Tanak Wagu has written a brilliant letter - it is a very frank and honest opinion of Sabah and Sarawak politics.

While Sabahans and Sarawakians have time and again voted for the Barisan Nasional and that includes the BN-splinter party PBS which has since returned to the fold, if they choose overwhelmingly to reject BN and opt for independence, Kuala Lumpur should pay heed to their wishes.

And while it is true that Sabah and Sarawak formed Malaysia with Malaya and Singapore in 1963, this Malaysia was not created as a union of four countries but a federation of 14 states. Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were supposed to be given autonomy.

The United Nations found that two-thirds of Sabahans and Sarawakians wanted to be part of Malaysia. One-third wanted a 14-state federation while the other one-third wanted a four-country union. The remaining one-third wanted independence first before deciding to join Malaysia.

The first and second prime ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra and Tun Abdul Razak Hussein respectively were open-minded about the number of states/countries in the new federation/union (they were not too worried about 14 states or four countries).

But the the hardline Malays or ultras in Umno, (then including one Mahathir Mohamad and one Ghafar Baba) which was then very democratic, exerted a lot of pressure on the two leaders to water down the autonomy of the two Borneo countries.

The hardliners in Umno, however, had crucial allies with unscrupulous native politicians in Borneo. In Sarawak, there was the respected uncle-and-nephew team of Melanau Dayak chieftains Abdul Rahman Yaakub and Abdul Taib Mahmud.

In Sabah, there was the respected leader of the Bajau-Sulu community, Datu Mustapha Datu Harun, and the leader of the Bruneian-Kedayan community Harris Salleh.

These indigenous Muslim chiefs, I dare say, were largely responsible for the watering down of Borneo autonomy since 1963.

They did not only cultivate good ties with the Umno hardliners, but also with some of the richest and most powerful Malay sultans, since they themselves had royal blood from the Sulu and Brunei sultanates as well as from the Melanau Dayaks' own royalty.

Stephen Kalong Ningkan's ouster was engineered by the two Melanaus. Donald (Muhammad Fuad) Stephens' ouster was engineered by Mustapha and Harris.

It is not true that the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut (who are their kindred group), resisted Islam for ages. The first Muslims in Sabah were really the Idahans, a Kadazan-Dusun tribe.

It is also not true to say that the Bajau-Sulu and Bruneian-Kedayan peoples are not indigenous to Borneo. The former is a native group of Sabah on par with the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut.

Likewise, with the latter it forms 10 percent of Sabahans and 15 to 20 percent of Sarawakians (in Sarawak they are called Sarawak Malays).

The Bajau-Sulus are distant relatives of the Bidayuhs of Sarawak and the Bugis of Sulawesi and Maluku. The Bruneian-Kedayans are distant relatives of the Ibans and the Bataks of Sumatra.

If there is racial discrimination in Sabah, it is done by native Muslims against native Christians. It is not a case of a foreign kingdom occupying Sabah and Sarawak. Maybe, one can consider Brunei and Sulu as foreign kingdoms, but the Bruneian-Kedayans and the Bajau-Sulus who founded the two kingdoms, are indigenous peoples of Borneo.

Sarawak was originally a satrap of Brunei, and likewise Sabah. Sabah was a satrap of the Sulu empire (based in Jolo and Sandakan) which itself was a vassal of the mighty Brunei empire which controlled the whole of Borneo, and paid tribute to the Peninsula-based Pahang-Johor- Riau, Malacca and earlier Sri Vijaya (Old Selangor based in Klang and Palembang) empires.

Umno Sabah is not a Malaya-originated party. It is the product of a merger between two local parties led by Bajau-Sulus, Bruneian-Kedayans and Muslim Kadazan-Dusuns, namely the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Jelata Sabah (Berjaya).

The bulk of Umno Sabah leaders are from either of these two parties. The first Umno chief minister of Sabah, a Bajau named Sakaran Dandai, was Mustapha's successor. Mustapha (who founded Usno) set-up Umno Sabah by dissolving Usno and merging it with Harris' Berjaya in 1991.

Sakaran's successor Salleh Said is also a Bajau, originally from Usno, before defecting to Berjaya, PBS and Umno.

After him came Bruneian-Bajau Osu Sukam, another Mustapha protege from Usno. And today, it is retired Berjaya strongman Ayub Aman's younger brother Musa Aman, a Kadazan-Dusun- Bruneian with some ties to Harris.

I would not say Malay is synonymous with Islam. The Aboriginal Malays, ancestors of the modern Malays like all our prime ministers and menteri besars, are not all Muslims. Some are Christians while others are Buddhists and Hindus.

If you go to Muar you will find Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian Orang Laut and Orang Darat (formerly called Jakuns).

What determines right to self-rule is ethnicity, territory and history. Not religion.