KUCHING, Sept 4: State Reform Party (STAR) holds the view that the Special Cabinet Committee set up by Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong to “revive” the Malaysian Agreement 1963 (MA63) is merely an exercise to “hoodwink” Sarawakians and Sabahans.
Its president, Lina Soo, said it would be another story if the keyword is “comply”, not “revive”.
She reasoned that to “revive” meant Putrajaya had already deemed the MA63 already “dead”, which is not true. In any case, the committee has no locus standi to deal with the agreement as it is an international treaty registered with the United Nations, she argued.
Thus, Soo said she was shocked to hear of Liew’s announcement that a Special Cabinet Committee would be set up in response to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s call to “revive the Agreement”.
“The law minister and his Special Cabinet Committee cannot deal with an international multilateral affair that requires the participation of the governments of Britain, Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore,” insisted Soo, in a statement today.
She added that the federal government actually only needed to “comply” with the MA63 without the need to “revive, discuss, review or rectify.”
“To suggest the need to do so is to hoodwink the people of Sarawak and Sabah and make a mockery of an international multilateral treaty,” said Soo. — DayakDaily
