By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Sept 29: Sarawak’s negotiated peace with communist insurgents stands as a distinctive chapter in the region’s history, an achievement that was commemorated through the naming of Sri Aman, said Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
Abdul Karim said the peace settlement was a significant but often overlooked part of Sarawak’s history and should be better documented and understood by younger generations.
“Sarawak experience was distinctive because the conflict was ultimately brought to an end through negotiations rather than simply through the surrender of one side.
“Many people do not know that Sarawak is probably the only place where we were able to achieve peace with communism. We were able to sign a peace agreement with the communist movement,” he said when officiating the International Conference on Sarawak History 2026 at Wisma Melayu Sarawak today.
He said reaching a settlement with an insurgent movement driven by a deeply held political ideology was not an easy process.
“Communism is an ideology in which people can have very deep convictions about a particular philosophy or cause. To bring them to the negotiating table and eventually have them lay down their arms is not easy,” he said.
Abdul Karim contrasted Sarawak’s experience with the Baling Talks between then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng in Peninsular Malaysia, which did not end the communist insurgency there.
“In Peninsular Malaysia, a similar effort was made through the Baling Talks (in 1955) between Tunku Abdul Rahman (Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya), Chief Minister of Singapore David Marshall, and Chin Peng (Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Malaya) but it did not succeed. The conflict continued,” he said.
In Sarawak, however, negotiations eventually contributed to the end of the communist insurgency.
The communist insurgency in Sarawak officially ended through two major peace pacts: the Sri Aman Declaration in 1973 and the final peace agreement in 1990.
Abdul Karim said the historical significance of the peace process is reflected in the name of Sri Aman.
“That is why we have a town called Sri Aman. It is because we achieved peace there,” he said of the major agreement that led to more than 500 members of the communist forces to lay down their arms and return to mainstream society and prompted the renaming of the town Simanggang to Sri Aman.
He said many young Sarawakians born after the peace agreement may not fully understand the circumstances that led to the settlement.
“If you go to Sri Aman, you can visit the historical building where photographs and records of the agreement are displayed. It shows how we achieved peace and what we see in Sarawak today,” he said.
Abdul Karim said the history of the peace process should be preserved alongside other chapters of Sarawak’s development because history was not merely about recording dates and events.
“History is not just something that we inherit. It is something that we need to understand, learn from and use to shape the future,” he said.
He said preserving the story of the peace settlement would also allow future generations to understand how Sarawak navigated a difficult period and eventually moved towards peace.
The minister said greater research into such historical episodes was important to ensure Sarawak’s history was understood from different perspectives and not reduced to a single narrative.
National Archives of Malaysia deputy director-general Ahmad Sukri Abdul Kadir, University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) vice chancellor Prof Dr Ahmad Hata Rasit, Pustaka Negeri Sarawak chief executive officer Japri Bujang Masli, and Amanah Khairat Yayasan Budaya Melayu Sarawak general manage Datu Dr Sanid Said were among the distinguished guests present. — DayakDaily
