Secession talk will grow if Malaysia Agreements not kept, warns Sarawak PKR
Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian (pic) said calls for the secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia will grow louder if Putrajaya fails to address complaints of unfair treatment by citizens and even some politicians from these two states.
In his Malaysia Day message, the Ba’Kelalan assemblyman said more and more people have come to realise “the broken promises of the Malaysia Agreement” – the pact which Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya had agreed to when Malaysia was formed in 1963.
He also noted the “rising resentment about the unfair treatment accorded to us by the federal government” and said it wasn’t surprising that various voices were now calling for secession from the federation of Malaysia.
“We see the emergence of voices such as the Sovereignty Movement, Sarawak for Sarawakians, SAPA (Sarawak Association for People's Aspiration). We are only seeing the start of such movements which I predict will increase in number and strength.”
Baru said Putrajaya could have prevented such resentment if it had heeded the warning in one particular paragraph of the Cobbold Commission report.
He cited the report which said: “It is a necessary condition that, from the outset, Malaysia should be regarded by all concerned as an association of partners, combining in the common interests to create a new nation but retaining their own individualities.
“If any idea were to take root that Malaysia would involve a ‘take-over’ of the Borneo territories by the Federation of Malaya and the submersion of the individualities of North Borneo and Sarawak, Malaysia would not, in my judgment, be generally acceptable or successful.”
The Cobbold Commission was a commission of inquiry in 1962 tasked with finding out whether the people of Sabah (then called North Borneo) and Sarawak would agree to form Malaysia together with Malaya, Brunei and Singapore.
The commission’s report stressed that all parties in the new country had to be treated as equal partners.
Baru said there was still hope for “the Malaysia dream of our forefathers” to be realised, provided Putrajaya’s leaders had the political will to do so.
Malaysians must also assess the country’s situation – amid growing religious intolerance – and decide what they want and act accordingly, Baru said.
“For me, the practical solution for Sabah and Sarawak at this time is to continue to assert our fundamental rights guaranteed in the 18 points of the Malaysia Agreement.
“The government must resolve to put right what had gone wrong and to fulfil the broken promises,” Baru, a lawyer, said.
These broken promises, he noted, included the right to a fair share of revenue from Sabah and Sarawak’s natural resources, the right to equal development, freedom from an official state religion, preservation of native languages, control over immigration, recruitment of Bornean natives into the civil service, and greater representation in the federal government.
Baru said Malaysia Day could only be considered truly joyous when the government started to treat the constitution as the supreme law of the land, and when the institutions of government functioned separately and independently.
The nation’s leaders also had to be blind to race and religion and “lead without fear or favour”, before Malaysia Day could be marked with genuine celebration.
“This is a dream that can be realised, and it is up to the common people to fight for this dream,” he said. – September 16, 2014.
