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Tweets from Sabah (3) – Janji Tidak Ditepati

Tweets @limkitsiang:

Arr Tawau from KK continue Hari Raya visits. Tonite @ Sandakan DAP talk in Karamunting.Wind of change blowing strong/hard “Land Below Wind”

Aug 21, 12:23am
In Ranau at least 3 cases of Janji Tidak Ditepati (JTD) – 1st case, abandoned toxic wasteland left behind by Mamut Copper Mine (MCM).

Aug 21, 12:36am
MCM earned export revenue abt RM3.4b in 24yr ops (75-99) 4Jap Aussie Msian owners 4copper (also gold silver) but left toxic legacy 4Sabahans

Aug 21, 1:09am
MCM open-cast mine generated abt 250 million tonnes (Mt) overburden n wasterock dumped @ 4main dump near mine pit n some 150 Mt of tailings
Continue reading “Tweets from Sabah (3) – Janji Tidak Ditepati”

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Tweets from Sabah

Tweets @limkitsiang

Aug 19, 10:43am
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Maaf Zahir Batin. Semoga semua rakyat bergembira di hari yg mulia ini, berbahagia dgn kehidupan yg lebih cerah

Aug 18, 3:51pm
Otw to Kota Marudu but never come across worse road conditions than long Kukut/Mantanau stretch! Real shame – road to Fed Minister’s constituency

Aug 18, 4:09pm
Trip to Kota Marudu was homecoming for Sabah DAP Chmn Sri Tanjung State Assemblyman Jimmy Wong who was born here n spent his first 16 years

Aug 19, 12:15am
Attended Kg Bavang Jamal Kudat ceramah Shocked to hear water pipes installed since 1986 but without water for 26 years – real electioneer rip-off
Continue reading “Tweets from Sabah”

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RCI must give priority to purging phantom voters

By Kim Quek | August 13, 2012
The Malaysian Insider

AUG 13 — Sabahans should reject the terms of reference of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants proposed by Prime Minister Najib Razak because they fail to address the issue of purging the state’s electoral roll of phantom voters.

The entire eight-item terms of reference are marked by hypocrisy and evasion of the real issues.

Item after item is centred on “whether” there are illegal identity cards or citizenship granted, and “whether” there are illegally registered voters in the electoral roll, when the whole world knows that the Sabah electoral roll is heavily infested with illegal immigrants who have been illegally registered as voters.

There is already abundance of incontrovertible evidence produced in court as well as in books recording details of clandestine campaigns to massively infuse these phantoms into the electoral roll so as to enable Umno to grab political power in Sabah; so why still keep up the pretence that such a phenomenon is an hypothesis that requires exhaustive investigations to establish its veracity?
Continue reading “RCI must give priority to purging phantom voters”

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Ocean of doubt/skepticism greets Sabah RCIII

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has finally announced the terms of reference of the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants.

My initial tweet comments on Najib’s announcement are as follows:

(1) No RCI as Sabah RCIII (Illegal Immigrants) assailed with such ocean of public skepticism/doubt it is bona fide solution 2 four-decade problem

(2) 1st impressions – (i) too little, too late, too limited in powers

(ii) I/C 4votes no more Sabah problem but nation-wide. Y no national probe

(iii)Estimates of illegal immigrants in Sabah range from 1.5 mil to 2 mil. RCI capable of dealing with this number?

(iv) Do’s/don’ts of RCI?

(v) Can RCI probe Project M n call up Mahathir as star-witness?

(vi) Can RCI probe those responsible for massive issue of false documents?

(vii) why PM taken six months to finalise eight RCI terms of reference.

(viii) BN rejected my Sabah RCI motion in Parliament in 2008. Why? Continue reading “Ocean of doubt/skepticism greets Sabah RCIII”

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Dr M mempunyai ‘migrant mentality’

— Aspan Alias
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 10, 2012

10 OGOS — Dr Mahathir Mohamad telah membuatkan rakyat sebenar Sabah merasa tersinggung kerana kenyataan beliau (Dr Mahathir) bahawa pendatang yang telah lama datang ke Sabah diberikan kerakyatan kerana mereka sudah pandai berbahasa Melayu. Alasan untuk memberikan kerakyatan kepada pendatang ini amat memilukan kita sebagai rakyat negara yang merdeka dan kononnya sedang menuju kemajuan setanding dengan negara-negara maju.

