The Sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah has never dropped his claims that:

· Sulu/Sabah belongs to him;

· his forefathers merely leased Sabah in 1878 to Baron Von Overbeck/Alfred Dent for so long as they or their successors chose or desire to use them but a lease in relation to a territory is not cession (voluntary give away)

· the giving of a lease was then subject to the condition that the territory should not be transferred to another nation or company of another nationality without the Sultan’s consent;

· the British illegally transferred Sabah to Malaysia.

Was the 1878 agreement between Sultan and Baron Von Overbeck/Alfred Dent a lease or a cession? If it were a really a lease, then its users Overbeck/Alfred Dent could give more than what they had (ie they could not give a cession of Sabah) to the British government for the British in turn to give her to Malaysia.

It is also correct that for Malaysian authorities to permit the Sultan to issue birth certificates is to indirectly recognise the Sultan’s challenge of Malaysian sovereignty in Sabah even now.

Part of the reasons the International Court of Justice gave Pedra Branca to Singapore is that Malaysian authorities have acquiesced with and done nothing about Singapore’s building of the heliport, placing military installation and additional naval navigation equipment on Pedra Branca inconsistent with Malaysia’s sovereignty claims which Malaysian authorities have failed to assert.

It is a point of international law that in dispute over territory, the party who asserts sovereignty over the indolent one that does not will win favourable assessment.

One of these days the Sultan (backed perhaps by Philippines) will try to bring the dispute before ICJ and one of the points raised would be issuance by the sultanate of birth certificates in challenge of Malaysia’s claims to sovereignty over Sabah abou which malaysiam authorities have failed to take any action.

I can’t imagine what happens if the Sultan eventually accumulates more points based on international law than the BN Govt. if the mater is brought to ICJ. :)

In Pedra Branca’s case one of the main points of international law raised by Singapore why Sultan of Johore had religuished right sovereignty over the island was that traditional Malay sovereignty was exercised through the allegiance of the people to the ruler, rather than the demarcation of physical territory. That the islands were uninhabited thus gave little certainty over the Sultanate’s exercise of control over them….That Singapore maintained the lighthouse, established a heliport, placing military installation and additional naval navigation equipment was in Singapore’s favour.

Now Sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah is allowed to carry on his “reign” with his court of Royal Datus and Sharifs (said to be decendants of the Prophet) in a manner not recognised by our Federal Constitution. Besides those whom he issued birth certificates what happens if large sections of Sabah populace disenchanted and disaffected with Peninsula government switch and pledge their allegiance to Sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah instead who has been allowed by the Federal government to carry on with his rein until now?

YB,

ADAM YONG IBNI ABDULLAH is right in his posting Yesterday at 16: 52.44 that the authenticity of the birth certificate should first be verified.

According to Birth Cert, Alpa bin Julaidi was born in 08-08-1994 to Julaidi bin Eria of 41 years of age, described under “occupation as “mag-uuma” meaning in Taus?g or Suluk language “father” and Haddaya binti Ladsalam described as “Tunggu Bay” or mother iinm that language.

Based on the Birth Cert, the father is 40 years of age but what is the mother’s age?

Does it look like 39? Or more like 99 years ? If “99” years of age (already menopausal) :), it is a joke, no woman but perhaps only in ‘Taus?g’ can give birth at 99 years of age!

Anyway even if its 39 it is strange that in an official document, under item “occupation” the official just inserted “mag-uuma” and “Tunggu Bay” meaning father and mother which is not telling anything about the ocupation!

Anyway, the birth certificate purports to say that there is another country called Taus?g in Sabah of which father mother and son are all citizens; that ‘Taus?g’ is an independent state governed by the Sulu Sultanate, homelands in the Sulu Archipelago to Suluk people, an ethnic group of the Philippines and Malaysia forming part of the wider Moro ethnic group, who constitute the sixth largest Filipino ethnic group.

This Birth certificate is purportedly issued by a ‘Ministry of Civil Registry’ signed by acting minister Asarani bin Jurrani, countersigned by a “Datu Bantilan” , a kind of ceremonial title linked to Royalty.

This birth cert is outside the laws of the country – Registration of Birth and Deaths Ordinance & National Registration Act, meaning the babies born under such certs (outside Federal recording) have no official identity, official name much less nationality and are “invisible’ by our laws. It means in Sabah no one is certain of birth and death rates.

Keeping proper records of birth – which is related to other issues of security law and order – is a primary responsibility of governance and a basic onstitutional duty of government. It is absent in Sabah.

What is more shocking the central government tolerates groups of people staking a claim that there is another country Taus?g and that basically the sovereign there – the sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah does not recognise the central government as a government or that Sabah is even part of Malaysia.

This is not only sedition, it tantamounts to treason and yet the central govt is quiet about it? It is most strange suggesting Federal Government is implicated in something here that it does not take action which in normal cases it otherwise would.

Actually is there a really Sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah on whose behalf birth certificates are issued for his “subjects” in Sabah?

It is said that he is H M Sultan Muhammad Fuad A. Kiram I, the 36th Sultan of Sulu and Sabah (crowned on 3rd June 2006) but who really is his ‘Royal Highness’ – has he a birth certificate or citizenship paper recognised by the law?

This alleged existence of a Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah is based on the corollary claim of the existence of the Sultan of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah.

Does such a man however exists? Do we have a photograph of him? If the Sultan himself has not the birth certificate himself recognised by our laws then such a man even if physically exists is in law non existent!

If he is non existent in law (person non grata), then there is no Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah in existence except in the minds of some people and the birth certificate will not be worth the paper it was written on, wouldn’t it?