Early history[edit]
Earliest human migration and settlement into the region is believed to have dated back about 20,000–30,000 years ago. These early humans are believed to be Australoid or Negrito people. The next wave of human migration, believed to be Austronesian Mongoloids, occurred around 3000 BC.
Bruneian Empire and the Sulu Sultanate[edit]
Flag of the Bruneian Empire.
During the 7th century CE, a settled community known as Vijayapura, a tributary to the Srivijaya empire, was thought to have been the earliest beneficiary to the Bruneian Empire existing around the northeast coast of Borneo.[20] Another kingdom which suspected to have existed beginning the 9th century was P'o-ni. It was believed that Po-ni existed at the mouth of Brunei River and was the predecessor to the Sultanate of Brunei.[21] The Sultanate of Brunei began after the ruler of Brunei embraced Islam. During the reign of the fifth sultan known as Bolkiah between 1473–1524, the Sultanate's thalassocracy extended over Sabah, Sulu Archipelago and Manila in the north, and Sarawak until Banjarmasin in the south.[22] In 1658, the Sultan of Brunei ceded the northern and eastern portion of Borneo to the Sultan of Sulu in compensation for the latter's help in settling a civil war in the Brunei Sultanate, but many sources stated that the Brunei did not cede any parts of Sabah to the Sultanate of Sulu.[23]
British North Borneo Company[edit]
Board of directors of the North Borneo Chartered Company in 1899.
(Left) The first concession treaty was signed by Brunei Sultan, Abdul Momin on 29 December 1877.[2]
(Right) Sultan Jamalalulazam of Sulu signed the second concession treaty on 22 January 1878.[23]
In 1761, Alexander Dalrymple, an officer of the British East India Company, concluded an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu to allow him to set up a trading post in the Sulu area, although it proved to be a failure.[24] In 1846, the island of Labuan on the west coast of Sabah was ceded to Britain by the Sultan of Brunei and in 1848 it became a British Crown Colony while the territory of Sabah ceded through an agreement on 1877, the territory on the eastern part were also ceded by the Sultanate of Sulu in 1878.[25][26][27] Following a series of transfers, the rights to North Borneo were transferred to Alfred Dent, whom in 1881 formed the British North Borneo Provisional Association Ltd (predecessor to British North Borneo Company).[28] In the following year, the British North Borneo Company was formed and Kudat was made its capital. In 1883, the capital was moved to Sandakan and in 1885, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany signed the Madrid Protocol, which recognised the sovereignty of Spain in the Sulu Archipelago in return for the relinquishment of all Spanish claims over North Borneo.[29] North Borneo became a protectorate of the United Kingdom in 1888.
Second World War and occupation[edit]
Main article: Japanese occupation of British Borneo
An aerial view of the Sandakan POW Camp, once an experimental farm for the British North Borneo Company but later turned into a prisoner-of-war camp by the Japanese.[30]
As part of the Second World War, Japanese forces landed in Labuan on 1 January 1942, and continued to invade the rest of North Borneo. From 1942 to 1945, Japanese forces occupied North Borneo, along with most of the island. Bombings by the allied forces devastated most of the towns including Sandakan, which was razed to the ground. In Sandakan, there was once a brutal POW camp run by the Japanese for British and Australian POWs from North Borneo. The prisoners suffered under notoriously inhuman conditions, and Allied bombardments caused the Japanese to relocate the POW camp to inland Ranau, 260 km away. All the prisoners, then were reduced to 2,504 in number, were forced to march the infamous Sandakan Death March. Except for six Australians, all of the prisoners died. The war ended on 10 September 1945. After the surrender, North Borneo was administered by the British Military Administration and in 1946 it became a British Crown Colony. Jesselton replaced Sandakan as the capital and the Crown continued to rule North Borneo until 1963.
Self-government and the Federation of Malaysia[edit]
Tun Fuad Stephens (left) declaring the forming of the Federation of Malaysia at Padang Merdeka, Jesselton on 16 September 1963. Together with him is the Deputy Minister of Malaya Tun Abdul Razak (right) and Tun Mustapha (second right).
