18-point agreement

The 18-point agreement, or the 18-point memorandum, was a list of 18 points drawn up by Sarawak, proposing terms for its incorporation into Malaysia, during negotiations prior to the creation of the new federation in 1963.

A Commission of Enquiry, headed by Lord Cameron Cobbold, and The Lansdowne Committee, an inter-governmental committee, were appointed to aid in the drafting of the Malaysia Agreement. Lord Lansdowne served for Britain and Tun Abdul Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, served for Malaya.^[1] The 18 points were based on the Nine Cardinal Principles of the rule of the English Rajah.^[2]^[3] A similar memorandum, known as the 20-point agreement, was prepared and submitted by North Borneo. These memoranda are often cited by those who believe that Sarawak's and Sabah's rights within Malaysia have since been eroded.

The agreements, which can be found in the Proclamation of Malaysia and also the Cobbold Commission reports, stated the conditions and rights that were meant to safeguard the autonomy and the special interest of the people of Sabah and Sarawak, protecting, among others, these regions’ rights on religion, language, education, administration, economy and culture.

Some of the points were incorporated into the Constitution of Malaysia while the rest of Sarawak’s 18 points are outlined as follows: Point

1: Religion Point

2: Language Point

3: Constitution Point

4: Head of the federation Point

5: Name of the federation Point

6: Immigration Point

7: Right to secession Point

8: Borneanisation Point

9: British Officers Point

10: Citizenship Point

11: Tariffs and Finance Point

12: Special position of indigenous races Point

13: State Government Point

14: Transitional period Point

15: Education Point

16: Constitutional safeguards Point

17: Representation in Federal Parliament Point

18: Name of Head of State

Erosion of Borneo state rights

It appears that the Sarawak and Sabah rights have been eroded over the years since the Malaysia formation and taken by the federal government in Kuala Lumpur due to increasing centralization of administration and concentration of power by the same. The safeguards provided for Sabah and Sarawak by the 20/18 point agreements have not been adhered to or implemented by the federal government. The first Sarawak and Sabah Chief Ministers were removed and replaced for defending their national rights by amendment to the federal constitution and declaration of emergency which lasted until lifted recently. Now these state autonomy rights have cropped up again during the last elections and several movements like Sarawak for Sarawakians (S4S) and Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia (SSKM) have come up to champion the return to the original or true spirit and purpose of Malaysia formation i.e. Federation of Malaysia is an association of equal partners of federation of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore which has since ceded the federation. The purposes and grouses of these movements to call for the federal government to abide by the provision a of Malaysia Agreement have not been properly understood and entertained by the establishment and instead are seen as calling for secession of Sabah and Sarawak from Malaysia. It should be noted that Lord Cobbold has replied that "Secession is an intrinsic right in any union or partneship" when asked why secession was not included in the Malaysia agreement.

There are many glaring examples of erosion of Sabah and Sarawak rights and major noncompliances or deviations from the Malaysia Agreement by the federal government. The Malaysia Agreement is an international treaty between the parties involved and lodged with the United Nations. The first and foremost is the amendment of the federal constitution to downgrade the Sabah and Sarawak status from a separate, independent and sovereign nations or countries before formation of Malaysia to merely 12th and 13th states within Malaysia which are equivalent in status to each of 11 states in the preceding Federation of Malaya.

Subsequently, the federal government forms the "consolidated funds" whereby Sabah and Sarawak have to surrender all their national revenues collected within their own nations to the central government every year before the federal budget is allocated to each state regardless of how much each state contributes to the federal coffer annually. As it turns out, most of the federal budget is allocated to Malaya while Sabah and Sarawak receive crumps eg in recent years' budget, RM100 billions to Malaya and 1 billion each to Sabah and Sarawak which is so disproportional to the contribution of revenues from each Sabah and Sarawak. It has been highlighted that according to the Malaysia Agreement, 40% of revenues from each Sabah and Sarawak must be returned or retained by these two nations for their respective expenditure and development. Therefore, Sabah and Sarawak have to be on their political feet to beg for budgets and allocations from the federal government whereas the money is originally revenues from their own nations in the first place.

