NO PROPER STUDY DONE TO FORM MALAYSIA, SAYS DR M ?

Brits put Tunku up to form Malaysia, says Dr M

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — It was colonial Britain’s scheming that led Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj to moot the idea for a bigger country called Malaysia, said former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his autobiography.

“My own firm belief was that the British put the Tunku up to it, planting in his mind a pleasing but hardly workable idea, because they did not think their North Borneo colonies could survive as independent states,” Dr Mahathir said in his book “A Doctor In The House: The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad” published by MPH Group Publishing.

In the chapter “The Tunku makes a proposal”, Dr Mahathir said Tunku’s 1961 proposal to expand the Malay peninsula into a bigger nation together with Singapore, Sarawak, the British North Borneo — as Sabah was then called — and Brunei had been planted by Britain who were fearful of communist Indonesia’s growth in Southeast Asia.

“They feared Indonesia had further ambitions after it had demanded Dutch Western Guinea and got what it wanted... The British looked to Malaya and the Tunku to block any such move. Britain was fearful then, as were many others, of Sukarno, who was the bogeyman of the region,” he added a few lines later.

Dr Mahathir also noted that Tunku had “not fully consulted anyone in Umno about his proposal to expand the Federation”.

He insisted there was no proper study done.

If there had been one, the outcome would likely have been different, he said, adding that the Malays did not like the idea from the start but had conceded to it.

Malaysia came into being in 1963, after Singapore supported Tunku’s proposal, followed by Sarawak and the British North Borneo. Brunei opted to stay out.

Dr Mahathir said Tunku “eventually realised that his assumption was wrong”.

He said Malaysia’s founding father then tried to get Lee Kuan Yew’s Chinese-dominated People’s Action Party (PAP) to agree to limit its politics to Singapore, but failed.

Dr Mahathir will be at his book launch later today at Mid Valley Megamall here at 3pm.