Sabah for Sabahans?

By Erna Mahyuni who blogs at ernamahyuni.com when she's not subbing for TMI. A slave to Bioware, Bethesda and her mini-zoo of two cats and a rabbit.

February 20, 2013

Before you send me to Kamunting, realise I am not advocating Sabah leaving Malaysia.

But I think it is high time Sabahans have a good, long think about the status quo.

As it is, things cannot stand.

Last I checked, Sabah is still the poorest state in Malaysia. Nabawan in Sabah is the poorest town in the country, with a 70-per-cent poverty rate.

On top of that, a small private army has landed in Lahad Datu intent on claiming Sabah as its own.

Welcome to the Philippines 81st province

People should be able to place their trust in the prime minister to head the elected government; some prime ministers achieve greatness, others are best forgotten. Many are mediocre, others gain international acclaim.

The future of one Malaysian prime minister might well lie in a cell. His crime? When he was in power, he did not act in the interests of the country, but was consumed by a passion to further his own political interests. He was prepared to sell his country to foreign nationals.

Last week, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad admitted in a press conference that he had authorised the provision of ICs to Filipinos. The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Sabah revealed that between 1970 and 1984, around 73,000 Filipino refugees had been allowed to settle permanently in Sabah. Pundits claim that today, there may be around 1.75 million Filipinos.

Dirtiest election to come: Sex scandals will entertain Malaysians

Controversial businessman Deepak Jaikishan has turned the heat on Prime Minister Najib Razak. Stripping off the gloves, the 40-year-old former confidante of Najib's wife Rosmah Mansor has just unleashed a fresh barrage of allegations that could submerge the political fortunes of the Malaysian PM and his Umno party.

Flora Ong is now the name on the lips of many followers of the Altantuya Shaaribuu-Scorpene submarines saga, even though she is not directly linked to the murder and corruption case that Deepak has accused the first couple of having a hand in.

Orang Asal, Native and Bumiputera are not one and the same thing

By Joe Fernandez

Reader Chong Tet Loi claims in “Never let extremists have their way” (Sunday Forum 24 Feb, 2013 Daily Express) that MANY (people?) were amused by my take in “Both These Sultans Never Owned Sabah” (Sunday Forum 17 Feb, 2013).

No doubt he conducted an instant Sabah-wide survey after my letter to conclude that “MANY” were “amused” by it and probably he would have liked to add that quite a few even died from laughter.
 

Who Is Laughing? Silly Suspicious Sabah Sulu Standoff!

By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

If Malaysia is clumsy about handling the Sabah standoff, it will have the same problem the Philippine government had when it fought a Muslim rebellion in the South in the 1970s up to the 1980s.

Malaysia is in a no-win situation as a result of the standoff in Sabah.

If it uses deadly force on a small group of armed Filipino Muslims now holed up in the village of Tanduo in Lahad Datu town in Sabah, members of the fiercest of Philippine Moro tribe, the Tausogs of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, will retaliate.

If, on the other hand, Malaysia compromises with the armed group purportedly belonging to the Sultanate of Sulu, it will be perceived as a weakling by its neighbors.

163 SPF members join STAR, 18,400 to follow suit

Sabah STAR Chairman with former SPF leaders and members

KOTA KINABALU:  State Reform Party (STAR) reaped a bounty yesterday (Sunday) when 163 leaders and members of the now defunct Sabah People’s Front (SPF) at a luncheon at Mayflower restaurant along Jalan Bundusan here.

In welcoming their entry, Sabah STAR Chairman, Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, said that the members of SPF were very disappointed for having been played out to the point that they lost their political platform when it was taken over by other people. SPF was somehow taken over by a Sarawak group and its name was changed to Sarawak Workers’ Party.
 

WHAT WENT BEFORE: Sultan of Sulu’s 9 principal heirs

MANILA, Philippines—In 1939, a decision issued by the high court of North Borneo named the nine principal heirs of the last sultan of Sulu, whose descendants had been pressing their claim to Sabah.

Known as the 1939 Macaskie Judgment, the nine principal heirs of Sultan Jamalul Kiram II were Datu Punjungan Kiram, Datu Esmail Kiram, Dayang Dayang Piandao Kiram, Dayang Dayang Sitti Rada Kiram, Princess Tarhata Kiram, Princess Sakinur-In Kiram, Dayang Dayang Putli Jahara Kiram, Dayang Dayang Sitti Mariam Kiram and Mora Napsa.

Jamalul II’s father, Sultan Jamalul Ahlam, leased Sabah in 1878 to British North Borneo Co. Under the agreement, the company would pay 5,300 Mexican gold pieces a year to the Kingdom of Sulu. It continued to do so until 1936, when Jamalul II died.

God, as opposed to religion

Okay, back to the issue of Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha when she was said to be just 6 years old or 9 years old or whatever. Of the many stories in Islam this appears to be the single most-favourite story that non-Muslims will raise to mock the Prophet and call him a paedophile, child rapist, pervert, criminal who would be sent to jail if he did that today, and so on.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Agnostic (noun)

1. A person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause and that the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2. A person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

3. A person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic.

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Police escorts a danger to motorists

Why must a VIP get right of way at the expense
of law abiding rakyat who are oftentimes
rough-housed to the side of road? asks an activist

By Luke Rintod of FMT

KOTA KINABALU: Police, especially traffic police, escorting VIPs on Sabah roads are being accused of endangering other road users when conducting their duties. A social activist said he recently almost met with an accident when overzealous police escorts forced him to the verge of the road to give way to a VIP speeding towards him

Donny Yapp, a director of UK-based NGO, Borneo Rights International (BRI), said the policemen simply “bulldozed” their way through the traffic and confused other motorists on a highway by waving their hands and pointing their fingers at them to get off the road.

Yapp said he was shocked earlier this week when a police outrider suddenly appeared alongside his vehicle frantically waving and pointing to one side of the road and the divider.

A case of scratching each other’s back?

By Jude Wang

In 1985, Tun Mustapha said perhaps the federal government
wanted to use Manila's claim on Sabah against its people as
a bargaining chip to make them behave.

KOTA KINABALU: With the 13th General Election drawing near, it seems to be a fishy coincidence that the Sultan of Sulu and his family have suddenly decided to revive their claim to Sabah as part of their ancestral right.

In an interview with the Philippines’ Daily Inquirer, Crown Prince Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram, reportedly said that they will have to pursue the Sabah claim on their own since the Philippines government appeared to have ignored their demand to include their claim to Sabah as an “integral and essential” aspect of the peace agreement involving “any armed group in Mindanao”.