Bingkor assemblyperson Jeffrey Kitingan, who has been fighting for Sabah’s rights and equal treatment and fairness for its people, has now turned to the Asean countries for help to restore the rights of Sabahans as pledged in the Malaysia Agreement.

 

Kitingan, who is Star Sabah chairperson, made the plea yesterday to the Asean foreign ministers, who are holding a retreat in Kota Kinabalu.

 

The 10 Asean members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

 

“They should not turn a blind eye to the situation and simmering issues in Sabah and Sarawak.

 

“It is not unprecedented, as Malaysia has helped in the case of the Rohingyas in Burma, and it has also been accused of providing assistance in the Muslim insurgencies in Southern Thailand and Southern Philippines.

 

“In fact, Malaysia brokered the Bangsa Moro Peace Framework between the Philippines government and the Moro faction in the Southern Philippines,” Kitingan said in a statement.

Partners turned 'colonies'

 

In 1963, Sabah and Sarawak were dragged into the formation of the Federation of Malaysia by the British and Malayan governments.

 

There were also the 18-point and 20-point memoranda submitted by Sarawak and Sabah as the basis for their agreement to merge to form Malaysia.

 

“What was to be a merger and partnership with special rights and constitutional safeguards for Sabah and Sarawak in a new federation instead turned the two Borneo states into ‘internal colonies’ of Malaya.

 

“The situation got worse when Singapore left in 1965 and things have become even worse with the coming of Umno into Sabah politics in the early 1990s, resulting in an illegal population transfer of Muslims from neighbouring Philippines and Indonesia, and even from as far as Pakistan and India,” Kitingan said.

 

This resulted in the political franchise of the indigenous natives in Sabah being usurped by these foreigners who were given dubious identity cards and MyKad by the Malaysian government and provided bumiputera privileges as well, to the detriment of the indigenous natives.

 

“From the second richest state in the 1970s, Sabah is now the poorest state in Malaysia, with the majority of the poor being the indigenous natives and original inhabitants.

 

“Its rich resources, including petroleum and gas and its revenues, are almost 95 to 100 percent taken away by the federal government to fund the lopsided development in Malaya,” Kitingan lamented.

 

For the past 51 years, the basis of the Malaysia Agreement had not been complied with but eroded by the federal government through its sheer dominance, with the chief ministers of Sabah made compliant or beholden to Putrajaya, he said.

 

“This is the extent of the dictatorial regime of the federal government to stifle the grievances and voices of the Sabah people,” he said, and called on the Asean countries to help restore their rights.

 

Ideally, no doubt, no nation should interfere in the internal affairs of another nation but in this modern era, no nation should stand idle and watch from afar the mistreatment of fellow humankind in another country, Kitingan added.