KOTA KINABALU, Dec 10 — Following reports of another potential intrusion by Southern Philippine militia into Sabah, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan has revived his call for Sabah to have its own border scouts to shore up the state’s porous boundaries.
He said that if the state were to set up its own border scouts, it would be complementary to the existing security forces.
“I think the border scouts should be revived. We will continue to suggest it because this is to complement the security forces. Our own people will know the land better.
“They are trying to infiltrate our population and because many of them are already here, this is the danger to us,” he said, insinuating that local Sabahans might be better at spotting foreign embeds in the community.
The Sabah border scouts were established in 1963 using mostly indigenous Sabahans trained by the British to repel the incursion of the Indonesian army during the confrontation and the communist insurgency of the period.
The scouts were based in Keningau and their main task was to gather intelligence, mark enemy locations and open up helicopter landing sites deep in the Sabah border rainforest.
Their expert knowledge of the jungle’s porous terrain made them a successful unit until they were disbanded in 1986.
Yesterday, the South China Morning Post reported that 19 mayors of the Sulu archipelago were hatching a plot to invade Sabah on the nine-year anniversary of the last intrusion into Lahad Datu in February 2013.
A meeting, said to have taken place on December 1 and conducted by “a locally elected official of Sulu province”, supposedly involved talks over recruiting up to 600 men in order to establish a “Royal Sulu Army” to invade Tawau and Semporna.
Both the state and federal police have dismissed the contents of the report.
However, Kitingan said the report must be taken seriously and that he had been in contact with the home minister following its publication.
“We cannot treat this news lightly. It has happened before and it will happen again and that is why we must be prepared. I hope the security forces take this news seriously and activate their security forces on land, water as well as air,” he said.
In February 2013, over 200 self-styled armed Sulu military invaded the east coast town of Lahad Datu at the behest of self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, and led by the Jamalul’s brother, Agbimuddin, whose family was seeking an ancestral claim over Sabah.
The Sultanate of Sulu used to rule over parts of the southern Philippines and Sabah before the British government transferred Sabah to the Federation of Malaysia in 1963.
The conflict, which lasted more than a month, resulted in the deaths of 68 men from the Sulu sultanate, nine Malaysian armed services personnel and six civilians. Some militias were arrested and prosecuted in Sabah, but it is believed that the Tausug people of Sulu have been waiting to avenge their people and claim the North Borneo region of Sabah
