By Joe Fernandez - Free Malaysia TodayKOTA KINABALU: Outgoing PKR vice-president Jeffrey Kitingan hopes to educate Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak soon on the burning issue of Sabah and Sarawak rights, including that of autonomy. He’s taking the initiative under the Common Interest Group Malaysia (CigMA), an ad hoc apolitical human rights movement which he heads.
Jeffrey has since prepared a memorandum, signed by a good cross-section of Sabah and Sarawak leaders, for submission to Najib at the earliest available opportunity. The prime minister, according to Jeffrey, requested for the memorandum in February this year.
“It’s because of the memorandum that I was asked to call off my presentation on the Malaysia Agreement at the House of Commons, UK, in early Mar this year,” disclosed Jeffrey. “I believe the prime minister will see me soon to receive the memorandum.”
He was commenting on Najib’s written reply to Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut) in the Dewan Rakyat on Nov 3. Najib, in his reply, had made light of the autonomy issue and dismissed it as a ploy by the opposition to fish for votes at the forthcoming general election.
The Sabah strongman appears confident that Najib will eventually see him despite the stand taken by him in Parliament. He dismissed suggestions that the idea of the memorandum was just a ploy by Najib to get him to call off his London trip and dissuade him from making common cause with Hindraf Makkal Sakthi.
“The prime minister was just taking an extreme stand in Parliament, for political reasons, on the autonomy issue,” said Jeffrey. “But that doesn’t mean that he will not see me or accept the memorandum.”
Jeffrey added that it took him less than a month to complete the memorandum, and another two weeks to collect the signatures.
He said the number of signatories was fewer than 20. He has been waiting since April for the prime minister to make some time for him to see him and accept the memorandum.
Asked for a peek at the memorandum, Jeffrey said that he could not allow that before Najib had seen it. However, he was willing to sketch the contents in general terms and touch on related developments.
Broad political consensus
In tandem with the memorandum, Jeffrey disclosed that he was working across the political divide in Sabah and Sarawak through CigMA for a broad political consensus on the issue of oil royalty (gas included). Apparently, oil royalty is also one of the issues raised in the memorandum.
“A second historical window of opportunity has opened up for Sabah and Sarawak in view of the forthcoming general election,” said Jeffrey. “It’s now or never for us to get 20% oil royalty from the Umno government.”
Pakatan Rakyat, said Jeffrey, has already agreed that Sabah and Sarawak would get 20% oil royalty if and when it forms the federal government.
The question that Jeffrey wants Sabah and Sarawak to raise with the Umno federal government is whether it’s willing to raise the oil royalty to 20% before the general election.
The oil royalty, said Jeffrey, must cover the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as well and not just the inner waters along the shoreline.
Jeffrey links a fairer share of the oil revenue to the issue of resolving the grinding poverty in Sabah and Sarawak, the most economically backward states in Malaysia.
In the absence of a fairer oil royalty, it’s said that the two states are totally dependent on federal government allocations which, by themselves, “are insufficient”. Next year, for example, both states get a paltry 4% each of the RM 200-billion odd national budget.
“If the Barisan Nasional (BN) government cannot commit itself in writing to the 20% oil royalty, then it’s up to the various political parties in Sabah and Sarawak to decide on their next step,” said Jeffrey. “So far, nothing has come out of the first historical window of opportunity opened up by the last general election in 2008.”
He thinks that if the BN doesn’t play ball with Sabah and Sarawak on the oil royalty issue, it’s deemed “unlikely that the ruling coalition will honour the Malaysia Agreement pledges on autonomy”. This is expected to bring Pakatan, the alternative, into the picture.
Jeffrey believes that a better option than Pakatan would be to come together in a new Borneo-based national political equation either as a party or a coalition.
Most important issue
No matter who comes and who goes, the veteran Sabah politician sees the issue of Sabah and Sarawak rights as the most important one in the hearts of the people.
“This is an issue which involves the future of our children and grandchildren,” he said. “We cannot barter away our rights or see them being trampled upon. This is not what we bargained for in 1963.”
Based on the general scenario sketched by Jeffrey, the memorandum apparently lays great emphasis on Malaysia being a federation of three territories working together in equality and partnership. Sabah and Sarawak no longer want to be erroneously considered as just two among 13 states. It’s Peninsular Malaysia, the memorandum highlights, that is a federation of nine Malay sultanates, two governorates and two federal territories.
Elsewhere in the memorandum, among others, Sabahans don’t want their chief minister to be appointed by the prime minister but by the governor acting in concert with the state assembly as provided under the state constitution.
CigMA deputy chair, Daniel John Jambun, confessed that he was rather pessimistic about Najib ever seeing Jeffrey to accept the memorandum.
“We don’t expect Najib to see Jeffrey,” said Jambun, who also co-chairs PKR’s KadazanDusunMurut Task Force. “If Najib is really sincere, he would have seen Jeffrey by now and not continue to keep him waiting.”
Najib, believes Jambun, “has played out Jeffrey”.
Jambun revealed that he and Sarawak CigMA activist Nicholas Bawin have parted company with Jeffrey on the issue of Sabah and Sarawak rights “thanks to Najib keeping him waiting”.
“We are going to the United Nations in Geneva next year to lobby the international community on the issue of Sabah and Sarawak rights,” said Jambun. “This is a follow-up to our presentation at the House of Commons in March this year.”
Jambun also disclosed that Hindraf Makkal Sakthi chair P Waythamoorthy has agreed to be CigMA’s international adviser “on the issue of reversing the re-colonisation of Sabah and Sarawak by Peninsular Malaysia”.
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