By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan has called on the federal government to respect the right of Sarawakians and Sabahans to discuss their constitutional future peacefully and democratically, following Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s view that force could be used if necessary to preserve Malaysia’s unity and territorial integrity.
Voon said if the Prime Minister’s remarks made during an Al Jazeera interview were accurately reported, they warranted serious consideration, particularly in Sabah and Sarawak.
He questioned the comparison between the political aspirations of Sabah and Sarawak and the Taiwan-China issue, saying the two situations arose from fundamentally different historical and constitutional circumstances.
“Taiwan is a complex issue arising from the history of China and the Chinese civil war. Sabah and Sarawak, however, have a different history involving the formation of Malaysia in 1963, the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), the IGC Report, the Cobbold Commission process and the constitutional arrangements governing the entry of Sabah and Sarawak into the new Federation,” he said in a statement today.
Voon said Sabah and Sarawak were not simply ordinary States of the former Federation of Malaya, arguing that their constitutional position had been the subject of extensive negotiations and special safeguards before the formation of Malaysia.
He said questions over revenue, oil and gas, autonomy, immigration, development, representation and constitutional safeguards had remained matters of political dispute for more than six decades.
Voon also questioned whether Malaysia’s federal structure continued to reflect the partnership envisaged at the time of its formation.
“Sarawakians and Sabahans are entitled to ask why so much revenue and natural wealth generated in Borneo continues to be controlled at the federal level while our people continue to face serious development and infrastructure deficiencies,” he said.
He said genuine equality should be reflected in the distribution of political power, revenue and resources, as well as in constitutional protection.
Voon stressed that PBK’s criticism was directed at political structures and the concentration of power in Putrajaya, rather than at the people of Peninsular Malaysia.
He described the party’s concerns as relating to “colonialism, centralisation and economic control”, while maintaining that PBK did not advocate hostility towards Malaysians in the peninsula.
Voon said international principles on self-determination, including those reflected in United Nations General Assembly resolutions, should also be considered when discussing the political future of Sabah and Sarawak.
He nevertheless stressed that PBK did not advocate violence or armed struggle.
“PBK advocates democracy, law, constitutional processes and the peaceful expression of the will of the people,” he said.
On historical questions surrounding the formation of Malaysia, Voon referred to a reported statement attributed to Lord Lansdowne, chairman of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC), concerning the right of a constituent state to leave a federation.
However, he acknowledged that the historical record was contested, pointing to Cobbold Commission material which did not recommend the inclusion of a secession clause.
He said the conflicting historical accounts reinforced the need for the issues to be examined through legal and judicial processes rather than being suppressed politically.
“If there is a genuine dispute about what assurances were given, what was understood by the parties in 1963, and what legal consequences follow from those assurances, let the courts determine it,” he said.
Voon also cited Singapore’s departure from Malaysia in 1965 as evidence that political arrangements established in 1963 were not necessarily immutable.
“Whatever one’s view of that historical event, it demonstrates that the political arrangements of 1963 were not beyond change. The lesson for today should therefore be negotiation, not coercion,” he said.
Voon urged Putrajaya not to interpret demands for greater autonomy or constitutional reform as hostility towards Malaysia.
“Do not mistake peaceful demands for hostility. Do not mistake criticism of federal policies for hatred of Malaysia. Do not mistake the demand for constitutional justice for violence,” he said.
He called on the federal government to openly demonstrate the legal basis for its position if it believed Sabah and Sarawak had no constitutional pathway to seek a different status.
He also urged any disputes over MA63, the IGC Report, the Federal Constitution and historical assurances made in 1963 to be determined through the courts.
“If the people remain satisfied with Malaysia, they will say so. If they demand genuine equality within Malaysia, that demand must be respected.
“And if, through lawful democratic processes, the people eventually demand a different constitutional future, that question should be addressed peacefully and constitutionally—not with threats of force,” he stressed.
Voon said PBK believed Sarawak’s future should ultimately be determined by Sarawakians through peaceful, democratic and lawful means. — DayakDaily