Ketua Penerangan Parti UPKO, Datuk Donald Peter Mojuntin, telah membidas Dr Mahathir kerana tidak sensitif terhadap perasaan rakyat khususnya rakyat Sabah. Bekas Perdana Menteri itu tidak memahami bahawa isu pendatang yang terlalu ramai ini akan menjejaskan keselamatan negara kita akhirnya. Kini seramai 27 peratus daripada keseluruhan rakyat Sabah terdiri daripada pendatang asing khususnya dari Filipina. Ratusan ribu yang lain yang menetap di Sabah secara haram dan tidak ada apa-apa tindakan dari pihak kementerian keselamatan dalam negeri. Ianya amat mengerikan.

Buat kita dari semenanjung yang datang ke Sabah terpaksa menggunakan passport antarabangsa atau kad pengenalan. Tetapi itu tidak mengapa kerana itu merupakan salah satu syarat sebelum Sabah menyertai persekutuan ini. Kita ikut sahajalah undang-undang itu. Tetapi ratusan ribu rakyat asing yang datang tanpa izin dengan senang lenang duduk di Sabah tanpa apa-apa tindakan terhadap mereka.

Mereka (pendatang) ini telah diberikan kad pengenalan melalui projek IC yang telah membiarkan pendatang asing masuk ke Sabah tanpa dokumen perjalanan sah dengan bebas tanpa sekatan. Sebab mereka diberikan kad pengenalan ini tidak lain dan tidak bukan adalah kerana politik BN untuk mengekalkan kuasa dan perkara ini berlaku dari zaman pemerintahan Dr Mahathir. Continue reading “Dr M mempunyai ‘migrant mentality’”

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Whence Comes Another Mahathir?

by Kee Thuan Chye
Malaysian Digest
09 August 2012

Mahathir Mohamad is an angel. A perfect being. He is incapable of doing wrong. He is a model to all Malaysians. He is wise. He is incorruptible. He never took a sen while in office. He saved his salary for his old age. Whatever goodies he received when he was prime minister, he gave to the Government. He only ate some of the fruits given as gifts because they would otherwise go bad.

During the Royal Commission of Inquiry on V.K. Lingam and the fixing of federal judges, he answered many of the questions with “I don’t remember”. He genuinely didn’t. He’s a geriatric, for goon-ness’ sake! Cut the old man some slack! How can he be expected to remember so many things in the 22 years of his premiership?

His administration was the best ever, and of course the cleanest. There were some scandals, but that happens with any administration in any part of the world. What’s more, Mahathir had nothing to do with them. Others were culpable; he was above it all. There were some bailouts, but the bailouts were necessary – no, critical. Without the bailouts, the country would have been hurt.

There has also been talk that he was involved in a plot togive citizenships to illegal immigrants in Sabah.This scheme started in the 1990s so that the grateful recipients would vote for Barisan Nasional (BN) and keep it in power there. Some call it Project IC, but others call it Project M, with ‘M’ standing for Mahathir. Continue reading “Whence Comes Another Mahathir?”

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Umno’s final solution

— Sakmongkol AK47
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 09, 2012

AUG 9 — Umno’s solution is something like the Nazi final solution. It thinks it can achieve national unity by pitting one race against one another. Today the Chinese, tomorrow the Indians and later all other non-Malay Malaysians. Eventually, it will apply the same gas-chambering treatment to the Malays who dared challenge and reject Umno.

Indeed Umno has already shown its inclination to political cannibalisation. The Malays who oppose and reject Umno are classed as either not having sufficient Malayness or apostates. The world of Malaysia is as how Umno defines it.

The majority of us reject this fascism.

And so we have a former PM of this country defining as citizens of this country those who came over to Sabah only on the basis of being able to speak Bahasa Malaysia and had stayed in Malaysia for a number of years. They stayed because the enforcement authorities allowed them to. They stayed because the enforcement authorities were corrupt.

This is a devious argument, simplistic and yet flippant of the matter at hand. It would have traction if the hordes of immigrants had legally come over to Malaysia, registered properly and abided by the laws of the country relating to naturalised citizenship. Then we would have exercised our SOVEREIGNTY as an independent nation having complete legal powers to determine the quantity and quality of those who want to become Malaysian citizens. Continue reading “Umno’s final solution”

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Keruh di hulu, keruh lah di hilir

— Aspan Alias
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 06, 2012

6 OGOS — Perkembangan politik di Sabah akhir-akhir ini amat menarik dan menjadi tumpuan ramai. Dengan perkembangan terakhir ini tidak dapat lagi dinafikan yang BN Sabah sedang menerima tekanan yang amat berat untuk mempertahankan mandat yang ada kepada mereka (BN) apabila PRU sampai masanya untuk di adakan.

