Jeffrey in secret meeting with Kuan Yew

By FMT Staff

KOTA KINABALU: A 'hush-hush' meeting between a small delegation led by Dr Jeffrey Kitingan and Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has got the rumour mill churning.

Lee had apparently requested that no photographs be taken of the meeting in Singapore, where he expressed a 'a collective guilt' for what happened in Sabah.

WikiLeak reports noted Singapore officials’ opinion that Malaysia was in a ‘confused and dangerous’ state due to ‘its incompetent politicians’.

Lee’s Singapore was unceremoniously booted from Malaysia in 1965 without the consent of Sabah and Sarawak as supposedly equal founding partners in the Federation of Malaysia.

The continuous misgivings over the eviction of Singapore by then Sabah Chief Minister Donald Stephens and his college Sarawak CM Stephen Ningkan led to both leaders being disposed off their CM-ships by first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Lee had been reported by some sources as being instrumental in persuading Sabah Kadazan leader Donald Stephens to change his stance and back the formation of Malaysia in 1963 between the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak.

Stephens and his supporters were initially preferred autonomy to be under Australian overseer tutorage and Commonwealth protectorate until 1965 when many Colombo Plan scholars would have graduated to take over posts vacated by British officers under a Borneonization of the civil service.

Borneonization of the civil service however never happened. The latest federal statement that 47% of all heads of department in the state are Sabahans however omits to mention that they are all Muslim Bumiputeras.

Borneonization

Jeffrey has been the most vocal on the failure of the Borneonization of the civil service in Sabah.

To affirm his campaign for Borneonization, Jeffrey enlisted the help of Hindraf leader P Waythamoorthy, a lawyer in exile in the United Kingdom, to present Sabah’s discriminated case before the British Parliament. This was in view of the fact that Britain was the last colonial power in control of North Borneo.

Known as a wily politician Jeffrey is recognised as the intellectual architect of the Parti Bersatu Sabah's (PBS) victory over BN way back in 1985.

Jeffrey co-founded PBS in 1985 with his brother Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

When the opposition PBS first toppled the BN-Berjaya administration, the first foreign leader to call on the PBS Chief Minister Joseph Pairin was Singapore's Brigadier General Lee Hsien Loong, the current Prime Minister of Singapore. Hsien Loong is Lee's son.

The then Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohamed was infuriated at the Pairin- Hsien Loong meeting and never quite got over the slight.

To further compound matters Pairin had also received a visit by opposition leader Lim Kit Siang

Both meeting happened even before Pairin, as CM, had paid premier Mahathir a courtesy call in Kuala Lumpur.

Mahathir during his administration had never supported Pairin's leadership and had allegedly acted to subvert the electorate support enjoyed by PBS with the naturalization of Muslim migrants as voters.

Jeffrey until today is most vocal about the acceptance of this development that discriminates against bona fide Sabahans and the exploitation of Sabah's rich resources by federal agencies.

His disenchantment with PKR also partly stemmed from the failure of the party’s leadership to accede to Borneonization and his vision of Sabah’s interests.