Needed – truth, reconciliation

Have you heard about the Sabahan district officer who was detained under the ISA for 59 days? His name is Hassnar Ebrahim, and if you have not heard his testimony, please view KiniTV\’ s \’Hassnar: IC giveaways since 1981\’ and decide for yourself who is telling the truth about the infamous ICs case and cover-up in Sabah.

Malaysians must strive and seek to know “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” regarding the Sulu sultanate, their claims, and the whole cover-up till now. In fact, one of the most damning revealations to me is also the Al Jazeera interview with Nur Misuari ( right ), the former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).  

We must get to the bottom of this matter of national importance and priority without any more cover-ups or media-controlled lying.

Even former Armed Forces members are getting into this fray of discussing why and how we needed five battalions to fight a mere 200 intruders. I am in some of the loops and it is interesting how “anger and emotion are waging information wars in cyber space”.

Therefore also, I would like to also applaud the proposal from the three major KadazanDusunMurut parties and their leadership that in Sabah all “ICs must now be fully withdrawn, and reissued to only authentic candidates using the Malaysia Agreement guidelines; without fear or favour”.

I believe there are some simple but true and effective guidelines for this can be legitimately given to “authentic foreigners being welcomed in Malaysia”. My 94-year-old dad sat on the IC Committee formed after Merdeka and he was verbalising some of those guidelines personally to me. One of them was the speaking of Malay, and the other was a stay of at least 12 years in Malaya before Merdeka.

When we do such a review and replacement exercise, I suggest that in their ICs, it must also be publicly stated that they are Sabah residents, since immigration is a state matter under the Federation of Malaysia Agreement. Is that not also why peninsular Malayans are not given automatic entry into both Sabah and Sarawak? 

Maybe these two states may also want to insist under their state enactments that they do not want to recognise federally registered political parties under the current Registrar of Societies (ROS) rules to become locally-registered political parties in some automatic way.

When I was the secretary of the RMC’s Old Putera Association in the early 1970s, we were formally advised by the ROS that we cannot apply for branches to be set up all over Malaya and Sabah and Sarawak because that would make us a national association, and that we might then become a national threat to the current establishment.

We accepted this logic without question, sicne we had no ulterior motive of taking of the country by some illegal means, even if we as Old Puteras had the capability.

If we do not put a stop to this kind of cross-border neo-colonialism, we will continue to propagate and promote the Malayan brand of ethnic politics to be exported to these states, too; which I hear are naturally multi-cultural and multi-ethnic without too much overt racism and discrimination. Malayan politics seems to be teaching them our bad habits as well.

Getting to the root of the problem

Hassnar\’s ( left ) testimony is very telling about truth matters on the matter of Sabah backdoor ICs. I saw, heard and felt no reason to disbelieve this man, who has waited in “disgrace all these years” for an opportunity to tell the truth; his side of the truth. Truth matters in all and every area and arena of life. If truth does not matter, God cannot exist. Period. That, too. is the truth; God is all of truth.

There is both authority of truth and truth of authority. Currently the mainstream narrative about Sabah is very aggressively proposed and defended by Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the Filipinos were treated in no way different than the Indians and Chinese of peninsular Malaya. Really?

The truth in context is that the Indians and Chinese in Malaya were residuals of the British colonial masters and their political and economic hegemony. Unless the Filipinos of Sabah were also colonial residues of the British Raj; even if by cause of legitimate claims, these claims must have been made known to the Cobbold and Reid Commissions and the United Nations referendum on this matter.

The Cobbold Commission was a commission of enquiry set up to determine whether the people of North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak supported the proposal to create the Malaysia consisting of Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak. It was also responsible for the subsequent drafting of the constitution of Malaysia prior to the formation of Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963.

The commission was headed by former Bank of England governor, Lord Cobbold. The Reid Commission was an independent commission responsible for drafting the constitution of the Federation of Malaya prior to Malayan independence from Britain on Aug 31, 1957.

The North Borneo dispute refers to the territorial dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines over much of the eastern part of Sabah. Sabah was known as North Borneo prior to the formation of the Malaysian federation.

The Philippines, through the heritage of the sultanate of Sulu, retains a “dormant claim” on Sabah on the basis that the territory was only leased to the British North Borneo Company in 1878 with the sultanate’s sovereignty never being relinquished.

However, Malaysia considers this dispute as a “non-issue” as it interprets the 1878 agreement as that of cession and that it deems that the residents of Sabah had exercised their right to self-determination when they voted to join the Malaysian federation in 1963. This self-determination process was moderated by the UN and is therefore called the UN Referendum on Sabah. 

The RCI and truth matters

The government of Najib Abdul Razak appears to be  interested in truth matters; otherwise, why would they even bother to have set up the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) over the Sabah ICs issue; which was severely resisted by the above-60 leaders of Malaya. My only fear however is that the BN government led by Umno, the mainstream media, and their agencies will not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this whole matter.

Nevertheless, let me also state other reasons why such truth will be revealed:

• Najib Abdul Razak is the 6th prime minister of Malaysia. He is also the end of Umno’s time for fulfilling the Rahman prophecy.
• The current Yang di-Pertuan Agong was also the Agong when Najib’s father was prime minister. He is much wiser now and also knows many of the truths.
• Some of the Sabah political leaders have been holding cabinet portfolios from almost the time of their fathers, too. They do not fear Najib or Umno any more.

Therefore, truth will be revealed in the matter of the Sabah’s “theft of dignity, sovereignty and identity”.

In all such truth matters, I have been taught, all we need is to create an open and transparent process, and invite a neutral moderator to allow an open process for the truth to be revealed.

Then, trust that process and truth will slowly but surely be revealed.

The privilege of an RCI is that the evidence gathered during the process is secured under the law and the individuals who give their testimonies cannot be sued under the law. They have legal immunity from prosecution or persecution. Therefore truth will slowly but surely be revealed.

All truth must not only be revealed, but once revealed, must address all wrongdoing and the culprits must be taken to task and at least made accountable on earth while they are still living. May the Good Lord grant his grace, truth and hope to all Malaysians.