Nur Misuari offers to mediate

The Sulu sultanate claims that villagers retaliated after the police stormed Simunul village and killed an imam and his four sons.

KOTA KINABALU: Nur Misuari, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founding chairman, has signalled that he is willing to help in talks to resolve the standoff in Sabah between an armed group of Filipino intruders and the Malaysian forces.

“It is my message to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak that I am ready to send my grand-nephew who is his cousin to open up talks,” Misuari told reporters at the celebration of his 71st birthday here on Sunday.

A Philippines-based website, Rappler.com, quoted the erstwhile friend of Malaysia as saying that he is also willing to personally go to Malaysia to help end the crisis.

Denying allegations he is funding the armed men involved in the Sabah standoff, he said he was offering to help out of concern for the children and women in Lahad Datu who “are now facing starvation and danger.”

He said Malaysia had not responded to his offer.

He added that they would also not call for the surrender of those who opted to “return to their home” but would instead urge the Philippine government to act on the issue.

“This is an active claim. I want the Philippine government to act with determination. These men would not go there and sacrifice their lives if only the (Philippines) government had handled this issue,” Adju was quoted as saying.

Misuari once enjoyed good ties with Malaysia which had allowed the MNLF to seek sanctuary in Sabah during president Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship.

Malaysian security forces however arrested him in Sabah in 2001, after he fled Sulu following a botched revolt in the province. The arrest led to his detention in the Philippines.

The site also quoted Samsula Adju, a member of the so-called Bangsamoro National People’s Parliament as saying the move made by Sultan Jamalul Kiram III to send his men to Sabah only shows that the Sabah claim is very much alive.

Villagers provoked

Meanwhile supporters of the Sultan of Sulu in the east coast of Sabah hit back at the Malaysian security forces on the weekend after they were allegedly provoked.

At a press conference in Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III’s home in Taguig City, a spokesman for the sultanate, Abraham Idjirani said the Malaysian police had shot dead an Islamic religious leader and his four sons and injured another imam in Simunul village in Semporna.

Said Idjirani: “The violence spread to Semporna after Malaysian policemen pretending to round up undocumented Filipinos stormed Simunul village in search of relatives of the sultan.”

He said the Malaysian police shot dead a religious leader known as Imam Maas and his four sons whilst wounding another imam known as Jul after they were found to be helping Kiram’s relatives.

He said the killings had angered the villagers, who then attacked the authorities and seized four Malaysian officials, whom he described as “highest” military officers, a policeman and an influential civilian.

The Simunul village in Semporna is some 250km from Kampung Tanduao in Lahad Datu where a 17 day stand-off between Malaysian security forces and holed-up followers of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III ended in a bloody clash last Friday.

Two Malaysian police commandos were killed in the clash. Since then numbers have risen to eight policemen and 18 armed intruders.

Blaming the fresh violence on the Malaysian and the Philippines’ governments refusal to ‘deal’ with the Kirams’ claims to Sabah, Idjirani said: “This is the result of the hardline policy of the Federation of Malaysia and Malacanang (Philippines) of not sitting down to discuss the standoff in Lahad Datu for a peaceful resolution of this issue.

Meanwhile the chairman of the Islamic Council Committee of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Alim Hashim Mudjahab reportedly told the Philippines Daily Inquirer that Manila’s stand was “worrying”.

“We are worried because it seems that the reports (of escalating violence in Sabah) are not important to the Philippine government,” he said, adding that he had received reports from “MNLF supporters” that tensions had spread as far as Sandakan with reports that “some Tausug residents in Kota Kinabalu are ready to fight the Malaysian authorities”.