal and state governments come up with a solution, the story of the Sulu invasion will continue to haunt Sabahans,” he said.
Another Sabah-based group, Advocates for Non-discrimination and Access to Knowledge, said the intrusion changed the lives of many Sabahans.
“Marginalised communities whose livelihoods heavily depend on the sea have to learn to adapt to other forms of livelihood or risk not being able to earn a living for their families,” a spokesman for the group told FMT.
“These ‘scars’ will take time to heal. As long as there is continuous deprivation of basic rights and poverty, it will have a negative impact on these affected communities and the larger society.
“So, it is important to take care of society as a whole, only then, can we progress,” the spokesman said.
The incursion into Lahad Datu by the Sulu group was led by a claimant to the defunct Sulu sultanate. The group landed on the beach at Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu on Feb 11, 2013. At least 68 were killed in the following two months in battles with Malaysian security forces, while 10 members of the security forces also lost their lives.
These regional people should be made citizens, afterall their ancestors have been plying the littoral parts of Sabah since time immemorial, and some of them intermarrying with the hill tribes, unlike those pendatangs from subcontinents a thousand miles away from the Malay peninsula and the Borneo island who refuse integration with the Malay society at large.
ReplyDeleteMfer, haven't u taken the temporal duration into the right prospective?
DeleteMany of the "pendatangs" from subcontinents a thousand miles away from the Malay peninsula and the Borneo island have had a much much longer historical tie with these lands than yr Johnny-come-lately zombieicism!
Ooop… u don't understand "integrations" with yr f*cked twist of assimilation. Going with yr fart, u people should have been adapting to the Orang Asal's culture & traditions. Instead u r forcing the true native tribes bending to yr imported dogmas.