Can Sabah and Swak secede?

Vidal Yudin Weil - April 14, 2014

Free Malaysia Today |

This article is intended for those who think Malaysia or rather Malaya owns
Sabah and Sarawak.

Once again I am writing about Abdul Rahman Dahlan, the Kota Belud MP who
was reported on Feb 17, 2014 in the mainstream media to have cited the 20-
Points and said the following:

(1) It is seditious and treasonous to suggest that both Sabah and Sarawak
secede from the Federation of Malaysia;

(2) Sabah and Sarawak cannot secede from Malaysia;

(3) Secession is not a solution to the woes of Sabah and Sarawak.

If readers have accessed my previous pieces about the man, they would
conclude that Abdul Rahman really does not actually know what he is saying all
of the time.

Before that I would remind readers that:

Official deceit which is one part of Machiavellian politics has always been the
religion of colonizers and one classic lie that has never fail to be used is you
need us to protect you from yourself has been said to the naive and
brainwashed colonized population throughout the ages until today.

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We do not need to look far, actually; the present political drama unfolding in
Malaysia that is shaking right-thinking citizens reveals the unprecedented
thievery and pretense perpetrated by mendacious opportunists from both sides of
the political divide is ample indications itself.

Half past six champions of the void ab initio Malaysia Agreement of July 9, 1963
that saw the formation of the Federation of Malaysia are asserting that the rights
of Sabah (20-Points) and Sarawak (18-Points) are safeguarded in a document
identified as the Inter-Governmental Committee Report of 1962 or in short, the
IGC Report; today, we shall see how foolishly wrong they are.

Before we proceed, it is necessary to recapitulate that the Malaysia Agreement is

absolutely void from the very beginning because Britain at all material times
never had sovereignty over the whole of Sabah to give away and the government
of Malaysia like its predecessor the British government is still paying annual
rentals to the Sulu Sultanate in the Philippines until today.

The latin maxim nemo dat quod non habet is a legal principle that says you
cannot confer property you do not own on another person except with the
authority of the true owner or simply put you cannot give what you do not have.

For further reading, go to the Manila Accord which was signed on July 31, 1963
between Abdul Rahman Putra, Soekarno, and Diosdado Macapagal; it is clearly
and unambiguously understood that the formation of Malaysia is subject to the
claim of the Philippines on Sabah being adjudicated in the International Court of
Justice which Putrajaya is scared of going there for fear of losing.

And worst, the more than 1.1 million people of Sabah and Sarawak at that point
of time were never consulted in a referendum whether they wanted Malaysia
only about 4,000 were reportedly interviewed by the Cobbold Commission.

Backward society

We cannot really blame Sabahans and Sarawakians who suffer from collective
issues of ignorance because like the rest of Malaya today, for more than 50 long
years, they have been indoctrinated with falsified historical facts and fed with
substandard education that taught them what to think instead of how to think
and living their entire lives on assumptions peddled by cheats and liars.

Do readers know why are things becoming so complicated and bad here in
Sabah now?

Because the people of Sabah are so gullible to the extent that they cannot even
be trusted to honorably do the right thing on their own volition during elections for
their own good and that of their descendants.

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Suffice to say, the Sabah of today has remained a feudal and backward society
since the British left.

The fine example of Brunei not becoming a colony of Malaya, look at how they
can do what they want with their oil and gas wealth poverty practically does not
exists there; the success story of tiny and resource-less Singapore who left
Malaysia in 1965 being transformed into a First World nation today profoundly
confirms that both Sabah and Sarawak are incurable failures of epic proportions.

Now, we go to the circus to showcase our clown of the day.

Question 1

The 1962 IGC Report by its name alone is only a report; and the pertinent
confusion is this since when can a mere report containing proposed
recommendations or demands, as some people put it, evolve into a legally
binding international Treaty, Agreement, Contract, or Convention?

In the 1963 Malaysia Agreement, were the 20-Points and 18-Points, or

alternatively how many of both were clearly spelt out in the same?

Find out too exactly how many of the individual 20-Points and 18-Points were
actually incorporated into the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, the latter of which
is evidently masqueraded by the Constitution of Malaya.

By all international standards, is the IGC Report not at best only a Memorandum
of Understanding with no legal force of law?

Question 2

If the IGC Report has no legality or statutory effectiveness, of what legitimacy do

the Sabah 20-Points and the Sarawak 18-Points contained therein have?

Question 3

Ask yourselves this: if the clause there should be no right to secede from the
Federation are in the Points that have no legitimacy nor legality, can Sabah and
Sarawak still secede from the Federation of Malaysia?

Question 4

Do readers know that Malaysia is not a country but a federation of independent

nations that consists of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore (left in 1965)?