Musa Aman, pengerusi BN Sabah berkata penghijrahan Lajim Ukin dan Wilfred Bumburing tidak langsung menjejaskan BN di Sabah. Kita faham yang kenyataan beliau (Musa) itu hanya lah satu kenyataan politik yang liar sahaja.

Isu yang menyebabkan BN Sabah khususnya Umno tidak lagi mendapat perhatian rakyat sekarang ini terlalu banyak sehinggakan kita tidak dapat memahami di antara sebab atau alasan yang menyebabkan penolakan rakyat yang begitu ketara terjadi. Tetapi yang paling nyata sekali ialah isu peribadi Musa Aman sendiri yang tidak lagi sanggup diterima oleh rakyat Sabah sebagai pemimpin utama mereka. DAN pemimpin ini jugalah yang dipertahankan bermati-matian oleh Najib.

Tetapi kalau Umno itu Umno juga. Parti itu sememangnya terlalu leka dengan mempertahankan pimpinan yang diragui rakyat sejak tiga dekad yang lalu. Umno tidak dapat menerima bahawa politik ini adalah peperangan mental dan jika Musa yang sudah dipersepsikan sebagai laibiliti kepada BN sepatutnya mengundurkan diri atau dipaksa oleh pimpinan tertinggi Umno untuk berundur. Continue reading “Keruh di hulu, keruh lah di hilir”

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National Day theme “Janji Ditepati” wrong and inappropriate as it is anti-national, divisive rather than unifying the people, presenting Najib as Prime Minister for UMNO/BN only and not all Malaysians!

The Information Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim is defending the indefensible when he takes to Twitter to ask why “Janji Ditepati” cannot be used as this year’s National Day/Malaysia Day theme.

Firstly, Rais’ claim that “Malaysia has truly arrived as an achieving nation after 55 years of independence” is highly controversial and debatable, for if this is true, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak would not gain the reputation of being the most indecisive Prime Minister in the nation’s history who keeps postponing his plan to hold the next general election to win a personal mandate for his premiership for fear of ending up in the Opposition benches or toppled within UMNO like his predecessor Tun Abdullah.

In fact, probably more could be written about how the slogan of “Janji Ditepati” had failed rather than succeeded in 55 years after Merdeka and 49 years after Malaysia – whether in building a united, harmonious, democratic, progressive and competitive Malaysia; or in fulfilling Najib’s three-year promises of 1Malaysia Government Transformation Programme (GTP) whether in reducing crime, fighting corruption or carrying out meaningful government, economic and political transformation for Malaysia to take her rightful place in international society and achieve the status of a normal democratic country.

I remember when I visited Sabah in 1978, I had warned that Sabah faced three grave problems – the illegal immigrant problem which I had cited had reached 140,000, the crime situation and grave problem of corruption. Continue reading “National Day theme “Janji Ditepati” wrong and inappropriate as it is anti-national, divisive rather than unifying the people, presenting Najib as Prime Minister for UMNO/BN only and not all Malaysians!”

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Cabinet sincerity on RCI for illegal immigrants in Sabah cast under grave doubt when a top SB officer could condemn advocates of RCI as anti-national elements out to incite anti-peninsular sentiments among Sabahans

Penampang is the sixth and last parliamentary constituency in my three-day tour of Sabah with DAP MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng and Sabah DAP leaders which included Putatan, Sepanggar, Tuaran, Kota Belud and Tenom to feel the pulse of interior Sabah to the winds of political change blowing throughout the country since the political tsunami in the 2008 general election.

The inescapable impression and conclusion of our tour is that Sabahans, like their compatriots in the rest of Malaysia, are impatiently waiting for the 13 general election to see fundamental political and economic changes in the state and country.

Sabah has changed the state government four times in the past five decades but things have got from bad to worse for the people of Sabah whether on the increasingly grave issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah which have reduced the genuine sons and daughters of Sabah into foreigners and strangers in their own land in less than half a century, crime, corruption, poverty or just basic socio-economic amenities and infrastructures for the people of Sabah.

