Tear down Sarawak's bamboo curtain

Sim Kwang Yang | Jan 3, 09 5:05pm

The banned entry of PKR MP N Gobalakrishnan into Sarawak on Christmas Eve has stirred up a mini-storm in both the Land of the Hornbills and the alternative media in West Malaysia.

Once again, the question on the mind of many Malaysians is this: why should a citizen require a passport or a permit to travel to a territory within the Federation of Malaysia?

To answer this question, we have to revisit the early days shortly before the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

It was a period of intense negotiations, fuelled by fear, confusion, and the imperative for the formation of Malaysia in view of the armed communist insurgency in Sarawak, the threat from the Indonesian Konfrontasi, and the recent armed revolt in Brunei led by Ahmad Azahari that spilled into Sarawak.

There were virulent voices in Sarawak against the Malaysian proposal then, mainly from the Sarawak Communist Party and their political front, the Sarawak United People’s Party (Supp). There was even talk of an alternative new political entity, to be composed of Sarawak, Brunei and the North Borneo Territory, later renamed Sabah.

For most pro-Malaysia political leaders in Sarawak, their greatest motivation was one of fear: the inability of the state to sustain itself on its own steam.

With a population of 800,000, and minuscule state revenue, how would Sarawak build its security forces to protect its territorial integrity? This Achilles’ heel had been made abundantly clear in those turbulent times of armed bloody conflicts in many parts of the state.

Another pull factor for these leaders was the successful land development programmes in Malaya at that time. It was thought at that time that if Sarawak joined Malaysia, the introduction of similar programmes would greatly help in the socio-economic development of this socio-economically backward state.

Then, another fear crept in. Some were worried that if the Sarawak immigration door was thrown open to the rest of the country, there would be a massive influx of West Malaysians, against whom, the yet-to-be-developed Sarawakians could not be able to compete.

Some kind of immigration safeguard was required to protect the interest of Sarawakians in the new federation of Malaysia.

Anti-Malaya resentment persisted today

This and other concerns have led to the signing of the Twenty Point Agreement that formed the basis of confederation of Malaysia, giving special, though limited, autonomy to Sarawak – and Sabah as well.

The sixth point of the Twenty Point Agreement states that:

“Control over immigration into any part of Malaysia from outside should rest with the central government but entry into Sarawak should also require the approval of the state government.

“The federal government should not be able to veto the entry of persons into Sarawak for state government purposes except on strictly security grounds. Sarawak should have unfettered control over the movements of persons other than those in federal government employ from other parts of Malaysia into Sarawak.”

In the 45 years since then, the socio-economic gap between East and West Malaysia has grown wider. The anti-Malaya resentment has persisted until this day.

When I first joined the DAP in 1978, the Chinese voters were told by SUPP not to support a West Malaysian party, a party from “outside”. It took over two decades of hard work, before the first DAP candidates were elected to the Sarawak state assembly.

Even today, I read on Dayak blogs calling for Sarawakians not to join the PKR because it is a political party from the “West”.

Most Sarawakians – including this writer – would support the continued existence of limited autonomy on matters of immigration in Sarawak. A case can perhaps be made for the abolition of such an apparent anomaly only after Sarawak has come to par in social economic development with the Klang Valley.

If it sounds parochial, it also has to be accepted that in a federation of states, regional peculiarity in politics is a fact of life. I should also mention in passing that English is still one of the languages spoken in the Sarawak State Assembly!

It’s an abuse of power

Having said all that, the declaration of Gobalakrishnan as a persona non grata does smack of abuse of power by the Sarawak state government in gaining unfair advantage over opposition parties in the state.

It did not come as a surprise, following the PKR announcement of making Sarawak and Sabah their frontline states amidst speculation of an early Sarawak state general election sometime this year.

PKR is the largest opposition party in the Parliament, and is one of the major partners in the ruling coalition in five peninsular states. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim would become prime minister if he can seize the two jewels in the crown in East Malaysia.

If and when the hoards of the PKR army from West Malaysia descend upon Sarawak during a state general election, it is still to be seen whether the Sarawak BN can fight off such an assault.

Recently, Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Daud Abdul Rahman said that the ban on Gobalakrishnan was an isolated incident, and that in the past, Anwar and Lim Kit Siang had been allowed entry without much ado.

But there have been numerous precedents of such politically motivated ban on entry into Sarawak in the past.

No entry to even Tengku Razaleigh

In 1978, when the DAP crossed the South China Sea and began setting up new branches in Sarawak, DAP national leaders then had been banned too from entering the state at immigration check point.

Lim Kit Siang, Lee Lam Thye, and Karpal Singh had all to be carried on a wheelchair onto the return flight to Kuala Lumpur at the Kuching airport. I should know; I was there 30 years ago at the Kuching International Airport to witness the farce, as the secretary of the newly-formed DAP Kuching branch.

During the 1991 general election in Sarawak, I was the DAP Sarawak state chairman. I had arranged for Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, president of our then political partner Semangat 46, to campaign in some Malay constituencies.

Together with some other Semangat 46 luminaries, Razaleigh too was banned from entering Sarawak!

