Sabah,
Sarawak’s fight for fair play Putrajaya’s nightmare
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OUTSPOKEN: East Malaysians were – in fact, still are – aghast when Putrajaya
announced its plan to amend the Sedition Act 1948.
Playing to sooth was Minister in the Prime Minister’s
Department Nancy Shukri who said Sarawakians and Sabahans had nothing to worry
as the proposed amendment would not affect their special rights.
She said the amendment would not restrict Sabahans and
Sarawakians’ freedom of speech except where criticisms could bring bad
implications and affect the royal institution, racial unity and religious
harmony.
Otherwise, she said, there should not be any worries
as far as Sabah and Sarawak are concerned, as the proposed amendment will not
infringe the Constitution.
But the Borneo states’ leaders, rights groups and
laymen alike still cannot help seeing the move as a systematic attempt to
stymie Sabahans and Sarawakians’ freedom of expression and silence them into
subservience.
The clues after all are there for everyone to see.
At the opening of the Umno general assembly last year,
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had announced that the scope of the
Sedition Act would be widened to include, among others, prohibiting calls for
secession of the two Borneo states from Malaysia.
Talk of secession gained traction last year, when
groups from various online social media organised themselves under the brand
‘Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia’ (SSKM).
Those supporting the movement had called for a review
of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 which saw the Federation of Malaya, Singapore,
Sarawak, North Borneo (Sabah) forming one nation as equal partners.
Last September, Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid
Hamidi issued a warning to groups calling for secession of Sabah and Sarawak
from the Federation, threatening them with legal actions.
He argued that Sabah and Sarawak are very much a part
of the country and that questions of neo-colonialism does not arise at all.
He reminded that the referendum conducted by the
Cobbold Commission prior to the formation of Malaysia was endorsed by the
United Nations and is still in force.
In a direct response, Sabah State Reform Party (Star)
chief Datuk Jeffrey Kitingan said before Najib and Zahid arrest anyone
connected with Sabah issues, they should first start arresting 'the traitors
and culprits' behind the issuance of dubious ICs and MyKads to illegal
immigrants, and the insertion of illegals as voters in the electoral rolls,.
“They should also arrest the ultra-Malays, extremists
and racial bigots who are seeking to seize and trample the legitimate rights of
others and even to the extent of Umno leaders chasing out Malaysians to leave
the federation,” he said.
He said the ultra-Malays, extremists and racial bigots
were more dangerous than East Malaysians asking for the restoration of their
rights and the re-examination of the Malaysia Agreement.
“If the federal government had any decency and treat
Sabahans as equal Malaysians, the proper course would have been to engage the
nationalists and activists and address the grievances and injustices against
the people in Sabah and Sarawak,” Jeffrey argued.
Nancy’s assurance pales beside that piece from Jeffrey
while legal experts from the two Borneo states further argued that the proposed
amendment could have far-reaching implications as it is sure to involve the rights
of the two states as per the Malaysia Agreement 1963, therefore, could be
challenged in the court of law.
They said once the amendment is in place, Sarawakians
and Sabahans will not be able to voice their rights in line with the agreement
to express unhappiness over allegations of unequal treatment by the federal
government.
Later, even as Nancy called on the people to view the
proposed amendment from a positive perspective, which is to further enhance the
existing racial and religious harmony, Sarawak Association for Peoples’
Aspiration (Sapa), banned after hardly a year in existence, was filing an
application for a judicial review to quash the Home Minister’s order made last
November.
Counsel Dominique Ng claimed banning Sapa is a serious
matter of public interest as it has struck at the very tenets of democracy and
fundamental civil liberties guaranteed in the Malaysian Constitution — freedom
of speech and expression, and freedom of association.
Nancy’s assurance of freedom of speech for East
Malaysians rings hollow in the face of Sapa’s rather premature demise.
On the contrary, East Malaysians get more nervous –
and have even less confidence in Nancy’s assurance – when just before Chinese
New year, nine people were briefly arrested in Tuaran, Sabah, for handing out
allegedly seditious pamphlets and mounting a signature campaign pushing for
Sabah’s rights.
In Sapa’s ill fate and the Tuaran incident, it does
look like the proposed amendment to the Sedition Act is to bring the East
Malaysian states in line and that those who will have to face the full wrath of
the new provision will be Sarawakians and Sabahans.
Then Sarawakian Nancy suddenly played wise, saying it
would be unfair if the proposed new clause prohibiting calls for secession were
to be applied to Sabah and Sarawak only. This is because talks of pulling out
of Malaysia could happen anywhere in the country.
“I do not agree that the amendment is only aimed at
Sabah and Sarawak. When you want to amend the law, you have to consider that
this can also happen in any other states. We need to take consideration of all
the states in the country. It is not about Sabah and Sarawak only,” she was
quoted as saying.
Nancy said the provision against secession should
apply to all states.
Hurrah! And congratulation. But as of now, you and I –
and surely Nancy, too – can see that secession is more politically logical and
real for the Borneo states than any of their Semenanjung counterparts.
If Nancy truly sees the unfairness and injustice in a
provision targeted specifically at Sabah and Sarawak, as a Sarawakian, that’s
expected of her.
But there is also every possibility that she is only
trying to qualify the proposed amendment’s original intent and objective, which
is sub-planting a supposed call by a minority for secession in the two states
across the South China Sea.
What Putrajaya has refused to admit, it would seem, is
that it is a growing call and that the amendment is aimed at nipping the
problem in the bud, a problem that has the potential to snowball and gain
momentum and popularity.
The prospect is frightening, more so when, even as
Putrajaya grapples with the secession issue and a growing demand to revisit the
18/20 Point Malaysia Agreement, Scotland was allowed to run a referendum to see
if the United Kingdom was still a viable entity.
The Scotland episode is the least that Putrajaya would
ever wanted, not when it runs counter to the fundamental objective of proposed
amendment to the Sedition Act, which is to silence critics of Putrajaya in the
Borneo states.
All Putrajaya sees is there is imminent danger in any
move towards secession by Sarawak and Sabah and that a referendum will surely
invite trouble. BIG trouble.
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at:
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