CigMA wants Sabah, Sarawak referred to UN
A human rights movement believes it is time United Nations rescued Sabah and Sarawak from the ‘gross violations of human rights’.
By Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today
KOTA KINABALU: An ad hoc apolitical human rights movement in Sabah wants to bring the “ambivalent” status of Sabah and Sarawak to the United Nations and place it before the international community for deliberation and final resolution.
The NGO, Common Interest Group Malaysia (CigMA), feels that after nearly 50 years of Malaysia, “it must be clear by now that it cannot continue to be business as usual in Sabah and Sarawak”.
“Already, the federal government has been in non-compliance with the 1963 Malaysia Agreement,” CigMA co-chairperson Daniel John Jambun said in a talk entitled, “The root causes of poverty in Sabah, Sarawak exposed,” here over the weekend.
He identified the 11 major reasons for poverty in Sabah and Sarawak. They are:
- Proxy state governments;
- Under-representation in the Malaysian Parliament;
- Unfair revenue-sharing;
- Five percent oil revenue;
- No oil and gas infrastructure;
- No Borneonisation of the federal civil service;
- Adat ignored;
- Loss of the one federation, three territories status;
- Illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls;
- National Cabotage Policy; and
- General non-compliance of the Malaysia Agreement.
Jambun was one of the seven speakers at an “Inter-party dialogue and leadership” seminar organised by the Borneo Heritage Foundation (BHF) in association with the ad hoc United Borneo Front (UBF).
The others were Jeffrey Kitingan, Nilakrisna James, Zainal Ajamain, Dr Chong Eng Leong, Amde Sidik, and Yong Teck Lee.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) adviser Simon Sipaun moderated.
Jambun said that non-compliance raised two questions, namely whether a compliance mechanism must be set up; or whether both Sabah and Sarawak should appeal to the international community and the United Nations.
The latter option, he said, “would be to facilitate the departure of the two states from the Malaysian Federation. Singapore (1965) is a precedent”.
Compliance mechanism
Jambun said that it was unlikely that the Umno federal government, “obsessed with ketuanan Melayu” (Malay dominance and supremacy), would ever consider any compliance mechanism for the Malaysia Agreement or give justice, belated as it may be, to Sabah and Sarawak.
