Cagayan de Oro City — The 1915 Carpenter-Kiram Treaty included the island of North Borneo (Sabah) under U.S. protection while it was still being leased to a British company, long before the Federation of Malaysia was created, the convenor of the Mindanao and Sulu Unification Movement (MSUM) declared on Friday.

Abraham Idjirani, convenor and spokesman of the newly created Mindanao and Sulu Unification Movement, said that when the Carpenter-Kiram Treaty was signed in 1915, the U.S. government assured the Sultan of Sulu full protection should the question of North Borneo arise in the future between him and any foreign authority. He added that the termination of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu did not mean an end to its continued Temporal Sovereignty over territories lying outside U.S. jurisdiction.

However, he said the British government negotiated to exclude Sabah from the U.S. protectorate ceded by Spain under the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Later, both countries signed the Convention Treaty on 2 January 1930, where they reached a mutual agreement to place North Borneo under British protection.

He said both the British and the U.S. divided the ancestral territories of the Sultanate of Sulu, placing some under U.S. protectorates and Sabah under the British protectorate.

“The concurrence of the U.S. to the wish of the British grossly violated its own sacred commitment and assurance of full measure of protection between the Sultan and any foreign authorities should the question of North Borneo arise in the future,” Idjirani said.

The British company, however, continued paying the lease of Sabah until the creation of the Federation of Malaysia in the early 1960s. The new Malaysian government later continued paying rent for Sabah, as provided for in the lease contract with the British company.

"Up to this day, the United States has not acted upon a Congressional Act to abrogate the 1915 Kiram-Carpenter Agreement," he said.

He added that the newly approved Philippine Maritime Law is now part of the law of the Philippines and serves to strengthen and build up the basis for asserting the Philippines’ territorial rights and jurisdiction over its ancestral territories.

The inclusion of Mindanao and Sulu was based on the 12 June 1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence, the 1898 Treaty of Paris, and the 7 November 1900 Cession of Sulu and Its Underlying Islands.

The two maritime laws, regarded as landmark legislation in the Philippines, have alarmed and threatened Malaysia’s interests in Sabah (North Borneo).