Merger of Sabah, S’wak and Brunei

Published on: Wednesday, October 03, 1962

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NORTH BORNEO NEWS & SABAH TIMES - (Wednesday, October 3, 1962) - KUCHING, Tues. – A submission that the Sultan of Brunei be made the Constitutional Head of a federation or union of the three territories of Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei was made by the chairman of three anti-Malaysia political parties in the Borneo territories in a joint memorandum to the United Nations Organisation.

It urged that the United Nations should intervene in the proposed transfer of sovereignty in Sarawak and Sabah on the grounds that such transfer was a denial to the peoples in these territories of their right to self determination and of their right to complete independence.

The memorandum said that alternatively the United Nations should conduct and organise a plebiscite before such transfer of sovereignty.

It added: “In accordance with the peoples’ freely expressed will and desire and our belief, a federation or union of the three Borneo territories – Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei, be brought about with His Highness the Sultan of Brunei as the constitution’s head of such a federation or Union.

The three chairmen who signed the memorandum were Mr G. S. Sundang of the United National Pasok Momogun Party of North Borneo, Mr Ong Kee Hui of the Sarawak United Peoples’ Party and Inche A. M. Azahari of the Party Rakyat in Brunei.

They said in their memorandum that in Sarawak and elsewhere charges were indiscriminately made against people who were against Malaysia as Communists, a description equivalent to bandits or foreign agents. They pointed out that as no public demonstrations were allowed when the Cobbold Commission was in Sarawak, a national signature campaign was launched and over 112,000 signatures of adult persons opposing the Malaysia plan were collected and forwarded to the Commission.

These signatures were obtained in very short time an in the face of adverse Government propaganda.

They also submitted that in terms of the total population of 750,000 in Sarawak, 55 per cent, of whom were not adults the persons opposing Malaysia were substantially large.

The memorandum also commented on the assessment of the Commission that about one third of the population strongly favoured realisation of Malaysia without conditions one third favoured it with conditions and safeguards and the rest against and said this assessment was totally wrong and could both be supported by facts and could not be accepted by independent impartial observes.

The memorandum added that the decision by the British and Malayan Governments to establish Malaysia by the 31st of August, 1963, was against the letter and spirit of the Charter of United Nations and of the Nine Cardinal Principles of the Rules of the White Rajah which formed part of the present Constitution of Sarawak.