Oil 'sell-out': All avoiding answers says Lim

By FMT Staff

PETALING JAYA: The statements by Wisma Putra, Petronas, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi regarding the oil “sell-out” to Brunei all have one common purpose – to avoid answering two important questions, said DAP leader Lim Kit Siang.

The two questions are:

When and why Malaysia ceded away Malaysian sovereignty to two oil and gas-rich offshore areas in South China Sea, namely Block L and Block M, in favour of Brunei? and When did Brunei surrender its territorial claim of sovereignty to Limbang and recognise full Malaysian sovereignty instead? Lim said although Wisma Putra, Najib and Abdullah knew fully well that their statements would be scrutinised for answers to these two most pertinent questions, all their verbiage have one common thrust: to avoid answering them.

He added that this could only raise suspicions to crisis point.

He urged Najib to release a full chronological order of the events resulting in the ceding of Malaysian sovereignty to Blocks L and M to Brunei and the position of Brunei's territorial claim to Limbang.

Lim said the people also want to know whether and if so when, Brunei had surrendered its claim of sovereignty to Limbang.

White paper

Mahathir had estimated that the worth of oil and gas rights for the two blocks are RM320 billion and this, according to Lim, was no paltry sum for any prime minister or government to trifle with to avoid full public accountability.

In his blog, Lim pointed out that as prime minister for 22 years, Mahathir's statement that blocks L and M had been claimed by Malaysia based on historical facts and that based on Malaysia's sovereignty, Petronas had entered into a production sharing contract with Murphy Oil to start drilling to produce oil estimated at one million barrels, cannot be ignored.

“Was Mahathir misinformed when he blogged last week that Abdullah had negotiated with the Sultan of Brunei to get back Limbang in Sarawak in return for the surrender of the two blocks to Brunei?

“Had Brunei beaten Malaysia in the diplomatic game in securing the sovereignty for the two blocks without surrendering its sovereignty claim to Limbang?” he asked.

Lim said Najib should issue a White Paper to shed full light on this matter without any further delay.

“The battle of prime ministers over Malaysia’s sovereignty to Blocks L and M and to Limbang is not doing the Najib administration and Abdullah’s reputation any good,” he said.