Alarm among Sarawakians in Sabah over call for visas

Sarawakians who have settled in Sabah are alarmed over calls for them to be documented.

KOTA KINABALU: A statement by a senior Warisan leader calling for the “strict” documentation of Sarawakians in Sabah is causing alarm among the community here.

Many who have settled in Sabah for decades are questioning the motive behind Warisan deputy president Darell Leiking’s call for Sarawakians in the state to be documented in terms of their identity and location.

Leiking, the Penampang MP, said there was a need for the Sabah government to be strict about the entry of immigrants and Sarawakians.

In a subsequent statement, Leiking explained that what he meant was that Sabah should reintroduce the imposition of the social visa entry for Sarawakians entering the state that was done away with in the mid-1980s.

Warisan deputy president Darell Leiking

His explanation has, however, done little to quell the uneasiness among the Sarawakian community here.

“This is an unfortunate statement that comes just weeks before an election.

“Sarawakians have settled in Sabah since the 1950s and 1960s, and now we are made to feel like foreign immigrants,” said a businessman from Sarikei who has been living in Sabah for more than three decades.

He explained many Sarawakians like him came to work or start up businesses in Sabah after the state government relaxed their entry into the state 35 years ago.

Sarawakians like him opted to remain in Sabah without applying for a permanent residence permit as applying for it was time-consuming and cumbersome.

“Leiking may liken us to immigrants but the difference is that we have Malaysian identity cards and we are registered voters in Sabah, and we will respond through the ballot box,” the businessman said.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah analyst Lee Kuok Tiung said it was ironic for Leiking to call for stricter restrictions for the entry of Sarawakians into Sabah as the Warisan-led state government had appointed a Sarawak-born businessman to head the Sandakan municipal council two years ago.

Lee said Leiking appeared to be trying to divert the problem of Sabah’s illegal immigrants to that of thousands of Sarawakians in the state.

“Don’t divert the people’s attention when the illegal immigrant problem remains unresolved,” he said, noting that there has been a persistent perception that Warisan is a “PTI-friendly party”, referring to the local term for illegal immigrants. - FMT