Sabah (then North Borneo) and Brunei, Sarawak remained under British control when MALAYA gained its independence in 1957. In 1962 the British proposed including the Borneo territories into the Federation of MALAYA. At the last minute Brunei pulled out, as the sultan (and, one suspects, Shell Oil) didn’t want to see the revenue from its vast oil reserves chanelled to the peninsula. At the same time, MALAYA also had to convince the UN that Philippine claims to North Borneo were unfounded, as was Indonesia’s argument that the formation of Malaysia was a British neocolonialist plot. The agreement was finally hammered out in July 1963, and in September of the same year the Federation of Malaysia was born.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:52:59 +0000
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