On 31 August 1963, North Borneo attained self-government.[3][4][6] The Cobbold Commission was set up on 1962 to determine whether the people of Sabah and Sarawak favoured the proposed union of the Federation of Malaysia, and found that the union was generally favoured by the people. Most ethnic community leaders of Sabah, namely, Tun Mustapha representing the native Muslims, Tun Fuad Stephens representing the non-Muslim natives, and Khoo Siak Chew representing the Chinese, would eventually support the union. After discussion culminating in the Malaysia Agreement and 20-point agreement, on 16 September 1963 North Borneo, as Sabah, was united with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore, to form the independent Federation of Malaysia.[31][32][33]
From before the formation of Malaysia till 1966, Indonesia adopted a hostile policy towards the British backed Malaya, and after union to Malaysia. This undeclared war stems from what Indonesian President Sukarno perceive as an expansion of British influence in the region and his intention to wrest control over the whole of Borneo under the Indonesian republic. Tun Fuad Stephens became the first chief minister of Sabah. The first Governor (Yang di-Pertuan Negeri) was Tun Mustapha. Sabah held its first state election in 1967. Until 2013, a total of 12 state elections has been held. Sabah has had 14 different chief ministers and 10 different Yang di-Pertua Negeri as of 2013. On 14 June 1976 the government of Sabah signed an agreement with Petronas, the federal government-owned oil and gas company, granting it the right to extract and earn revenue from petroleum found in the territorial waters of Sabah in exchange for 5% in annual revenue as royalties.[34]
The state government of Sabah ceded Labuan to the Malaysian federal government, and Labuan became a federal territory on 16 April 1984.[35] In 2000, the state capital Kota Kinabalu was granted city status, making it the 6th city in Malaysia and the first city in the state. Also in the same year, Kinabalu National Park was officially designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, making it the first site in the country to be given such designation. In 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled that the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan, claimed by Indonesia, are part of Sabah and Malaysia.[36]
Southern Philippines Moro refugees social problems and terrorism threat[edit]
Main articles: Moro attacks on Sabah, Illegal immigrants in Malaysia and Anti-Filipino sentiment § Sabah
A numbers of stateless Pala'u (Bajau Laut) children in east coast Sabah. The UMS has been proposed by the citizen of Sabah to conduct a full study on this community as their population number was increasing rapidly due to a possible infiltration by Pala'u from the Philippines into the local community.[37][38]
Beginning in 1970, Filipinos Moro refugees from Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago began arriving in Sabah as a result of the Moro insurgency taking place in that region.[39] Their migration has led to major problems in the state,[40] mostly on social problem and some of them allegedly stealing Sabahan native land.[41] The state economy has been impacted, as many of the illegal immigrants have been involved in crimes such as theft and vandalism and have become the main cause of solid waste pollution in marine and coastal areas.[42] Apart from that, the immigrants have destroyed many mangrove in the forest reserve areas to give way to build their illegal houses.[43] Their poverty condition had become one of the main causes the state been labelled as the poorest state in Malaysia.[41][44] In 1985, the town of Lahad Datu was attacked by Moro Pirates from the Southern Philippines, killing at least 21 people and injuring 11 others.[45][46] On May 2000, the Abu Sayyaf militant group from southern Philippines arrived on the resort island of Sipadan and kidnapped 21 people consisting of tourists and resort workers for ransom. Most hostages were rescued on September 2000 following an offensive by the Philippine army. The tragedy in late February 2013 has made it much worse when the Sabah village of Tanduo in the Lahad Datu region was occupied by several armed Filipino supporters of the Sultanate of Sulu, calling themselves the Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo which were sent by Jamalul Kiram III, one of the claimant to the throne of the sultanate. His stated goal is to assert the Philippine territorial claim to eastern Sabah as part of the North Borneo dispute.[47][48][49] In response, Malaysian security forces surrounded the village. After several negotiations with the group and by the Philippine and Malaysian governments to reach a peaceful solution were unsuccessful, the standoff escalated into an armed conflict which ends with 68 of the self-proclaimed Sultanate followers died and the others been captured by the Malaysian authorities.[50][51][52] The Malaysian side also suffers 10 life lost because of the conflict with most of them are the security forces including other two civilians.[53][54] In the same year, a group believed from Abu Sayyaf militants raided a resort on the island of Pom Pom in Semporna.[55][56] During the ambush, a couple from Taiwan were on the resort when one of them was shot dead by the militants while the second victim was kidnapped and taken to the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines.[55] The victim was later freed in Sulu Province with the help of the Philippines security forces.[57]
An illegal settleme