Another example is the Petroleum Development Act of Malaysia which takes the oil rights from Sabah and Sarawak in exchange for a mere token of 5% oil royalty. There has been called to increase this amount to 20% but disagreed by the federal government. The National front at the Sarawak level has unanimously agreed in the Sarawak assembly to request for a 20% increase in oil royalty but the UMNO-led federal government objected to it.

Further, the federal government exerted its dominance and transgression with the Malaysia Agreement when it takes the education matters of Sarawak and Sabah to be under the federal government and thus followed by the change of the English medium of instruction by the Malay language, even the Borneo Literature Bureau has been replaced by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Language and Library Hall) from Malaya. It should be noted that more than 50% of federal scholarships allocated to Sarawak and Sabah students to pursue their education in local universities had allegedly no takers and as such went to students in Peninsular Malaysia. The situation was equally depressing for scholarships for overseas studies where Sarawak and Sabah could not fill their quota in 2008 and 2011 for overseas scholarship. There were complaints from Dayak students who scored above average results but who had their applications for scholarships rejected. Why can't the rule be lowered to average results so that they can have a chance to fill in their quota? After all, Sabah and Sarawak are the training grounds for teachers from Malaya who transferred to Malaya after 2 or 3 years and a new cycle is repeated. Only recently MARA colleges are set up in Sarawak wher MARA stands for Maljis Amanah Rakyat (People Trust Council). MARA colleges in Malaya produce Malay students with excellent results which can opt to study overseas under the Joint Program of the Malaysian Public Service Department.

From these on, the federal government went on rampage to centralize almost all matters into their hands like housing, museum, tourism and so forth except perhaps land, forestry and immigration matters still retained by the respective Sabah and Sarawak governments, perhaps mostly in exchange for signing of the Petroleum Development Act which centralizes the oil rights with the federal government.

In order to control and dominate the politics in Sabah after the Sabah-based Parti Bersatu Sabah (Sabah Unity Party) declared itself to exit the National Front which forms the federal government on the eve of the polling day in 1994 national election, the federal government through its own controlled department of national registration secretly embarked on issuing Identity Cards under project IC or M where IC stands for Identity Card and M stands for Mahathir who was the prime minister of Malaysia at the material time to foreign nationals from Philippines, Indonesia and perhaps Pakistan or India as long as they are muslim or converted to muslim. In pratie, there is a widespread Islamization among the initially nonmuslim natives in Sabah since the Donald Stephens' and Mustapha's government. This initiative changes the demography of Sabah forever, from the fact that the majority population in Sabah is the Christian KadazanDusunMurut community to muslim majority and exponentially soars the Sabah total population from about 1 million pre-Malaysia to almost 4 millions by now while the Sarawak population increases incrementally. By this, the federal party UMNO (United Malay National Organization) manages to easily win both state and national elections to elect state assemblymen and members of the Malaysian parliament. Now, the Pairin's party has rejoined the Sabah National Front coalition and Pairin made the Sabah deputy chief minister. In Sarawak, the politics is still favourable to the ruling party and UMNO because the backbone of the state politics is still controlled by the Sarawak-based PBB (Parti Pesaka Bumipuetra Bersatu) which is a member of the 13 component parties of the National Front (Barisan Nasional) which is symbolized by the scale (dacing) graphic. It is envisioned if PBB is ever lost power to the opposition bloc, UMNO will spread its wing into Sarawak in order to maintain the Malay supremacy and political power therein.