The political lesson is very clear – without political change in Putrajaya at the national level, it is very difficut to effect meaningful changes at the state level. This is why Sabah DAP has coined the slogan: “Save Sabah Save Malaysia”, as firstly, Sabah cannot be saved without saving Malaysia; and secondly, if Malaysia is to be saved, Sabah must also be saved.
Continue reading “Cabinet sincerity on RCI for illegal immigrants in Sabah cast under grave doubt when a top SB officer could condemn advocates of RCI as anti-national elements out to incite anti-peninsular sentiments among Sabahans”

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PR vs BN – future vs the past

(Opening speech by DAP Secretary-General/Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng at the debate with MCA President Datuk Dr. Chua Soi Lek on “DAP & MCA: Whose Policies Benefit the Country More?” at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre on Sunday, July 8, 2012 at 2.30 pm)

CEO of ASLI Tan Sri Michael Yeoh, my learned opponent, ladies and gentlemen: Salam bersih kepada semua.

Kita berkumpul di sini untuk menentukan dasar parti manakah yang lebih boleh memberi manfaat kepada rakyat Malaysia. Seharusnya, satu perbahasan patut diadakan di antara Perdana Menteri, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, dan Ketua Pembangkang, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Malangnya Perdana Menteri enggan berbahas dengan Anwar. Adakah Najib enggan berbahas dengan Anwar kerana beliau bimbang selepas perbahasan, rakyat akan membuat pernilaian bahawa Anwar lebih layak menjadi Perdana Menteri Malaysia?

In fact, MCA is not qualified to be here to discuss about policies because MCA does not decide, it is UMNO that decides. MCA claims to speak only for the Chinese, and yet only the Chinese in the Peninsula, and not the Chinese in Sabah and Sarawak. This is different from the DAP, that wants to speak for all Malaysians. DAP mahu bersuara untuk semua orang Malaysia: Melayu, Cina, India, Kadazan dan Iban, kerana kita semua rakyat Malaysia, bukan macam MCA, yang kononnya mahu mewakili orang Cina sahaja.

Mengapakah mesti kita terus dipecahbelahkan mengikut kaum dan agama? Inilah kejayaan terbesar UMNO. Mereka mahu kita takut satu sama lain supaya BN boleh terus merompak harta dan kekayaan Malaysia. Tengoklah skandal lembu dan kondo. Pak cik yang ternak lembu sepanjang masa tidak dapat pinjaman berjuta-juta ringgit, tapi keluarga menteri yang tak pernah ternak lembu boleh mendapat pinjaman 250 juta ringgit yang disalahgunakan untuk beli kondo pula. Jangan-jangan orang Singapura yang ada banyak kondo nak datang ke Malaysia belajar macam mana ternak lembu di kondo. Skandal PKFZ sebanyak 12.5 bilion ringgit telah melibatkan pemimpin tertinggi MCA tetapi ahli politik yang aktif tidak dibawa ke mahkamah. Semua skandal ini MCA tidak bersuara tetapi sokong buta sahaja. Kedudukan Malaysia telah jatuh dalam persepsi rasuah Transparency International daripada 37 dalam tahun 2003 kepada 60 tahun lepas (2011).

Kita harus bersatupadu sebagai anak Malaysia. Kalau kita terus dipecahbelahkan, hanya kroni-kroni dan orang-orang ataslah yang untung. Kalau kita bersatupadu, baru dapatlah kita semua menikmati hasil kejayaan ekonomi Malaysia.

Mengapakah hanya pemimpin Melayu yang boleh membela hak orang Melayu, hanya pemimpin Cina yang boleh membela hak orang Cina. Tibalah masanya untuk pemimpin-pemimpin membela hak semua rakyat Malaysia dan membantu satu sama lain. Continue reading “PR vs BN – future vs the past”

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Malaysia’s next general election shaping up to be a battle of the coalitions

— Greg Lopez
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 19, 2012

JUNE 19 — Malaysia’s 13th general election, which must be held by April 2013, has been the most anticipated in Malaysian history, given the megatrends that are occurring in the country and the ability of the two main contenders to manage them.

Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) are the main contestants. BN — currently the longest-ruling coalition in the world — is a 13-party coalition based mainly around ethnic and regional interests. Umno is the single most important political party in the ruling coalition, dominating not only the coalition, but all major institutions in Malaysia except in the state of Sarawak. Najib Razak, son of Malaysia’s second prime minister, has led the coalition since becoming Umno president through an interparty compromise.

