“Understanding the United Borneo Front (UBF), Borneo Agenda and Borneo Alliance”
5 March 2011, Beverly Hotel, Karamunsing, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
"Now from the deliberations, I could feel a great sense of disappointment and perhaps frustrations that expectations have not been met, promises remain unfulfilled. It is, what I call, akin to a dog that can bark all day but the caravan keeps moving. Agreements and related legal documents associated with the rights of Sabah and Sarawak within the federation are, more often than not, seen as the inconvenient truths and preferred to be forgotten rather than be fulfilled. For example, the fact that it took 46 long years for the federal government only just to accept the fact that Malaysia came into being on the 16th of September 1963, I think speaks volumes.
Now, political union, I think, between Borneo territories and Malaya was at best, at least to my mind, a political and artificial one. The two regions, really, to think about it have very little, if any, in common.
Furthermore, they are separated by almost 2000 kilometers of South China Sea. The merger between Malaya and Singapore, I think, makes a lot of sense. Singapore is geographically part of Peninsula, just at the tip of Johore. It has no natural resources, or it had no natural resources at the time, I think even up to today, not even enough water for its own needs. The inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak, in my view, was really an afterthought to counter balance the Chinese population of Singapore. As it happened, Singapore, as we have been informed, left or kicked out of the federation in 1965 but continued to progress by leaps and bounds. Brunei decided to withdraw from the negotiations at the eleventh hour and has survived until today. It remains a big fish in a small pond whereas Sabah and Sarawak became small fish in a big pond.(mild laughter and applause)
Life in Sabah, in those days called North Borneo, as I remember it, before Malaysia, was very pleasant and good, to say the least. Admittedly there was no development that we see today, but even Malaya at that time was no better. There was no racial problem, mixed marriages were very common, and that is why we have so many peranakan in Sabah. If Sabahans are now conscious of racial and religious divide, it has been imported from semananjung. There was no illegal immigrant, there were no cases of Sabahans losing citizenship status while foreigners get it without much difficulty. There were no repressive and draconian laws, such as Official Secrets Act; Datuk Dr. Jeffrey is very familiar with this, Internal Security Act, sometimes referred to as ISA or “I Simply Arrest”, the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Seditious Act, the Police Act, and the four Proclamations of Emergency; we are still under emergency as of today even though the conditions for having emergency proclamation is no longer there, there was not quarrelling over dead bodies, the composition, and I spent three years of my career in the civil service before Malaysia, the composition in those days of the civil service was reflective of the racial makeup of society. It was multi-racial, meritocracy was practised. Corruption and ketuanan Melyau, we never heard of it. And the thing continues. How not to miss Sabah before Malaysia. (applause)
Coming back to the seminar, Datuk Dr. Jeffrey has taken us on a conducted tour of the back ground leading to the formation of Malaysia. The minimum safeguards, insisted by the Sabah and Sarawak leaders at the time, the expectations and hopes of the two states, the problems and challenges, and how the country evolved into what it is today. He has summed up with a road map indicating the way to move forward. He has given us food for thought and materials to reflect upon and to guide us as to which direction to go.
Our six panelists this morning have expanded on Dr. Jeffrey’s main theme into several components; including the Malaysia Agreement, the Cabotage policy, the comparisons between the communal and native titles, towards a more equitable distribution of opportunities, revenues, and so on, economic development and the illegal immigrant issue. The illegal immigration issue, I think, caught a lot of our attention, and it has grown in size and complexities over the years. It is now, to me, a question of sheer numbers. I think not arguably, they are the mother of all problems and appear to be here to stay.
Now with the exception of some leaders in Sabah and Sarawak, the Malaysia Agreement appears to have been forgotten and preferred for it to remain that way. Sabah although rich in natural resources, and once the second richest state in the country is now the poorest. That is, to me, the bottom line. What else is there to say, to argue?
As for the so-called state “autonomy”, I think, to my mind, it only exists in our imagination. Malaysia is federal in form but very much unitary in substance and practice. At least the situation in Sarawak appears to be somewhat better. For now at least, the Sarawakians still have a say in who is going to be their Chief Minister. And I believe there are many more local Sarawakians holding important positions such as head of departments in federal departments in Sarawak. And illegal immigrant problem is minimal.
Datuk Yong has comprehensively articulated state and federal relations as well as state autonomy. And being President of SAPP and having been in government himself and now in the opposition, he would have the benefit of firsthand experience both inside and outside the corridor of power. His coverage of the topic, to me at least, was analytical, informative and interesting.
Sabah and Sarawak have many things in common, sadly, including predicaments. In the interests of both states, it is vital and important for the two states to have very close relationship, co-operation and to continuously pool their resources together in order to maximize what I call mutual benefits for the two states. We are also witness active and lively intervention from the floor, which I believe contributed a lot to the success of this seminar.
I think there is a general consensus that Sabah and Sarawak deserve better treatment by the federal government in terms of more equitable distribution of opportunities, development projects, amongst others. For example, I understand that in the 2011 budget, the value of development projects for both Sabah and Sarawak amounts to only RM9.55 billion which, is in my view, peanuts, compared to the massive RM 109.74 billion for semananjung. This means that for Sabah and Sarawak, assuming that they share the 9.55 billion, will get less than 5 billion each. However, just one project in Kuala Lumpur, is more than what Sabah gets; that project is Warisan Merdeka incorporating the 100-storey tower in Kuala Lumpur. Yet, both Sabah and Sarawak are producers of oil which represent an important source of federal revenue. The combined size of Sabah and Sarawak is almost twice that of semananjung and much more developed in every respect.
During the last general elections, it was the voters of Sabah and Sarawak who saved the federal government from losing power so much so that now Sarawak, Sabah is now referred to as the fixed deposits. Personally, I find this term derogatory and insulting.
In return for all these, what Sabah and Sarawak get? They continue to get short changed and getting a raw deal. I just often wonder how the majority of people in Sabah and Sarawak feel about all these; or are they aware of these, I don’t know. And it is not that I think the leaders like you, I think it is good to make them aware that we are being continuously short changed.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am confident that you will agree with me that by and large, the objectives of the seminar have been achieved (applause). The various programmes and challenges confronting the two states have been deliberated on and identified. Several options on how they could be resolved, as well as where to go from here, have also been discussed. However, unless, they are acted upon by the government, they will remain as proposals and things will not change for the better. I think the general belief is that if the government is unwilling to act for whatever reason, then a change of government is obviously desirable. (applause). ..ends……
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