The latest victim of such a twisted ban has been Suaram director Dr Kua Kia Soong. He was making numerous trips to the interior of Sarawak on many fact-finding missions on the problems faced by the Sarawak indigenous communities. Apparently, his findings were deemed too unfavourable to the state government there.

The Sarawak BN ruling class has also consistently abused this power over immigration to reject local community activists their application for a passport to travel overseas.

Since the early 1990s, and especially after the Rio Earth Summit, Sarawakian NGO personnel and community leaders like Thomas Jalong of the SAM Marudi office, Jok Jau Evong of the Rumah Bawang Residential Association, Gara Jalong of the Long Geng Kenyah community, Raymand Abin of the Borneo Resource Institute (Brimas), Wong Meng Chuo of the Institute for Development and Alternative Living (Ideal) and others have all been denied their passports.

Likewise, NGO activists such as Chee Yok Lin of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) and Meenakshi Raman, (legal adviser of the Consumer’s Association of Penang) as well as several other NGO personnel from the Peninsular and Sabah are still refused entry into Sarawak.

Gobala ban not ‘isolated’ case

The original intention of the limited immigration autonomy bestowed on the Sarawak state government was meant to protect the socio-economic interests of Sarawakians.

But there has been a consistent trend in past decades for the Sarawak BN to abuse it to silence legitimate dissent from both within and without Sarawak. The declaration of the latest ban on a PKR MP as “isolated” is sheer humbug, balderdash, and nincompoop talk.

I am glad that Anwar has been appointed the head of the Sarawak and Sabah PKR.

The splintered and garrulous opposition forces will need a leader of his stature, tenacity, and resourcefulness to forge the widest possible rainbow alliance across ethnic, regional, religious, and party lines for a historic advance towards democracy and justice in these two dictatorial and backward states.

The way forward for Anwar in Sarawak will be fraught with traps, pitfalls, and quicksand.

One of these obstacles is the very real possibility that the state government there will declare him as yet another persona non grata.

In their desperation, the Sarawak BN leaders may even ban most of the Pakatan Rakyat leading lights from entering the state, including such well-known figures as Lim Guan Eng, Khalid Ibrahim and Nik Aziz Nik Mat. They are addicted in a compulsive manner to playing on an uneven field after all.

The PKR and the DAP lawyers in Sarawak would do well to dig out their statue books and law journal articles on this subject now. There must be a way of challenging the state government on their abuse of immigration powers.

At least, the ban on Gobalakrishnan should be filed in court to test the wisdom and the courage of the Borneo High Court.

Win or lose, such a court case would highlight how the Sarawak BN government has abused their control over immigration autonomy to protect their own interest rather than the interest of the Sarawak people.

It would indeed be a revealing statement on how fearful and desperate those Sarawak BN leaders are over the prospect of losing power in Sarawak.

About the Author: SIM KWANG YANG was Bandar Kuching MP from 1982-1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.

Changing the Head Hornbill in Sarawak

by Sim Kwang Yang

Should Abdul Taib Mahmud - the chief minister of Sarawak - step down, after 27 years at the helm of near absolute power in the resource rich state?

Does PBB - his party that holds half the number of seats in the Sarawak State Assembly - bully the other component parties of the Sarawak Barisan Nasional? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes!

But this kind of questions is only relevant to members and supporters of the Sarawak BN. Other Sarawakians know very well that Taib will not step down on his own accord.

He has to cling on to the throne in Sarawak, to protect the future of his gargantuan family conglomerate CMS (an acronym that could designate the company Cahaya Mata Sarawak or the title Chief Minister of Sarawak - an interesting coincidence).

Whenever conversations meander off onto the topic of the Sarawak CM in private circles, it is hard for people not to mention CMS in the same breath. Its dominant presence in the Sarawak’s economy - especially in the public sector in the state - is well known.

Actually, the acronym for CMS has its origins in a precursor to the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC): Cement Manufacturers Sarawak.

The report in The Edge

The repressed press of Malaysian media have seldom told the story of CMS. On the other hand, there have been a few reports by international media on Taib’s family business. The following report by Michael Backman, entitled ‘In Sarawak, politics and cash are all in the family’, was published in The Edge on March 15 2001 in Melbourne, Australia:

CMS Group was originally a joint venture between the state government’s Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) and the neighbouring state of Sabah.

The group started as a monopoly cement producer to feed the building boom in both states. In 1989, the Sabah government sold its stake and the Sarawak government decided the company should be listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. At the same time, the chief minister’s brother, Onn bin Mahmud, and his two sons, Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib and Sulaiman Abdul Rahman Taib, were brought in.

The Taib family owns about half the company and the SEDC’s equity has been diluted to about eight percent. Effectively, the chief minister had decided to privatise CMS - and it was his family that bought it.

CMS has since expanded to more than 40 subsidiaries that operate in infrastructure development, water supply, steel making, transport, manufacturing, property development, financial services and stock broking.

But CMS is not the Taib family’s only business concern. Timber is the main source of Sarawak’s wealth. Logging concessions, which the Sarawak government hands out, are are a license to print money. The chief minister’s family happens to possess significant logging concessions.