PR, in turn, is a new and informal coalition, set up in the euphoria of the opposition’s historical performance at the March 2008 12th general election. None of its three component parties has a clear majority, and all understand that their success is predicated on their ability to work together. PKR’s unelected leader Anwar Ibrahim leads the coalition by virtue of his ability to hold together three disparate groups — the Chinese-dominated DAP, the Islamists party PAS and his own band of largely ex-BN/Umno members. Continue reading “Malaysia’s next general election shaping up to be a battle of the coalitions”

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Cracking open the fixed deposits

The Economist
Jun 9th 2012 | KOTA KINABALU AND KUCHING

The next general election will be decided far from the capital
Long house in need of short wave?

A THOUSAND or so kilometres east of what is called Peninsular Malaysia, across the South China Sea, lies the other bit of Malaysia, the states of Sabah and Sarawak. The two form the northern part of the island of Borneo, encircling the oil-rich mini-kingdom of Brunei. Most Malaysians know little about the remote territories (11 of Malaysia’s 13 states lie on the peninsula). Yet Sabah and Sarawak, out of all proportion to their small populations, contribute two essential ingredients to the running of Malaysia under the long-standing national government in Kuala Lumpur: oil and votes.

Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, first started pumping oil out of the ground in Sarawak in 1910. Since Sarawak and Sabah joined Malaysia in 1963, they have sent an outsize share of oil revenues to the federal government’s coffers. That the petro-charged government has remained in the hands of the same political coalition, the Barisan Nasional (BN), since independence is also largely thanks to the same two states.

On the peninsula voters have gradually forced the coalition, led by the United Malays National Organisation and dominated by ethnic Malays, to loosen its grip. On Borneo, by contrast, the BN has maintained an electoral stranglehold. Indeed, Sabah and Sarawak are known as the BN’s “fixed deposits”. With the prime minister, Najib Razak, expected at any moment to declare a general election, the opposition coalition must find a way to raid those deposits if they are to oust the BN from power. As ever, the task looks daunting for the opposition and its leader, Anwar Ibrahim. Yet this time round, Mr Anwar’s foot soldiers have a secret weapon, a clandestine radio station. Continue reading “Cracking open the fixed deposits”

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Can Mahathir give assurance that he will not suffer another attack of amnesia when testifying before RCIII in Sabah?

Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who is acting more and more like the de facto sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia after going on a 5-year “Sabbatical” following his 22-year premiership as the fourth PM of Malaysia, made two remarkable statements yesterday.

Firstly, he said he is unperturbed that the truth in all the alleged financial scandals during his 22-year premiership would be exposed if Pakatan Rakyat wins the next general election.

He said I could do whatever I wanted even now to prove there were financial scandals during his premiership.

He said: “He can open any file, even now. He can bring me to court. I am not afraid.,”

What bravado indeed!
Continue reading “Can Mahathir give assurance that he will not suffer another attack of amnesia when testifying before RCIII in Sabah?”

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Bitter harvest for land below the wind

Myles Togoh | June 4, 2012
Free Malaysia Today

Kaamatan or harvest festival in Sabah this time round is tempered with weariness and to some extent anger over the way genuine Sabahans have been treated.

COMMENT

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is holding its collective breath as talk gathers steam that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is expected to visit this week bearing a long-awaited “gift” to drum up support for his stumbling Barisan Nasional coalition government.

But the mood among non-partisan Sabahans as the Kadazandusun and Murut communities celebrate their biggest festival is a mixture that suggests bad temper and weariness.

Najib, as the leader of the BN who is fighting to stay in power for a second term, has, as expected, played the federal government’s vote-buying trump card by announcing on Friday the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the extraordinary population increase in the state over the last 20-odd years.

It is to settle a long-held demand for answers on how hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants gained citizenship and even special Bumiputera privileges that have almost wrested control of the state from the locals. Continue reading “Bitter harvest for land below the wind”

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Let 2012 Hari Kaamatan and Hari Gawai usher the greatest empowerment of Kadazandusun and Dayak communities in 13th General Election in shaping the destiny of Malaysia in next 50 years

Wishing Hari Kaamatan and Hari Gawai to all Kadazandusun and Dayak communities in Sabah and Sarawak.

Hari Kaamatan and Hari Gawai this year is taking place at a momentous period in the nation’s history, with the country geared to hold its 13th General Election which will decide whether Malaysia is ready to take her place as one of the normal democracies in the world where power transition at the national level is determined through the ballot box and accepted as part and parcel of the parliamentary democratic process.

