The self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III speaking to the press in Manila on March 4, 2013, as he affirmed his sultanate's claim to Sabah. Malaysia stopped payments after his Royal Sulu Army attacked the state that year. – AFP
THE Sulu partisans’ latest action on Sabah has encouraged a consensus that the dispute today is a colonial legacy that has survived for more than a century.
Colonial interests and actions in Borneo evidently contributed to the current imbroglio. However, the dispute actually began in the pre-colonial period between Sulu and Brunei four centuries ago.
