Seven men died when a helicopter crashed in northern Sarawak. Among the dead was an assistant minister in the state government. It was a regrettable accident, with high ranking officials having died with him.

The media in Peninsular Malaysia, which all but ignores events in Sabah and Sarawak, pulled out all stops to report the search in excruciating detail. In fact, more space was given to the crash than any event in the two states in the past two decades. Yet, the reporters continued naming the wrong woman as the widow of one of the dead men, even after the mistake was pointed out.

So, what was the coverage so extensive and even intrusive? It had to do with local politics. There has been an unmentioned revolution by stealth in the state National Front (BN) coalition: the Melanau community, forming six percent of the state's population, is now in total political control of the coalition and the state.

Its leader is of course the chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud. When the federal agriculture minister, Effendi Norwawi, resigned, he was succeeded by a Melanau, albeit a Christian, Dr Leo Michael Toyad. It is a Melanau, Muslim or Christian, who succeeds best in Sarawak politics.

This is so well consolidated, with Umno kept out of it, that the other largely Iban and other native tribes band forces to challenge the Melanau. No one talks about this in public, but the political undercurrents point to newer leaders pushing for a better political accommodation for them.

This explains why Dr Judson Tagal, the assistant minister who died in the helicopter crash, was so important to this realignment. His death deprived one leader in this push for the realignment of the politically disadvantaged tribes.

The newspapers in the peninsula went along with this, for it is a federal desire to clip the wings of the Melanau in Sarawak. They believe their older leaders were more interested in their political position than the needs of the communities they represented.

Clipping of wings?

In Sarawak and Sabah, this realignment of political forces cuts across religious and tribal boundaries as the second generation of politicians join hands to beat off the federal intruders, whom they call 'neo-colonialists', that an incipient but nevertheless real tribal nationalism emerges, mostly in secret and subsumes the official politics as Kuala Lumpur so declares.

Some of the strongest proponents of this in Sabah are Umno members and in the state cabinet. In Sarawak, it is in Umno's political interest to support the political underdogs who, in truth, are in the majority, more to clip the Melanau wings and let the new force fight on with its blessings.

Umno went into Sabah a decade ago to clip the wings of the Kadazandusun community. In 1994, it promised heaven and earth to throw out the Parti Besatu Sabah, then as now led by Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

Among others, it promised 40,000 low-cost houses and several hundred kilometres of railway track. Several district hospitals were to be built, though this has not been done to date. Cheap transport for travel between the Borneo states and the peninsula was promised, but 10 years later this remains a pipe dream. The promised formal integration into Malaysia has not even started.

No one talks about it now, not in public, but the anger of Sabahans is real. It worsened when the then chief minister, Harris Salleh, alienated Labuan to the federal government. This anger cuts across party, tribal, religious lines.

One state cabinet minister who in public backs Umno would move swiftly to the Sabah-for-Sabahans camp once it takes off. Paradoxically, the one Malaysian politician whom this group has much time for can do little for them: Anwar Ibrahim, who as you would know by now, is otherwise indisposed until 2008.

But the support for him is real: One asked me: "What is Umno without Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim?" The inference being that since Anwar is not in Umno, why should they?

Price to pay

Umno's entry into Sabah was a major mistake, for which the full price has yet to be paid. It went in to control the state from Kuala Lumpur. The initial euphoria for it came from those not in the government, who believed that siding with Umno was the quickest way to return to political power, and to keep the largely Christian and animist Kadazandusun out of political power. It did not work.

Joseph Pairin Kitingan is deputy chief minister in the present cabinet in Kota Kinabalu, and due to be chief minister in the next round. Umno thinks it has quashed that to insist that the Umno chief minister will not make way for anyone because it has an absolute majority in the state BN coalition.

But it highlights the condescension the peninsula reserves for its poor cousins in Sarawak and Sabah. Poor cousins, did I say? They are now. They would not be for long. By 2007, for instance, Petronas' five-percent oil royalties to Sabah would exceed its total budget.

In the peninsula, the federal government refused to hand over the Petronas royalties to Terengganu when it was run by the opposition PAS, when it realised that the state could survive on the royalties and without begging for federal handouts. Umno had to be in control of Sabah. For a good reason: Sabah's oil reserves are larger than those of Kuwait.

There is some truth in accusing Kuala Lumpur of being neo-colonialist. The federal government subborned the leaders of both Sarawak and Sabah to get them to sign on the dotted line. The Cobbold Commission, which looked into the formation of Malaysia, was surprised that the two states went into the Malaysian federation so meekly, after its strident opposition to it before the Commission. But once Sabah and Sarawak was in Malaysia, the old leaders were discarded, and those it wanted were put in place.

The relationship between the Borneo states and the peninsula is one of rulers and the ruled. Kuala Lumpur insists on the form, not the substance, to prevail. So it is not East and West Malaysia, but the peninsula and the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Kuala Lumpur reckoned that if the two halves were designated as East and West, especially when it separated by a land mass or the sea, irredentist tendencies could develop in one. But these younger leaders now ask: how would this change if Malaysia is described as the East and West Malaysia rather than the peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak?

High officers from Sabah and Sarawak play second fiddle to peninsular officials. Why are most headmasters in the two Borneo states from the peninsula? Why are there not an equal distribution of senior and junior officers from the two states in the peninsula? Why is there no rotation of judges from Sabah and Sarawak with the peninsular judges?

No secretaries-general or heads of federal departments or almost no senior diplomats from the two states. The ministers from Sabah and Sarawak in the prime minister's department grumble because they have no authority, there to show the two states are represented, a token.

This divide can only widen. There is no desire in Kuala Lumpur to address the growing nationalism among the Sarawakians and the Sabahans. The first generation could be controlled. But the second generation begin to ask questions for which there are no clear cut answers.

For the unfortunately reality is that Kuala Lumpur has failed Sarawak and Sabah every time. Its priorities were wrong. It thought it could govern Sabah and Sarawak through local proxies.

Local political pressures were too strong for that to happen. For the moment, Kuala Lumpur is in control. But for how long?