Never our intention to colonise says he. But he always has the intention to gain full control. an example: Tunku Abdul Rahman visited Sarawak in February 1966 he tried to revive the idea of a Native Alliance, this time under the guise of a United Malaysian National Organization for Sarawak. Behind-the-scenes efforts continued for several months in an effort to forge a three-party UMNO type coalition to topple Ningkans government, but such a union was difficult to construct. Pesaka, while keeping on good terms with Kuala Lumpur, was suspicious of a Malay-native union, hoping instead to create a unified native movement by absorbing SNAP or providing the leadership for a Pesaka-SNAP merger. Although a Malay party, PANAS had a strong sense of local loyalty and resented political directives from Kuala Lumpur How they finally got the control: On the argument that the political situation in Sarawak was being exploited by Communists and subversive elements, Malaysias King (Yang di-Pertuan Agong) declared a State of Emergency on September 14, thus activating the Emergency Powers of Parliament under clause 150 of The Federal Constitution of Malaysia, whereby all state powers are transferred to federal authority. The Malaysian parliament was hastily called into emergency session so that it could amend The Sarawak Constitution under these Emergency Powers. The bill gave the governor, subject to his absolute discretion, powers to convene the Council Negri, to suspend any standing orders of the Council, to give any special directions which he may consider necessary to the speaker and to remove the speaker and appoint another in his place if he should fail to comply with the governors orders. The governor was also given absolute discretion to dismiss the chief minister and members of the Supreme Council after a vote of no confidence.48 In conjunction with the constitution amendment bill, the federal government published a Parliamentary White Paper on the Communist threat to Sara- wak.4 While substantial evidence of Communist activities was revealed in this document, the federal government failed to present convincing evidence that the Communists were behind the political difficulties in Sarawak, or that the Communists had suddenly become such a severe threat to the security of the country that the federal government had to take extraordinary measures to prevent general elections until later, under more favorable conditions as decided and defined by the Alliance Government Why our leaders were disillusioned? They were promised political foothold if they cooperate. On several occasions federal spokesmen have declared that no state may break away from Malaysia, and warned that vigorous measures will be taken against advocates of state autonomy who are anti-Malaysia. On the one hand, federal authorities have tried to be conciliatory toward all communal interests and accommodative to some local demands. On the other hand, Kuala Lumpur is insistent that these states cooperate with the federal governments nation-building policies. Consequently, the federal government has felt obliged to intervene in local politics to insure the supremacy of those who cooperate with Kuala Lumpur and think Malaysian first Excerpts from: Eastern Malaysia: The Politics of Federalism Gordon P. Means Page 290 of 289-308 Credit to Sarah J Brooke.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:46:06 +0000
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