Question 5

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Do readers know the meaning of the word treason? The Oxford English
Dictionary defines it as the crime of betraying ones country.

Say for example the democratically elected government of the independent

country of Scotland has decided that a referendum will be held onSept 18,
2014 to let their Scottish citizens decide whether they want to secede from the
United Kingdom after more than three hundred years in the union since 1707;
what treason is there?

Therefore, to the people of Sabah and Sarawak who harbor the wish of
secession: you must first elect educated and competent patriots and nationalists
to run your Sabah and Sarawak governments not bootlickers who are remotely-
controlled by Malayan political parties like what is happening now!

Question 6

Now, Malaysia is a federation while Sabah (an independent nation) is our country
or NEGARA in the Malay language; we have always been a negara when
Malaysia was formed until 1976 when Parliament downgraded our status to
negeri without consulting the Sabah Legislative Assembly after former Sabah
Chief Minister Donald Stephens and many other leaders were mysteriously killed
in an air disaster upon flying back from Labuan island without signing the
petroleum agreement that robs Sabah to the tune of 95% of our oil and gas
wealth.

The subsequent signing of the same by former Sabah Chief Minister Harris
Salleh and witnessed by Joseph Pairin Kitingan is also illegal because the Sabah
Legislative Assembly was also not consulted on the matter.

How can anyone who calls for the secession of our country Sabah from the
Federation of Malaysia be committing treason?

Question 7

The Macmillan Dictionary best defines state as a nation or country and the
government of a country.

Take note that the State of Sabah like the State of Sarawak is an independent
nation or country with a government where cabinet members are called ministers
unlike say Penang or Johore where their local governments do not have cabinets
and members are only executive councillors.

Sabah and/or Sarawak are equal in status with the entire Malaya combined and
not with any individual states in Peninsular.

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines seditious as inciting or causing people to
rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

As has been mentioned in question 4 supra, Malaysia is a federation of

independent nations and Sabah is our nation or country (NEGARA in Malay)
where we have our own government and in lieu of a monarch we have our own
Head of State (originally called Yang diPertuan Negara and later changed to
Yang diPertua Negeri by Parliament without consultation with the Sabah
Legislative Assembly in 1976).

As far as we know, nationalists in Sabah and Sarawak are not instigating

rebellions against the Sabah or Sarawak governments or respective Heads of
State; for every citizen from the independent nations of Sabah and Sarawak, how
can we when we call for the secession of our respective countries from a failed
Federation of Malaysia be seditious, then?

Question 8

In every suit that we handled or lecture delivered in the past, we always provide
simple and easy to understand analogies when we submit and today we give you
the following:

If in a failed marriage (Federation of Malaysia), the lazy and incompetent

husband (Malaya) not only neglect his conjugal duties (development) to his wives
(Sabah and Sarawak) but also took away 95% of their wealth (taxes and natural
resources) for his own extravagant spending, what should the wives do if not
divorce and leave him?

If ever Sabah and Sarawak are to be bankrupted, let it not be done by Malaya for
the benefit of Malaya.

Question 9

When the Federation of Malaysia was illegally formed in 1963 (as per our
reasoning above), there were the governments of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and
Singapore (left in 1965); do you realize that the government of Malaya has
ceased to exist altogether unlike Sabah, Sarawak, and even Singapore?

If Malaya was not masquerading as Malaysia to colonize Sabah and Sarawak

today, we really do not know what is!

Question 10

In the year 1963 when Malaysia was formed, the governments of Malaya, Sabah,
Sarawak, and Singapore signed the Malaysia Agreement; an advocate and
solicitor recently drew our attention to the following:

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When Singapore left Malaysia in 1965, an agreement was executed on Aug 7,
1965 for the separation between the government of Singapore and the
government of Malaysia without consultation with the governments of Sabah and
Sarawak as original partners in the Malaysia Agreement.

Is the Singapore Separation Agreement of 1965 valid without the signatories

from Sabah and Sarawak; if the answer is in the negative, is Singapore still
technically and legally a part of Malaysia; further and in the alternative, is the
Malaysia Agreement of 1963 voided as a result of the 1965 Separation
Agreement?

Conclusion

The 1963 Malaysia Agreement is void ab initio; can the 1965 Singapore
Separation Agreement further invalidate something that is clearly invalid in the
first instance; or in laymens term, would blowing up a corpse which died years
earlier with C4 explosives kill it again?

On June 18, 1984 former President Diosdado Macapagal who laid the
Philippines claim on Sabah in 1962 said unless Sabah becomes an independent
state by itself, it shall be the continuing duty of our posterity to carry on the
endeavor to return Sabah to the Philippines.

In plain and uncomplicated language, it means that if Sabah truly becomes free,
the Philippines claim will be dropped.

