Borneo Herald
For a Freer and Happier Borneo
Was the Cobbold Commission a scam?
Voon Lee Shan, a Sarawak lawyer
By Voon Lee Shan, 28-9-2024
WITHOUT the Cobbold Commission, there is no Cobbold Commission Report. Without the Cobbold Commission Report, there is no Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63). Without the Malaysia Agreement 1963, there is no Malaysia. However, the issue is Whether the Cobbold Commission was a scam – a scam to deceive the people of the British Borneo Territories to agree to the Malaysia Plan.
Members of the Cobbold Commission which was set up in January 1962.
The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 is to allow or to have all colonies in the world to be decolonized and achieve independence from their colonial masters. This Resolution was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 14 December 1960.
But, the Malaysia Plan by the British was not motivated by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514.
It has to be noted that the Malaysia Plan was motivated by the need by United Kingdom, to release their colonies from their burden in maintaining their colonies. Records show that the British planned Malaysia since 1953 and therefore, I repeat, it has nothing to do with the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514.
It was the plan of the British in 1953 that their colonies in South East Asia has to join together to form a federation or a country. Hence, came the Malaysian Plan.
In order to ensure that the Malaysia Plan be executed smoothly and in compliance with the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 and international protocols, the British constituted the Cobbold Commission in 1962 headed by Lord Cobbold. Lord Cobbold was a former Bank Governor of Bank of England.
In the Cobbold Commission, there were three British and two Malayans. The two Malayans were Dato’ Wong Pow Nee from Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and Chief Minister of Penang and Ghazali Shafie, Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaya.
There is no evidence that members of the Cobbold Commission could speak the local or native languages of the Borneo People. Without able to speak native language of Borneo people how could the members of the Cobbold Commission came to the conclusion that the people of Sarawak and Sabah wanted Malaysia to be formed? It could not be denied that this Cobbold Commission was to also to overcome the need for a referendum to determine the wishes of the people of Borneo Territories as required by UNGAR 1514.
The Cobbold Commission published its report on 1 August 1962 concluded that roughly only one-third of Sarawak’ population enthusiastically supported forming Malaysia, another one-third vehemently opposed, and the crucial remaining third of the population, though open to the idea, was yet to be convinced of the merits of independence through merger. The published report seems not correct because from available records, only 4,000 odd people were interviewed by the Cobbold Commission. Commonsense tells us that this is devoid of democracy! How could these people who were only about 4,000 odds were able to represent the voice of over a million people of North Borneo and Sarawak at that time to decide the fate or destiny of their countries?
From records and books by a several researchers, it is difficult to convince the people of Sarawak and Sabah not to come to the conclusion that the Cobbold Commission was not a scam that took away the intrinsic rights of peoples of Sarawak and Sabah to determine the fate of their countries and to gain independence.
Besides two books by Professor Michael Leigh, The Rising Moon and the other ones Deals, Datus And Dayaks, there are two other books that we all in Sarawak, need to read concerning the creation of Malaysia. These two books are one, by Dr Matthew Jones “Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia 1961-1965, Britain, the United States and the Creation of Malaysia (2001) and the other ones is by Dr Stanley S. Bedlington’s Malaysia and Singapore: The Building of New States (1978).
Of course, the research work of AJ Stockwell and The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia 1945-1965 by Dr Greg Poulgrain are “goldmines” that we all Sarawakians should read to find out the secrets on how Malaysia was created.
Dr. Bedlington mentioned that “local leaders in Sabah and Sarawak reacted strongly and adversely” to the Malaysia Plan.
Dr. Bedlington also mentioned that the Cobbold Commission as a “British contrivance activated and organized by British officials.” He said that the “Commission was an Anglo-Malayan exercise was immediately obvious from the fact that it did not include a single Bornean representative.”
The Cobbold Commission did not conduct any referendum in either British North Borneo or Sarawak to measure objectively the wishes and inclinations of the people on the issue of the “Malaysia” merger to assist in its enquiry. Bedlington added that the population of the two States was subjected to “sustained pressure” by British colonial officials to accept the merger. Records showed that those who opposed the Malaysia Plan were considered “subversives” and were arrested, assaulted and battered and many for fear of arrest and physical injuries had to run away and hid in the forests and took arms to resist their arrests. Many were branded as communists and terrorists and were shot dead. Those who are still alive said that they were forced by circumstances to join the clandestine organisation in their struggles to fight against Malaysia Plan.
Matthew Jones in his book noted that the Governors of the two crown colonies were sceptical of the Commission, with Governor Goode of British North Borneo calling the exercise “a farce’.
Therefore, it is clear that the true wishes of the majority of the populations of the two Borneo territories were seriously subverted, if not deliberately misconstrued and ignored. The voices of opposition to the merger were traduced.
Surprising facts that have been censored or hidden from the public all these years, were revealed by Dr Greg Poulgrain, and, in the process, cast the whole project of Malaysia itself in a fundamentally different light. Poulgrain was able to combine archival research at the Colonial Office, U.K. with interviews of surviving protagonists of the formative era of Malaysia who had played various roles in that period, thereby challenging the conventional version of the formation of Malaysia.
