Sipaun: Govt has no political will to solve Sabah IC problem

KOTA KINABALU: Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Joseph Pairin Kitingan’s acceptance of the offer to helm the Royal Commission of inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah in 2015 could end up jeopardising the veteran politician’s legacy.

Former state secretary Simon Sipaun told FMT that if it was him, he would not have accepted the post because he believes the government has no intention to solve the problem once and for all.

“The government does not seem to be serious. I understand what Pairin is going through. If I were in his shoes, I may not be so free to express whatever I feel because I am in BN.

“However, as it stands right now, the likelihood of Pairin being used as a scapegoat is very high,” he said.

Sipaun also said in a way, he respected the stand taken by former chief minister Bernard Dompok who chaired a similar committee several years ago but resigned after realising his recommendations fell on deaf ears.

Taking into consideration that Dompok was a full federal minister back then, Sipaun said at least Dompok stood his ground and would not let himself be used for other people’s political mileage.

“I don’t know if Pairin knows what is going on, it is not my place to judge his intention. But I must say that he used to be my hero. He did a lot of things for our people and during the turbulent PBS years, he braved the storm.

“But when talking about legacy, PBS has lost its sting a long time ago when they left BN and then rejoined 12 years later. And now Pairin is closely associated with the RCI which the government has no interest in solving,” he said.

Furthermore, Sipaun pointed out that the problem is not just about the influx of illegal immigrants but the reengineering of Sabah’s demography as there were suspicions the Filipino refugees were used to create a Muslim hegemony state in Sabah.

The human rights activist who was one of the witnesses in the RCI hearing which ended in 2013 said he also suspected the report, which was published a year after the hearing ended, was heavily edited with several parts removed.

For example, he said his name was not even on the list of witnesses despite being interviewed for over two hours.

Nevertheless, he said the more important question is whether the government has enough political will to solve the problem which has become too complicated as each year passes.

“If the government had done their job 30, 40 years ago, this would not have been a problem that is endangering the country’s security as it is now. But whoever was behind this idea decades ago, must have thought this problem would be confined to Sabah only.

“But now it is already getting out of hand. These people have become citizens and they are free to go everywhere in Malaysia and most have gone to the peninsula.

“Now you hear about immigrants with MyKads issued in Sabah, claiming to be Sabahans when they are not. Sabah has become a transit area of choice for immigrants before travelling to other parts of the country,” he said.

Sipaun recalled an incident a few years ago when an Indonesian man told him he had to change his name because he was deported once.

The Indonesian man claimed that on the boat when they were being deported, he gave money to the person in charge and he was told to change his name if he wishes to come in to Sabah again.

Sipaun said it has always baffled him why the illegal immigrants in Sabah dare to walk about without documents and carry out their business as usual without fear of getting caught.

“Even if the government wants to be strict, it is next to impossible to solve the problem because there are already so many of them. In 1970, Sabah’s population was 698,000 while Sarawak was a million.

“In 2004, there were 3.3 million Sabahans while Sarawak only had two million. If you base our growth to Sarawak’s rate, we should have, at best 1.3 million people. Where did the rest come from? Illegal immigrants of course,” Sipaun said.

With more than a million suspected illegal and legal immigrants making up more than half of the total population, Sipaun stated the small problem which was seen as a political convenience in the past has become a cancer that could threaten the security of this country in the long run. -FMT