WHY NAJIB FAILED to make any impact during Sabah visit despite grandoise assurances

Prime Minister Najib Razak didn’t impress Sabahans even one bit during his just concluded visit to that nation with his sanctimonious pontifications on Putrajaya never having taking away their rights, “in fact even more rights were given to them”.

In that case, it’s rather curious that Putrajaya insists that Malaysia is 55 years old this year, the period being calculated from 31 Aug, 1957 when the British left Malaya, not really a colony in the full sense of the term.

Several Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) leaders are currently facing charges for observing the 49 years from 31 Aug, 1963 when their country became free from British colonial rule before being rushed 16 days later, on 16 Sept, into the Federation of Malaysia. Sarawak became independent on 22 July, 1963.

Sabah and Sarawak only became colonies of Britain after the 2^nd World War.

Sarawak was independent for over 150 years under its own Rajah before becoming a British colony.

Rajah forced to hand over Sarawak to British

Since declassified documents witnessed by Hindraf Makkal Sakthi chairman P Waythamoorthy appear to show that the Rajah of Sarawak was in fact detained by British intelligence in London after World War II and coerced to sign over his country to the Colonial Office. The British, forgetting their own Royal Family, made the excuse that “it was not proper for a family to own a country”.

Sabah was reportedly sold by the British North Borneo Chartered Company to the Colonial Office in London for Sterling 1.2 million. There appears to be grave doubts about this story which was sold to the world.

No referendum was ever held in Sabah and Sarawak on Malaysia and this was one of the many violations of the rights of the two Borneo nations by Malaya in cahoots with Britain.

Sabahans, like the Sarawakians, insist that their homeland is a nation in Malaysia like Scotland in the United Kingdom and that the Federation is just an aberration in Borneo.

Putrajaya meanwhile considers Sabah as the 12^th state in Malaysia, and neighbouring Sarawak the 13^th state, thereby further making just so much nonsense of Najib’s statement on Borneo rights.

Malaysians in Sabah and Sarawak have always repeated themselves hoarse that the Federation of 1963 was a coming together of four nations i.e. Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. Brunei stayed out at the 11^th hour.

No written Constitution for Malaysia

Patently, it was Malaya that joined Malaysia and not the states of Malaya in their own right, and hence, Sabah and Sarawak could not be the 12^th and 13^th states in the Federation.

However, all this could not be properly recorded since Malaysia did not get a Constitution as agreed in 1963 and instead the Malayan Constitution began masquerading as the Malaysian Constitution. It could even be said that the old Federation of Malaya was masquerading as the Federation on Malaysia, given the reference to the 12^th and 13^th states.

At best, Malaysia has an unwritten Constitution – never acknowledged by Putrajaya -- made up of several documents. These include the old Malayan Constitution, Batu Sumpah in Keningau, the Malaysia Bill by the UK Parliament, the 20 Points for Sabah and 18 Points for Sarawak, the 1963 Malaysia Agreement, the Inter Governmental Committee Report, the Cobbold Commission Report and the respective state constitutions.

Since the Malaysian Constitution has not been codified, i.e. the various constitutional documents brought together in one written document, the consensus of legal opinion in Sabah and Sarawak is that the Federation has an unwritten Constitution.

The Constitution is the least of the worries despite Putrajaya’s non-compliance of the Malaysia Agreement.

The premises for Malaysia in Borneo were based on blatant falsehoods.

Malaysia’s promise of development in Borneo not fulfilled

The Borneo territories were promised development to bring them on par with Malaya. The World Bank (WB) reported in Kota Kinabalu in Dec 2010 that Sabah and Sarawak were the poorest and 2^nd poorest “states” in Malaysia. The WB figures were obtained from the Economic Planning Unit in Putrajaya, and the State Planning Units in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

In reality, the indigenous population of the two Borneo territories was needed in 1963 to be added together with the Malay-speaking numbers in the peninsula to balance the Chinese population when Singapore and Malaya merged via Malaysia.

Singapore’s exit – some say expulsion – from Malaysia in 10 Aug 1965 negated the need for Sabah and Sarawak to remain in the Federation. However, in a further violation of their rights, they were not allowed to follow in Singapore’s footstep. Instead, they were sold the story that Malaysia was the best guarantee of security for Sabah and Sarawak given the presence of Indonesia and Philippines – “the two crocodiles” – in the region. Security was Putrajaya’s proverbial fig leaf in the two Borneo territories

Nevertheless, Sabah Chief Minister Donald Aloysius Marmaduke Stephens wanted to review his nation’s participation in Malaysia in 1965 but was quickly bundled by then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman into exile in Canberra as the High Commissioner. Tunku, in warning Mustapha Harun who succeeded Stephens, referred to the ousted Chief Minister as a “Serani (Eurasian) who could not be trusted”. Stephens was urban Dusun (Kadazan) and British on his father’s side and British and Japanese on his mother’s side.

No security for Sabah in Malaysia

Malaysia did not bring security to Sabah as witnessed by the continuing influx of illegal immigrants into the territory. In 2005, it was estimated that locals numbered 1.5 million while foreigners including illegal immigrants made up 1.7 million of the population.  It’s said that some 600,000 illegal immigrants have been handed local birth certificates to enable them to obtain MyKads meant for citizens by operation of law.

The illegal immigrant influx into Sabah was largely the result of Putrajaya’s interference in the southern region of the Philippines. It’s no secret that arms from Libya, under Muammar Ghadafi, were shipped via the Mustapha Government in Sabah to the southern Philippines to add fuel to the fire in the region.

Since then, Manila had always insisted that Putrajaya broker a peace deal in the southern Philippines. The latest peace deal in the southern Philippines is by no means the first and probably won’t be the last unless Malaysia, as a member state of the United Nations, respects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Philippines.

Orang Asal of Sabah losing country to illegals

The influx of the illegals has politically neutralized, isolated, disenfranchised and marginalized the Orang Asal (Original People) – Murutic Grouping and Dusunic grouping including the Kadazan or urban Dusun – in Sabah. Of the 60 seats in the state assembly today, only 20 can be said to have a significant number of Orang Asal voters.

The violations of the rights of the people of Sabah and Sarawak make a long list that could probably stretch the entire length of the still uncompleted Pan-Borneo Highway from Tawau in Southeast Sabah to Lundu, the farthest spot in Sarawak.

However, if Sabah and Sarawak are to come out of the aberration that Malaysia is in these two nations, there must be a new revenue-sharing formula with Putrajaya to move the two territories forward to the autonomy promised in 1963, if not independence.

At present, almost all the revenue flows to the Federal coffers. This includes 95 per cent of the oil and gas revenue from the inner waters and 100 per cent from the outer waters.

The Sabah Law Association, in a recent legal opinion, announced that the oil agreement between the Federal Government and the state governments of Sabah and Sarawak in 1976 are null and void since they are based on the unconstitutional Petroleum Development Act 1974. Stephen’s death with most of his cabinet in 1976 in a tragic air crash, after he as Chief Minister again for the second time refused to sign the oil agreement, remains an enduring mystery in Sabah.

Malaysia Chronicle