Poulgrain referred to a classified Colonial Office paper, “Political Objectives in British Territories of South East Asia” of 10th March, 1953, reveals that the British government (Her Majesty’s Government, or HMG) was “engaging in deliberate deception” for, while paying lip service to the Third Rajah’s aspiration for self-government for Sarawak which is embodied in the preamble to the 1941 Sarawak Constitution, Her Majesty’s Government was already planning for “some form of constitutional association” for the Borneo Territories and the Malaya/Singapore bloc coming together as a “British South-East Asia Dominion” in the early fifties.
Commissioner-General Malcolm MacDonald On April 2, 1955, informed the British Secretary for the Colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, that “the Bornean leaders are perhaps less aware than those in Malaya of our grand design.”
Despite that, Alan Lennox-Boyd on November 29, 1956, informed the Governor of North Borneo, Sir Roland Turnbull, “The possibility of a federation of North Borneo and Sarawak and indeed of all three Borneo territories ... is a matter for the people of the territories themselves to decide.” It was noted by Poulgrain that, at no time did Her Majesty’s Government envisage self-government by the people of Sarawak.
However, it must be noted that the colonial officers in the two territories were initially adverse to the idea of a merger of the Borneo states with Malaya and Singapore which they considered premature.
More concerned with their populations of different ethnicities living in harmony, they had in mind a more gradual move towards independence with the possibility of first forming a Borneon federation before a merger with their more politically savvy neighbours across the South China Sea, Malaya and Singapore. The “Borneo Proposal” was put forward in 1958, but, as Poulgrain notes, it was already foreshadowed by the 1953 paper. The Borneon proposal was in fact disparaged by the noted historian on South East Asian history, K.J. Tregonning as “a disguised MI5 exercise”.
Despite that, it is still widely believed and propagated that the proposal for the “Malaysia” merger with the Borneo territories was made by then Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, on May 27, 1961, to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association Club in Singapore. The British allowed Tunku take the credit for what was in fact the British brainchild, given the potential of the material benefits at stake for Britain.
It may be noted here that after the war, British interests in Malaya in the form of investments exceeded those that they had in India and the revenue from rubber and tin was sorely needed for post-war debt payment and reconstruction. The financial stake in having a peaceful merger of the Borneo territories and Singapore with Malaya was, therefore, huge.
Lee Kuan Yew, having been elected the Prime Minister of Singapore, then assisted the British to push forward the idea of Malaysia, while at the same time, consolidating his own party’s position against that of the Barisan Socialis [Socialist Front] whom he characterised, together with the Chinese opposition in Sarawak, as having been directed to oppose the Malaysia plan by outside powers, namely, Indonesia and China. Lee between September 13 and October 9, 1961, made twelve radio broadcasts (published as The Battle for Merger) in favour of the merger. It seemed that Lee Kuan Yew had his own political agenda to have Malaysia formed.
The research work by Poulgrain, however, pointed to that the primary purpose for forming Malaysia was oil, not ethnicity, even though much was made in the press then and in the mainstream books since of the Tunku’s insistence in having the Borneo colonies aboard in order to balance out the large Chinese population in Singapore with the indigenous populations in the Borneo territories.
The interviews by Poulgrain’s in 1991 with both Captain D.R. Gribble, and Captain Albert Young confirmed that the huge oilfield was known to the authorities in 1958, years before its “official discovery” in 1963.
The British at that time were prepared to surrender the oil in Sarawak territory to the new federation under control of Malaya. Sir Anthony Abell, then Governor of Sarawak, in April 1956 observed in a communication to the Colonial Office that “the politicians in both Malaya and Singapore were showing considerable interest in the Borneo territories “including its empty spaces, its potential wealth, and its oil”.
Poulgrain inexplicably added that it is “noteworthy” that the Governor could admit that Malaya had “imperialistic design” on the Borneo territories, and then to treat this as a reason for merger.
It is also noted that Tunku Abdul Rahman in a series of conversations with Abdullah Ahmad, which was later published in 2016 in a book entitled, Conversations with Tunku Abdul Rahman candidly admitted thus:
“Yes and they [the British] gave us Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore and so many other things in 1963 [with the formation of Malaysia]. The British could have given Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak independence, but they did not. Instead, they handed them to us”.
That’s how Cobbold Commission was used by the British to deny Sarawak the right to independence and to allow, in the words of, Tunku Abdul Rahman, to be handed to Malaya. From the words of Tunku Abdul Rahman, it should be clear to Sarawakians that 22 July is not Sarawak Independence Day as Sarawak had never been granted independence but was given to Malaya by the British.
It was all because of empty spaces, potential wealth and oil that made Sarawak now be part or an enlarged Federation of Malaya, renamed the Federation of Malaysia. Therefore, the Federation of Malaysia is not a new federation or country. This new name was conveyed to the United Nations Secretariat by Dato’ Ong Yoke Lin of Malaya after Malaysia Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak became part of the federation of Malaya effective 16 September, 1963 by way of Malaysia Agreement 1963.
The people of Sarawak needs to know the Truth because it is the Truth that sets us free. May God Bless this Land of Sarawak and her people.
Voon Lee Shan is President of Parti Bumi Kenyalang of Sarawak
