KUCHING, Oct 28: Human rights activist Peter John Jaban says people should be suspicious when the newly re-branded former Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders of Sarawak start trying to promote themselves as “noble defenders” of Sarawakian autonomy and to wear the cloak of the ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’ movement.
He questioned where were these leaders for the past 60 years while opposition folk pointed out that the state was being sucked dry, thanks to an illegal petroleum agreement signed by former Chief Minister Pehin Sri Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud’s uncle Tun Abdul Rahman Ya’kub and former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, while Taib himself orchestrated the affair as federal resources minister.
“That agreement was never ratified by the Sarawak State Assembly, as it ought to have been, meaning that Taib’s subsequent administration and all the flunkeys that supported it, who have now scurried over to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), betrayed their people for decades by handing over all the oil wealth for nothing in return.
“However, now they appear to think they can come back posing as great nationalist heroes, which is how their expensively commissioned PR companies seek to position them for victory in the next state elections,” said Peter John in a statement today.
He predicted that Sarawak voters could expect to witness months of posturing along these lines as those well-paid image folk come up with different ways for this army of political leeches to claim that they are ‘standing up for the people of Sarawak against the federal government’.
“Simply, they noticed that grassroots activists were getting support from people fed up with BN/GPS and their sell-out of Sarawak, so they have decided to try and steal the cloak and wear it.
“The problem is that we can all see what they are doing, and the facts speak for themselves,” said Peter John.
He asserted that the manner in which Sarawak’s BN leadership all scurried over to form a new coalition with a different name when Najib imploded in the federal elections tells Sarawakians of their selfish opportunism.
“These politicians are not about standing up for a cause, let alone their people. They are about serving themselves.
“This has not worried any of the present GPS folk until the day BN lost the election. None of those politicians complained or stood up and demanded a better deal, except for a brief while by (Pehin Sri) Adenan Satem, who was soon slapped down on the matter by Najib. The reason was clear, in that the few Sarawak leaders who were privileged to do BN’s work and run the politics of the state were rewarded very well indeed.
“Will Sarawakians be taken in and adopt these same old greedy Datuks as the new champions of the revolution?” he wondered. — Dayakdaily
