The Limbang Question Lingers On

Whenever young Bruneians want to eat chicken wings and drink beer, they often head to Limbang in neighboring Malaysia. It may sound strange to cross an international border for an evening out, but Limbang is only a few kilometers from Brunei’s capital, Bandar Seri Begawan.

One might marvel at how, despite an unresolved border dispute in the area, the two countries allow their citizens to freely travel back and forth. But as part of ASEAN, Bruneians and Malaysians don’t need visas to cross the border.

Geography has also made this sleepy town something of a go-between for Brunei and Malaysia, especially when it comes to Temburong, Brunei’s eastern district. Many people living there travel daily to Bandar Seri Begawan for work, but the land route takes them through Limbang. In effect, to travel from one part of their own country to another, they enter Malaysia and then cross back into Brunei. Limbang residents face a similar peculiarity when traveling within Sarawak, of which Limbang is a part. To reach Miri, the nearest Sarawak city, they have to pass through Brunei before re-entering Sarawak to the west.

For a foreign traveler, the arrangement can be bewildering, as multiple border crossings and immigration stamps can quickly fill up their passports. For Bruneians and Malaysians, it is easier, as they can generally use their identity cards for cross-border travel.

Limbang’s curious status is the result of an unresolved border dispute that dates back to the British colonial era – a dispute that the two sides are now moving toward resolving. During the 27th Annual Leaders’ Consultation in Bandar Seri Begawan on August 21, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim discussed the demarcation of the two countries’ land boundary. More than half of the border has now been demarcated. Yet the question of Limbang still lingers on.

In a joint communiqué issued after their meeting, the two leaders reaffirmed the 2009 Exchange of Letters, the March 2012 boundary memorandum and its Terms of Reference, collectively describing them as binding instruments. It also directs the two sides to resolve Sector F–G, which covers the Limbang area, solely through the watershed principle, using one jointly determined watershed, before completing the survey and demarcation by May 31, 2027.

According to senior Bruneian journalist Malai Hassan Othman, Sector F–G is supposed to cover roughly 6.6 kilometers from Bebuloh towards a point west of Bukit Gadong, near Kampong Limau Manis and the Kuala Lurah-Tedungan crossing (Kuala Lurah is the Brunei border checkpoint, and Tedungan is the matching Malaysian checkpoint in Sarawak for travel between Brunei and Limbang. It lies along the Brunei-Muara-Limbang frontier and is therefore geographically connected to Limbang. But it would be misleading to describe the sector as synonymous with the entire Limbang territorial question.

Malai Hassan, in an article published on LinkedIn, explained in detail the historical background of the sovereignty dispute over Limbang. Buttressing Brunei’s claim, he writes that records from 1970 clearly indicate that the late Sultan Haji Omar ’Ali Saifuddien, father of the present Sultan, stressed Brunei’s claim over Limbang.

Historically, Limbang was governed within the Brunei Sultanate and provided revenue, food, and river access to the sultanate. However, the Limbang Rebellion of 1884 was a crucial conflict between the Sultanate of Brunei and the indigenous residents of Limbang that led to the annexation of Limbang in March 1890 by Charles Brooke, the rajah of Sarawak. He claimed that local Limbang chiefs no longer wanted the Sultan’s rule and preferred Sarawak.

The British gave tacit and informal approval to the annexation of Limbang despite fierce protests from Sultan Hashim of Brunei.

Malai Hassan says that the Sultan rejected the proposed annual compensation, refusing to exchange territory for payment. Britain declared the matter closed in 1895, but that administrative decision did not secure Brunei’s agreement.

This split Brunei into two parts, and Temburong was separated from the other districts of Brunei.

The most serious attempt to resolve the issue came in 2009, when the Exchange of Letters was signed by the Brunei Sultan and then Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

The agreement settled the maritime boundaries between the two countries, including their territorial seas, continental shelves, and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). It also created a Commercial Arrangement Area for joint oil and gas development, allowing Malaysia to develop certain offshore blocks like Kikeh, while Malaysia recognized Brunei’s claim to Louisa Reef. The agreement also protected the “unsuspendable rights” of Malaysian vessels to pass through Bruneian waters.

On top of this, it set a framework for joint land surveys to permanently demarcate the border between Brunei and Malaysia’s Sarawak region (i.e. Limbang). However, what little progress was made on the Limbang front was undone by Abdullah Badawi when he claimed that by signing the exchange of letters, Brunei had given up its claim on Limbang. Brunei’s then Second Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lim Jock Seng publicly denied that Limbang had been discussed and added that the negotiations concerned boundary demarcation generally.

After last month’s meeting with Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Anwar said that about 50 percent (or 264.791 kilometers) of the Malaysia-Brunei land boundary had been jointly surveyed and demarcated. The two leaders set a target to finish surveying the entire land boundary by 2034, with Sector F-G slated for completion by May 31, 2027, Anwar added.

This is not the only case in which the stroke of a British colonial cartographer divided territories and left newly independent countries to deal with the consequences. The Limbang issue has remained unresolved since the 1870s. But unlike India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars over Kashmir, Brunei and Malaysia have chosen patient diplomacy.

Limbang, instead of becoming a cause of conflict, has become a bridge between the two countries. For residents of Temburong, travelling to Bandar via Limbang has become part of their daily routine. They cross into another country almost as a matter of habit, sometimes without even thinking about the fact that they have to enter Malaysia to reach another part of their own country.