For quite some time, the conventional wisdom is that the 13th General Election will fall in June this year, but now all the political calculations have to be reworked after the unprecedented support of a quarter of a million Malaysians for Bersih 3.0 in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and by tens of thousands of Malaysians in over 80 cities across the globe.

This spontaneous outpouring of support for the Bersih campaign for a clean election had caught the Najib administration by surprise as the intelligence it received before April 28 was that Bersih 3.0 had “little traction” with the people and could not muster more than the crowd of Bersih 2.0, which brought out some 50,000 people.
Continue reading “Let 2012 Hari Kaamatan and Hari Gawai usher the greatest empowerment of Kadazandusun and Dayak communities in 13th General Election in shaping the destiny of Malaysia in next 50 years”

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Why was Nazri’s parliamentary answer that the Cabinet has agreed to set up RCI on illegals in Sabah blacked out in Sabah press today when it should make it to all the front-page headlines?

A most bizarre and extraordinary development highlighting the triple woes about good governance in Malaysia – the unhealthy state of media freedom in Malaysia, the veracity of Ministerial statements and assurances in Parliament and thirdly, the continued contempt and disregard for the long-standing legitimate grievances of Sabahans by the Barisan Nasional Federal Government.

The question all Sabahans and Malaysians are entitled to an answer is why the written parliamentary answer of the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz tabled in the Senate yesterday that the Cabinet has agreed on Feb. 8 this year to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the illegal immigrant problem in Sabah was blacked out in the Sabah press today when it should make it to all the front-page headlines?

In fact, the news story was also killed in all the Malaysian mainstream mass media and all other language print media – except for the Sun, which appeared as page lead “RCI on illegals in Sabah” (p. 2), Star online (2.45 pm yesterday) and a few online portals like Malaysiakini and FreeMalaysiaToday.

Is it true that Bernama, which had earlier yesterday sent out a news bulletin on Nazri’s parliamentary answer confirming the Cabinet decision on Feb. 8 to form the RCI, had a few hours later sent out a retraction of the news item? Continue reading “Why was Nazri’s parliamentary answer that the Cabinet has agreed to set up RCI on illegals in Sabah blacked out in Sabah press today when it should make it to all the front-page headlines?”

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Harris pours scorn on Mahathir’s rosy outlook

FMT Staff | May 6, 2012

KOTA KINABALU: Former Sabah chief minister Harris Salleh has accused Dr Mahathir Mohamad of duplicity during his 22-year tenure as prime minister, which saw the Bornean state rapidly fall from riches to rags.

Lashing out at the man who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1981 to 2003, Harris said in a statement that Mahathir was to be blamed for the current impoverished state Sabah is in.

“Had he mentioned and practised the rule of law, Sabah would remain the richest state,” Harris said in response to Mahathir’s lecture recently at Universiti Malaysia Sabah .

Harris was irked by Mahathir’s claim that Sabah, which was declared as the poorest state in the country by the World Bank, would take back its mantle as the richest Malaysian state soon.

Harris, who helmed the Berjaya state government from 1976 to 1985, said there were many instances when the former premier and the federal government had failed the state. Continue reading “Harris pours scorn on Mahathir’s rosy outlook”

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Malaysians ‘owe’ Sabah the truth

by Aneesa Alphonsus | April 19, 2012
Free Malaysia Today

The Malaysia Agreement 1963 signed between Federated Malaya, North Borneo (now Sabah), Sarawak and Singapore, was not a deed of subservience but rather an invitation to share equally a political table.

FEATURE

Come July 9, it would be 49 years since Britain, the Federation of Malaya, North Borneo (now known as Sabah), Sarawak and Singapore entered into an agreement that gave rise to the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. But how many of us knew that?

The fact is we remember, easily enough, Aug 31, 1957 as Merdeka day and of late Sept 16, 1963 as Malaysia Day but what about July 9, 1963 – the day the Malaysia Agreement was signed by a then independent Sabah and Sarawak?

The agreement was not a deed of subservience but rather an invitation to share a political table and march ahead into a bright future.

But that did not happen. History has distorted the facts and killed off its proverbial leaders. A generation of children have been born into thinking that Malaysia is one and not 1+2 (Singapore withdrew from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 leaving only Sabah and Sarawak). Continue reading “Malaysians ‘owe’ Sabah the truth”