MANILA -The Sulu sultanate camp has revealed an alleged assassination plot by a foreign hit squad targeting Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, the central figure in a controversial mission to reclaim Sabah from Malaysia with the sending of hundreds of his followers to the territory over a month ago.
Abraham Idjirani, the sultanate’s spokesman and secretary general, made the disclosure at a press conference Tuesday.
Idjirani said according to information they received, a Malaysian military colonel identified as a certain Sunny Ng headed the group.
Ng, Idjirani claimed, arrived in the Philippines with four Malaysian "commandos" with the mission of killing Kiram III and his supporters, including the family adviser Pastor "Boy" Saycon.
Ng and his men reportedly hired the services of three New People's Army members from Quezon province.
Idjirani said they came to know of this plot through a Filipino lawyer who was a former legal counsel of Saycon. The lawyer was approached by a certain Kenneth Lee, a Malaysian businessman. Ng supposedly sought Lee's help in asking details about Kiram's address.
“In the light of this development, we would like to ask the government: Have we surrendered our sovereign control (of the our country) that we allow a Malaysian hit squad... to perform their terroristic acts in the Philippines?” Idjirani wondered aloud.
Ng's group supposedly met with the Filipino lawyer at an upscale restaurant in a casino complex in Pasay City last Monday.
Idjirani said Ng stayed in room “806 or 906” of the luxury hotel in the complex.
Kiram said he was not threatened by the reported assassination attempt. But he urged both the Philippine National Police (PNP), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the military to look into the matter.
“Why would I fear them? I have not seen them. Maybe if I see them, I will just run,” Kiram III joked.
Despite the report, the sultan's family would not seek police protection.
Filipinos going to Sabah
In another press conference, Princess Jacel Kiram, the sultan's daughter, said hundreds of Filipinos in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi were reportedly eager to go to Sabah to avenge their relatives who were killed by Malaysian forces during the assault in Lahad Datu that started on March 1.
She said about 40 to 48 Filipinos, mostly relatives of the slain Filipinos, were able to enter Sabah several weeks ago. She could not confirm if these were MNLF fighters.
She said that the sultanate was trying its best to appease Tausugs in Mindanao who were reportedly angered by Malayasia's attack in Lahad Datu.
"We are calling for sobriety. We don't want this incident to worsen," she said in a separate press conference.
Fact-finding team to Sabah eyed
In another development, human rights group Karapatan will be sending a fact-finding team to Sabah to determine the conditions of Filipinos affected by the fighting there.
But Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay admitted this would not be an easy feat as accessing Filipinos, especially those detained by Malaysian forces, would be difficult.
Even the Department of Foreign Affairs has thus far met little success in gaining access to Filipinos jailed by Malaysia on suspicion of participating or joining the mission by the Sulu sultanate to “reclaim our homeland.”
Sabah was given to the Sulu sultanate by the sultan of Brunei for help in quelling a rebellion in the 17th century. In 1878, the Sulu sultanate forged a lease agreement with British merchants, but the British government later gave Sabah to its former colony Malaysia when the newly independent nation’s federation was formed. The sultanate insists it was only a lease, pointing to the annual rental payments given by Kuala Lumpur to the heirs of the sultanate.
The human-rights group Karapatan, meanwhile, will also deploy a fact-finding team to Tawi-Tawi to document the conditions of Filipino evacuees from Sabah and to determine if they were victims of human rights abuses in Malaysia.
The group Migrante International said human rights abuses in Malaysia were not new and they have already documented abuses in previous years. Gina Esguerra, secretary general of Migrante International, said that separate fact-finding teams sent in 2002, 2005 and 2009 revealed that hundreds of thousands of undocumented Filipinos were maltreated by Malaysians before and when they were deported. Deportees were subjected to inhumane treatment and the sick were not given medical attention, Esguerra said.
Palabay scored both the Malaysian and Philippine governments for failing to properly address the Sabah conflict.
She accused the Malaysian government of violating international human rights laws for launching massive air strikes, arresting hundreds of Filipinos and committing alleged physical assault on Filipinos in Lahad Datu.
Karapatan also scored the Aquino administration for maintaining a "nonchalant attitude by campaigning freely for team PNoy" amid the crisis.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.