7/28/2019 Sulu Sabah Question

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Overview

• Lahad Datu standoff: open-ended question

• Cycle of Sabah claim – reversal, detour 

• Implications: Moro struggle; RP-Malaysia relation;Regional security; and, Geopolitics of foreign

powers in Southeast Asia

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Organization

• Brief context of Southeast Asia

• Sulu-Sabah historical continuum: Major 

development and issues• Implications

• Possibilities and trajectories

• Options & strategies: peaceful settlement resolution

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Continuum

• Refer to AVP timeline

• Principles of self-determination & “effectivites” 

• Philippine position in 1962

• Sabah claim today: Positions of legal luminaries oninternational law (e.g., Baja, Santiago, Magallona)

• Law & political will

• Erratic policy & discontinuity

• Sulu Sultanate: left in suspended animation?

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Implications

• Sabah issue as vital organ of Moro struggle

• Both are mutually inclusive

• To disconnect the two is ahistorical

• To connect them entangles the Moro struggle with the “unwrittenrule” in RP-Malaysia relation

• Dynamics of Lahand datu standoff: Pitfalls in putting eggs in onebasket; policy imbalance

• Triangular relation of PH, MA, & SS

• Pentagonal configuration: GPH, MA, MILF; MNLF, SS (and other sub-actors in Moro society)

• Sabah redux as (“3rd) red button” in SEA geopolitics: (1st ) War oninternational terrorism & (2nd ) South China Sea dispute

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Trajectories &

consequences

• Traditional ways: PH-MA perpetuate “unwritten rule” and

promote status quo ante; Reconfiguration of Moro

struggle; Framework Agreement/Bangsamoro Political

Entity as first casualty; Instability in the “Sulu Zone;”

Reifying traditional politics; intensifying the “3rd red

button;”

• Creative ways: Heed UN humanitarian intervention and

call for peaceful dialogue and negotiation; Backchannel

diplomacy; No ICJ recourse in both short and long terms

but opening proprietary claim talks as clouds of war 

subside; consolidation of unity in the sultanate;

• Post election scenario in both PH and MA

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Peaceful settlement

• Peaceful settlement: Inquiry, Mediation… 

•  Advantages & limits

• Islamic principles of peace-making & reconciliationin siyar (Muslim international law/relation)

• Regional lobby and creative engagement

• Networking with Ulama in SEA

• Toward human development framework in Sulu-

Sabah conundrum