Sabah, Sarawak rights groups channel secession anger into better methods

By admin-s Last updated Jun 17, 2014

TMI – At football games in Kuching’s main stadium, fans of the Sarawak team hold up the state’s pre-Malaysia red and black flags with a crown in the middle while more and more cars in Kuching have stickers that say: “Sarawak for Sarawakians”.

Online, a survey that is making its rounds among Sabah folk supposedly shows 90% of respondents choosing “leaving the Malaysian Federation” as the solution to the state’s problems.

If left unchecked, said a Sabah-rights activist, these feelings, especially among the young, could combust and see thousands marching down on Putrajaya a la Bersih 2.0 to press for secession.

It was flare-ups like these, which a group of like-minded associations in Sabah and Sarawak was trying to prevent, said Jalumin Bayogoh (pic) of the Borneo Heritage Foundation.

Unlike rallies on electoral reform, for instance, calls for Sabah and Sarawak to secede from Malaysia are treasonous, which carry severe penalties under the law.

So instead of taking to the street and getting arrested, the group and others like it are attempting to channel their anger into initiatives, such as pressing Putrajaya to honour the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

“(Demanding secession) is a last option. We want to try other approaches first. Many of us have spouses from the peninsula, so we don’t want to leave Malaysia,” said Jalumin, when met on the sidelines of the groups’ latest public forum on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 in Kuala Lumpur.

“We want only what has been agreed upon in the 1963 Malaysia Agreement and we are willing to work with Putrajaya to fulfil this demand,” said Jalumin.

51 years of colonisation

Even at the forum itself, there were calls, from its younger audience, for Sabah and Sarawak rights groups to stop the tried and old ways of talking to Putrajaya and to just take to the streets.

“Why are still trying to negotiate with the federal government? What’s the point? We should plan to march to Putrajaya,” said one young man in the audience.

The anger was palpable and the calls for secession, at least online, were increasing, said veteran opposition politician Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.

He said the online poll three months ago was an eye-opener even to him, a staunch critic of the federal government’s treatment of Sabah and Sarawak for more than 30 years.

Having been detained for 2½ years in the early 1990s by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on charges of plotting secession, Kitingan attempted to play down sentiments shown in the poll.

“I don’t believe that the respondents want secession in the real sense. I believe the poll actually reflects a sense of hopelessness they feel and how Putrajaya does not listen to them,” said Kitingan.