Indeed, claims have been published that companies associated with Taib and his supporters hold about 1.6 million hectares in timber concessions with a combined logged value of up to US$12 billion.

Taib’s time in politics has coincided with the apparent accumulation of enormous family wealth. He is known for his expensive tastes - he is rumoured to have paid almost US$2 million for the grand piano that belonged to late American showman Liberace.”

There it is. The above report, published in 2001, is still relevant today. The question of whether Taib’s discharge of his official duty as CM amidst the meteoric rise of CMS constitutes a conflict of interest or outright corruption is a purely academic one.

As long as he can deliver all or nearly all 31 parliamentary seats in Sarawak to keep the Umno prime minister in power, as has been proven during the March 8 general election, the PM and all the federal agencies under his jurisdiction will not touch the Sarawak CM with a ten-foot pole.

A dynasty in the making?

If you check into the traffic on Sarawak Internet, you will find the name of the CM, together with the name of Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu, the most vilified and defiled names in the state. A referendum among Sarawak netizens will conclude that indeed the CM has overstayed his welcome.

But the CM will not go gently into the good night in more ways than one. His brother joined the Sarawak State Assembly as a member in the last state election in 2006.

In the May parliamentary election, his son Sulaiman was elected as MP, and was promptly co-opted into the federal government as a deputy minister, presumably to learn about the art of government. Do we see a dynasty in the making? Only time will tell.

Therefore, for Taib’s detractors to fulfill their dream of changing the Chief Minister of Sarawak, there is only one way, and that is through the next state general election speculated to be held as early as next year.

Slightly more than a week ago, during a dinner in Sibu organised by “Friends of PKR”, 4000 people of all races turned up to welcome Anwar Ibrahim and witness a public ceremony in which Gabriel Adit, the current independent state assemblyperson representing Ngemah and a former vice-president of the now defunct Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) submit his application to join PKR, together with 12,000 others.

The choice of Sibu as the dinner venue is significant. Sibu is sited on the bank of the mighty Rejang River, and upstream, the Rejang basin is one of the most notable Iban heartlands in Sarawak. Adit’s dramatic personal political make-over is symbolic for many disgruntled Dayaks in Sarawak. Some Dayaks have already predicted a new dawn for Sarawak, a revival of Dayak power on the political scene in the state.

Nothing is impossible in politics I suppose, having just witnessed the historic conclusion of the American presidential election. But Sarawak is no America, and Sarawakians are a far cry from Americans in many political aspects.

The opposition parties in Sarawak are now fragmented and weakened, divided by race, region, and personal feuds among their leaders. The hounds also run with the hares. The Sarawak political arena is quite a muddied pond full of all kinds of reptiles, swimming along with the real dragons.

Eventually, the Achilles’ Heel of the opposition parties in Sarawak is their lack of funds, in sharp contrast to the seemingly inexhaustible source of funds lying in the Barisan Nasional war chest.

Unlike politics in the peninsula states, Sarawak politics, especially in the rural constituencies, is still mired in money politics. That is why the cash-rich Sarawak BN has been so successful in so many past parliamentary and state elections.

I have met many rural voters who actually would demand cash for their votes. Ugly as it may seem, it has become one of the less savoury features of Sarawak democracy.

To break this distasteful tradition, the opposition must not buy votes, or give all kinds of largesse during general elections, including building materials, personal gifts in kind, or standing feasts that can last throughout the duration of the campaign period. (Yes, this is how things are done in Sarawak.)

They must device more meaningful and innovative methods of campaigning, the likes of which Sarawak rural voters have never seen before.

Anwar’s full attention

But then there is still the huddle of reaching the rural voters. There is still the question of funding, needed for large groups of canvassers and campaigners to travel long distances across difficult terrain to motivate and organise local grassroots leaders in every village and every longhouse throughout this vast and sparsely populated state where modern infrastructure for communication and transport is primitive at best.

We are talking about hundreds and thousands of ringgit for one rural constituency alone. Multiply that by the 50 or so rural and semi-rural constituencies and you get the rough estimate of how much money it takes to change the CM of Sarawak.

This is only one hurdle. I can write a book on the problems and experiences of contesting in Sarawak alone.

But the great dinner in Sibu is a good start towards solving those problems. Obviously Anwar was suitably impressed; he said that if the response from Sarawakians is so good, he should perhaps visit Sarawak more often.

I believe PKR is a suitable vehicle for positive change in Sarawak for various reasons, not least of which is the clout of the party in national politics and in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

For that change to happen, Anwar may have to turn his full attention to this vast eastern state of Sarawak - now.

He has to go there often, to heal wounds among the opposition camp, to build consensus and coalition, to work out a statewide strategy, coin mission statements, supervise organisation, to recruit new talents who will be free from negative political baggage, and above all, squeeze out the funds from whatever resources at his disposal for the big campaign. He has to do it, like yesterday.

The prize is worth his trouble. In Sarawak, state power determines the outcome of the parliamentary elections most of the time. A change of the chief minister will greatly improve Anwar’s chance of becoming the prime minister of Malaysia in the next parliamentary general election.

For justice in the Land of the Hornbill in the emergence of a new Malaysia!