Our final question to readers from Sabah and Sarawak is this:

Is it not our nationalistic, patriotic, and holy duty to free our countries of an evil
colonizer who is striving on racism and religious persecution, a greedy subjugator
who commit continuous economic genocide on the people of Sabah and
Sarawak by siphoning our wealth in the billions to sustain their lifestyle and
leaving us with pittance?

To those of you who now understand but think and decide otherwise, where then
have you hidden your conscience in the sewage pond?

The author is a retiree in Kota Kinabalu and depending on health, time, and
interest, do blog occasionally at http://legalandprudent.blogspot.com giving no
quarters to anyone.

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Former state secretary Simon Sipaun says Sabah has been robbed blindly by
politicians and the federal government after it joined Malaysia in 1963. The
Malaysian Insight pic, September 16, 2017.

September 16 saddest day of my life,

says Sabah leader
Jason SantosUpdated about 3 weeks ago Published on 16 Sep 2017 12:00PM
2 comments
themalaysianinsight.com |

SEPTEMBER 16 is a bitter sweet day for many Sabahans, said former state
secretary Simon Sipaun.

While some will remember it as the day Sabah, Sarawak, Malaya and Singapore
merged to become Malaysia in 1963, others see it as the day North Borneo
disappeared, he said.

From records and photographs of the proclamation of Malaysia at the Jesselton

town padang, there were signs of jubilation and expectation.

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But, for me, September 16, 1963, was one of the saddest days of my life. It was
a day when Sabah and Sabahans lost the only opportunity to experience what it
was like to be truly independent, Sipaun told The Malaysian Insight.

The 79-year-old Sabahan was only 23 then and studying in New Zealand when
he first heard Tunku Abdul Rahman suggest the merger.

At the time, I did not think that the proposed formation of Malaysia would ever
materialise. I did not look at it very seriously, said Sipaun, who was also a
former National Human Rights (Suhakam) commissioner.

In the interview with The Malaysian Insight, he reflects on the history of

Malaysias formation and whether his home state of Sabah is now where he
expected it to be when the country was born 54 years ago.

Excepts from the interview:

TMI: On May 27, 1961, when Tunku announced the concept of Malaysia, what
was the response of the Bornean leaders?

Sipaun: In 1961, British North Borneo was very much under the control of the
British.

Local leaders did not have the opportunity to have better and deeper
understanding of the circumstances and situation associated with Tunkus
proposal.

The people of North Borneo were not politically conscious. There was no political
party in North Borneo until August 1961 when the first political party, the United
Kadazan National Organisation, was formed.

TMI: What was it like as a North Bornean looking at the merger in 1963?

Sipaun: At the time, I did not think that the proposed formation of Malaysia would
ever materialise.

However, at the same time, I was keen to follow the development as a matter of
academic interest because I was majoring in political science and one of the
subjects I was doing was federalism.

I still remember my lecturer saying that before the federation, you were like a big
fish in a small pond. After the federation, you became a small fish in a big pond. I
thought to myself there was nothing very attractive there.

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The Borneo Students Association at Victoria, comprising students from North
Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, was opposed to the idea of Malaysia fearing that it
could be another form of colonialism.

They were highly suspicious of the intention of the Malayan and Singaporean
leaders.

They were aware that Malaya and Singapore and the Borneo territories had
nothing much in common and were separated by almost 2,000km of South China
Sea.

Should there be a political union, it would at best be very artificial. There would
be more divisive than uniting factors. The potentially rich natural resources, such
as oil and gas of the respective territories, would have to be shared between the
central and state governments.

The Borneo territories would also lose the opportunity to experience what it
means to be independent and sovereign with the ability to determine their own
destiny and with a separate seat in the United Nations.

TMI: What were the aims and objectives of the Malaysian solidarity consultative
committee? Which leader played a key role?

Sipaun: The committee was chaired by Donald Stephens (later Muhammad

Fuad Stephens). It was established following a Commonwealth parliamentary
association regional conference in Singapore.

Its purpose was to explain the concept of Malaysia to the public, especially to the
people of North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei.

The key role was played by Donald Stephens since he was the chairman. It was
a clever move by Malaya and Singapore to let him chair the committee and
corner him to support the formation of Malaysia.

For the Borneo territories, he was regarded by the Malayan and Singapore
leaders as the most influential and articulate and it was, therefore, useful for
Stephens to be given the position where he felt important and could make a
difference. In a way, he was being used without him realising it.

(Note: Stephens founded the political party United National Kadazan

Organisation prior to the formation of Malaysia, and became Sabahs first chief
minister after Malaysia was formed.)

TMI: Why did leaders like Donald Stephens, who initially had reservations about
the merger, change their minds by the end of 1961?

