By Ling Hui
KUCHING, April 8: Sarawak cannot be on the same level as other states in Peninsular Malaysia when Malaysia is a confederation consisting of three regions or territories comprising Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah.
This is the view of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah when he said Sarawak, either a region or a territory but certainly not a state, cannot be the same as other smaller states in Peninsula Malaysia.
“We (Sarawak) cannot be part of a smaller state. How can you put Perlis and Sarawak on the same level?
“And when the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) was signed in 1963, there was one representative from Semenanjung (Peninsular Malaysia), one from Sarawak, one from Sabah, and at the time Singapore as well but Singapore later quit the federation.
“So, there was only one representative from the whole Peninsular Malaysia and not from each state,” he said during a press conference at a local hotel here today.
With that, he expressed his agreement with Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s statement of Sarawak being a region (‘wilayah’) during his two-day working visit to Sarawak on April 1 and 2.
Abdul Karim added that the Federal Constitution will then have to be amended based on MA63, and not Federation of Malaya 1957, to incorporate Sarawak and Sabah as regions and not states.
He said the amendment is to have a clear interpretation of Sarawak’s status in this confederation while it brings appropriateness to certain terms Sarawak beholds.
Touching on the right English word to describe ‘wilayah’, he said it could either be ‘region’ or ‘territory’ depending on how people define them, but he emphasised that ‘wilayah’ is not the same as federal territories (‘wilayah persekutuan’).
“It can be ‘region’ or ‘territory’, but then I personally would prefer ‘region’. We are three regions, or three territories, depending on how you define it but the facts remain.
“We cannot be on par or be seen as the same as the other states in Peninsula Malaysia,” he said. — DayakDaily
