MANY SABAHANS CONSIDER SABAH AS "ONE OF THREE" AND NOT "ONE OF THIRTEEN" PARTNERS IN MALAYSIA. "THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF THE SABAH PEOPLE DOES NOT GO AWAY.

Scholar's view on Sabah's status wrong: JPs

Published on: Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Justices of the Peace Council (Majaps) said the comments by academician Prof. Dr Ranjit Singh that Malaysia is not an equal partnership of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak are incorrect.

Its Honorary Secretary Datuk Lawrence Thien said firstly Malaysia is a federation with each State having its own special rights.

"For Peninsular Malaysia it is one block of 11 States with own rights e.g. only sultans can be the Agong (King), etc, while Sabah and Sarawak, the other two blocks with their own rights, which are to be read from the IGC (Inter-Governmental Committee) report and Malaysia Agreement.

"For example, Sabah and Sarawak have rights over oil royalties, rights on immigration, legal profession, among others," he said in a statement, Tuesday.

He said Australia is a good example of a real federation working with each state maintaining its own identity.

Hence, Thien said Malaysia is not a unitary state or nation like Brunei or Singapore. Indeed even China is one country but has three systems including Hong Kong and Macau.

"So it is still true that Sabah and Sarawak formed the two blocks while Malaya another block (with Singapore which was formerly the fourth block).

"From that aspect it is still correct that the various blocks are partners in forming Malaysia. Sabah and Sarawak cannot be equated to Perlis É it was never the basic structure of the Malaysian Federal Constitution that the initial formation of Malaysia must give way to a unitary state," he said.

Meanwhile, Sabah Progressive Party President Datuk Yong Teck Lee, said Prof Dr Ranjit Singh's view reflects that of the national mainstream.

"To them, we are the latecomers to Malaysia. We need their help because we are more backward. In the 1970s, our new friends in Kuala Lumpur asked whether we live on treetops and if we have television.

"To say they are equal to Sabah would be too much for them to bear," he said in a statement.

Yong said they claimed Sabah needed their civil servants because there are no qualified Sabahans. "We win hardly any national sports tournaments.

Economically, we are weak. Politically, we are the 'wild East'.

Our tourism icon is the orang utan, our main national news are pirates.

"None of the national newspapers saw the need to report the Sabah debate on the loss of oil blocks L and M or the piping of natural gas to Bintulu and the controversy over the coal powered plant. Sabah's losses are of little concern to them," he said.

"After the March 2008 political tsunami in Peninsular Malaysia, our friends over there commented that "Sabah and Sarawak are behind time" and slow in following the national trend.

"We cannot blame them for thinking so because that is their perspective of Sabah and Sarawak. But, we could remind them that when Sabah took the lead to change the BN Federal Government in 1990, all the peninsula states, except Kelantan, re-elected BN," he said.

Yong said the debate whether Sabah was one of three equal partners or one of thirteen states in Malaysia showed that a review of the State and Federal relationship is relevant and timely.

"SAPP will push for a review in line with SAPP's 8-Point struggle for autonomy and the return of Labuan," he said, adding that the review may propose that the High Court in Borneo be uplifted in authority and status.

"The granting of Federal citizenship in Sabah must require State consent.

Schedule 9 (Legislative Lists) of the Federal Constitution can be amended to give more jurisdictions to Sabah and Sarawak," he said.

As examples, he said, foreign labour, labour laws, shipping, road transport, trade and industry and energy can be transferred to the State List, while Schedule 10 Part V (Additional Sources of Revenues Assigned to Borneo States) can be expanded to include oil and gas, customs duties and revenues originating from Sabah and Sarawak.

This review can include Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan's idea of a two-tier federation as the system would allow the Conference of Rulers to continue as it is but the Chief Ministers and Menteri Besar Conference can be reviewed to enhance the participation of Sabah and Sarawak.

Yong said Malaysia was formed pursuant to the Malaysia Agreement of July 9, 1963 signed in London and the signatories were led by the then Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Malaya, Singapore and the leaders of North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak. Singapore left Malaysia on Aug. 9, 1965.

Hence, the agreement was signed not with the other 11 existing states in the Federation of Malaya but with Malaya. Indeed, Kelantan had objected to the inclusion of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore in Malaysia and had disputed the Malayan federal government's power to admit new states.

But Kelantan lost its legal challenge on Sept. 14, 1963.

Yong said that irrespective of the wordings of the Malaysia Agreement and the Malaysia Proclamation 1963, Sabahans' understanding and consciousness is that Sabah had formed Malaysia with three other partners - Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore.

Hence, many Sabahans consider Sabah as "one of three" and not "one of thirteen" partners in Malaysia.

"The collective memory of the Sabah people does not go away.

People still talk about it and from 1963 to 1971, Sabah and Sarawak were known as East Malaysia.

"Malaya became known as West Malaysia. But after the break up of West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971, the term West and East Malaysia was replaced with "Peninsular Malaysia" and "Sabah and Sarawak" for obvious reasons," he said.

But, the Federal Government would not concede that Sabah is an equal partner to Malaya because the national leaders cannot imagine Sabah as an equal to Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia), he claimed.

Yong said that although Malaysia Day on Sept. 16 is a historical fact, it still took the BN Federal Government 47 years to declare the day as a national holiday.

"However, we will still be celebrating Hari Kebangsaan Malaysia 53 Years (from 1957) instead of Malaysia National Day 47 Years (from 1963)," he said.

Yong said some leaders in Kuala Lumpur have a mindset that Malaysia is the father and Sabah is the child. "At times, this mindset is reflected in the civil service, private companies and associations.

"Their KL head offices make all the important decisions and treat their offices in Sabah like any other branch in the peninsula," he said.

Yong said that this "superior mindset" partly was also due to the Sabahans' docile approach.

"For instance, some local politicians are so lacking in self-confidence that they ask their federal leaders to come regularly to Sabah to help them," he said, adding that Umno Sabah divisions had their respective foster father in all constituencies.

"The internal bickering within Sabah Umno and BN has also entrenched the "divide and rule" tactic of KL.

These BN leaders have not learned from history. As a result, the people in Sabah lose out," he claimed.