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Sipaun: One theory is that Donald made the U-turn after meeting with Lee Kuan
Yew. Apparently, Lee told Donald that he would be the next prime minister of
Malaysia after Abdul Rahman and he would make Donald his deputy.

Donald would then become the PM of Malaysia, succeeding Lee. With the
formation of Malaysia, Donald would also become the first Sabah chief minister.
This was another incentive for him to support the formation of Malaysia. There
could have been other incentives.

Lee felt at the time that it would be in the national interest of Singapore to
federate with Malaya. Geographically, Singapore was part of Malaya. Singapore
had no natural resources, not even enough water to cater for its own needs.
Going alone for Singapore at the time was not an option.

Abdul Rahman on the other hand was aware that if the proposed federation only
comprised of Malaya and Singapore, the Malays would be outnumbered by the
Chinese.

This was where the Borneo territories came into the picture. The recruitment of
the Borneo territories was an afterthought. Both Lee and Abdul Rahman wanted
Malaysia to be realised but for different reasons.

TMI: What is the Cobbold Commission?

Sipaun: Following a series of meetings between the British and Malayan

governments, it was agreed that before a final decision was made, it was
necessary to ascertain the views of the people of North Borneo and Sarawak.

A commission comprising a chairman and four members, two nominated by the

British government and two by the Malayan government would carry out this
task.

The chairman of the commission was Lord Cobbold, the former Bank of England
governor. Hence, it was popularly known as the Cobbold Commission.

The other members were Penang chief minister Wong Pow Nee, Malayan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Ghazali Shafie, former Sarawak
governor Anthony Abell, and former chief secretary of Malaya David
Whetherston.

North Borneo and Sarawak were not represented. It was only a commission of
inquiry. It was not a referendum.

The commission held 50 hearings at the 35 different centres. Ten in Sarawak, 15

in North Borneo. About 4,000 people appeared before the commission.

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The report concluded that one third supported the idea, one third were in favour
provided there were safeguards, and the remaining third were divided between
those who preferred North Borneo to gain full independence first and those who
rejected the formation of Malaysia outright.

The conclusion was not unanimous.

The commission interpreted their findings as the people were in favour of

Malaysia and that it was in the best interest of North Borneo and Sarawak to
merge with the other states to form Malaysia.

TMI: What do you think about the merger?

Sipaun: Personally, I do not think the formation of Malaysia was the best option
for North Borneo. The experience for the last 54 years supports this contention.
Many problems Sabah experience today are post-Malaysia problems.

These include an overdose of politics based on race and religion, corruption,

inadequate attention to the practice of good governance, unfair distribution of
development of funds and opportunities, crafting laws that allow the authorities to
arrest without fair and open trial, bloated civil service, and affirmative action
created by the majority race which already controls everything and anything
associated with the government for their benefit.

Theres also illegal immigrants being allowed entry into Sabah without proper
documentations, forced conversion, confiscation of Malay-language Bibles, the
Allah dispute and quarrelling over dead bodies, and so on.

Brunei, which changed its mind at the eleventh hour from joining the federation,
is doing better than Sabah. Its citizens do not pay income tax.

It does not have to share its wealth with anyone. Like Brunei, Sabah has oil and
gas and other natural resources. For every 100 barrels of oil produced in Sabah,
95 barrels go to the federal government.

Yet, according to the 2010 World Bank report, Sabah is the poorest state in
Malaysia. This finding was corroborated by UNDP. I was told by a very senior UN
official in KL at least 50% of the poor people in the country are found in Sabah.

To add misery to injury, Sabahans are subjected to the goods and services tax
(GST). I can only see a litany of problems and suffering today. This is not the
Sabah I expected to see more than 53 years later.

It was a blessing in disguise for Singapore that it either left or was kicked out of
the federation on August 9, 1965. Look at Singapores progress today and it has
no natural resources.

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I still remember when Malaysia and Singapore parted, one Singapore dollar was
equal to RM1. Today one Singapore dollar is equal to more than RM3. What
does this indicate?

TMI: When Malaysia was formed on September 16, 1963, do you remember
what was the feeling at the time?

Sipaun: I cannot speak for others. From records and photographs of event
associated with the proclamation of Malaysia at the Jesselton town padang, there
were signs of jubilation and expectation.

It would be interesting to ask those who were there to witness the event and are
still alive today if they find Malaysia today is what they had expected 54 years
later.

As for me September 16, 1963, was one of the saddest days of my life. It was a
day when Sabah and Sabahans lost the only opportunity to experience what it
was like to live a truly independent and sovereign nation with the ability to
determine its own destiny, and with a separate seat in the United Nations.
September 16, 2017.

2017 The Malaysian Insight. All Rights Reserved.

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