PETALING JAYA: A former Sabah chief minister has ripped into former attorney-general Tommy Thomas, saying his book contains inaccuracies that are now being used by the heirs of Sulu sultans to support their claims against Malaysia.
Yong Teck Lee called on Thomas to retract his statement in his book, titled “My Story: Justice in the Wilderness”, that reads: “At some point in its history, North Borneo was part of the Sulu sultanate.”
“As a matter of historical fact, Sabah (North Borneo) was never part of the Sulu sultanate,” Yong said in a statement today.
“The entire federal Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) should be given a proper lesson on Sabah history,” he said, adding the AGC should read a book written by former AG Abdul Gani Patail, titled “Putting To Rest”, on the Sulu sultanate’s claim over Sabah.
Yong said this was a more accurate record of the legal and political history of Sabah than Thomas’ book.
His comments come in the wake of reports that Malaysia had been told by a French arbitration court to pay at least RM62.59 billion (US$14.92 billion) to the descendants of the last Sulu sultan.
The arbitrator had ruled that Malaysia violated the 1878 agreement between the old Sulu kingdom in the Philippines and a representative of the British North Borneo Company that administered what is now Sabah.
In essence, the agreement saw the Sulu sultan cede sovereignty over parts of North Borneo to its administrators in exchange for an annual payment that continued till modern times.
But in 2013, after the Lahad Datu incursion, Malaysia stopped paying the sultan of Sulu’s heirs their annual compensation, which was equivalent to RM5,300.
However, Yong said North Borneo was never part of the Sulu sultanate but the Brunei sultanate before the arrival of European colonialists in the 17th century.
“For three centuries, Sulu has been trying to lay their hands on North Borneo. But there is no record or any event that Brunei had ever ceded or given any part of Borneo to Sulu. In fact, records show that Brunei had repelled Sulu intrusions on Borneo, such as at Kinabatangan.”
This, he said, was why the 1878 agreement was moot.
Yong, the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president, said Thomas’ remarks in his book were damaging, citing the sentence: “There were no legal grounds for Malaysia’s refusal to pay annually since 2013. It resulted in Malaysia being in breach of the 1878 agreement.”
He said this was now being used by the Sulu sultan’s heirs to support their claims.
“Thomas should have included, in his book, the legal basis of the 2013 decision by the federal government to stop making any more payments to (the) descendants of the sultan.”
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