It should be further noted that Christian Chief Ministerships of Sabah and Sarawak have not lasted long as both the first Sabah and Sarawak Chief Ministers i.e. Donald Stephens and Stephen Kalong Ningkan were removed from office and replaced with pro-federal hand-picked puppets due to friction and disagreements with the central government with regards to Sabah and Sarawak autonomy rights which are enshrined in the federal constitution and related documents like the 20/18 point agreements. In Sabah, Donald Stephens was replaced by Mustapha while in Sarawak, Stephen Kalong Ningkan was replaced by the soft-spoken Tawi Seli before being replaced by muslim Abdul Rahman Yaacop. Later, the same scenario happens again to when the caretaker chief minister of Sabah, Joseph Pairin Kitingan who won the majority of state constituencies was not immediately sworn in as the chief minister but his archrival Mustapha was sworn in by the pro-federal government Sabah governor even Mustapha won the minority number of seats. Mustapha was hoping for or expecting some assemblymen from the Pairin's camp to defect or jump party to Mustapha's camp. However, this did not occur but subsequently, the tactic of enticing and defection did crumple the Sabah government formed by Pairin's party. Are Christian Sabahan or Sarawakian not eligible or competent enough to become chief ministers or their tenures were shortened because they defend their rights and stick to the true purpose and spirit of Malaysia formation?

Another unequal sharing of political power and thus wealth among the natives of Sabah and Sarawak is the post of Sabah and Sarawak governors which have been held and dominated by only muslim individuals since Malaysia formation until now. Initially Christian individuals like Donald Stephens and Abang Louis have converted before their respective appointments as the Sabah and Sarawak governors respectively so their names have been changed into Malay names i.e. Fuad Stephens and Abang Sallehuddin. Alfred Jabu Anak Numpang retired from active politics prior to Sarawak 2016 election, will he be ever appointed as the next Sarawak governor in return for his loyalty to ruling National Front for over 40 years and his tenure as the Sarawak deputy chief minister after the Ming Court affair in 1987 which is almost 30 years long? As of now, he is going to be appointed as the Sarawak governor. He has been bypassed to be promoted as the next Sarawak chief minister to replace his boss Taib Mahmud. Jabu's name was not even not the list of three names endorsed by PBB supreme council to replace Taib. The name list contains Adenan Satem, Abang Johari, and Awang Tengah, all are muslim. Adenan was handpicked by Taib to replace him, perhaps most likely due to family close relation and to protect the interests of Taib and his family and the Laut/Melanau elite group within PBB in Sarawak especially their wealth accumulated during Taib's 33 years tenure as Sarawak chief minister and the coming government funds and projects. One of Taib's sons is estimated to be a billionaire with 70,000 hectares of state land and ordered to pay RM30 millions to his ex-wife in their recent divorce settlement court case. Does this suggest that nonmuslim or Christian individuals are not qualified or eligible to be appointed as Sabah and Sarawak governors? Are these posts of governors reserved for muslim only? Nonmuslim natives can accept and agree that noen of them may become the king (agung) of Malaysia but noteligible to become the governor is too much bitter salt to chew on and to be quite not to complain. Why can't the post be rotated between muslim and nonmuslim natives of Sabah and Sarawak in fairness and justice to all?

There were supposed to be no official religion in Sabah and Sarawak as per the 20/18 points. In Sabah, this was changed to make Islam as the official religion of Sabah during Mustapha's tenure as the Sabah chief minister. Sarawak has not changed this point but the official website of Sarawak government stated Islam as its official religion until pointed out the opposition in the Sarawak state assembly recently. Sarawak's right to use English in official matters in addition the national language of Malay has only been reexerted by the Sarawak government on the eve of Sarawak election 2016 after pointed by again the opposition.

The Malaysian country’s coffers had run dry after channelling public funds for 1MDB loan repayments and that was the reason the Goods and Service Tax (GST) was implemented in 2015 by the federal government. Prior to the introduction of the GST, the Sales and Service Tax (SST) was collected by the Sarawak and Sabah governments and used purely for the welfare of Sarawak and Sabah citizens. Now, the SST has been abolished and the new GST is collected by the federal government.

All the above changes effectively cease the control and independence of Sarawak and Sabah rights to manage their own affairs of finance, tariff and development and other safeguards contained in the 18/20 points agreements. According to the Malaysia Agreement, there is the Federal List, Sarawak List and Concurrent List as far as powers and autonomy of federal and state governments are concerned. Among those included under the Sarawak List are land rights, agriculture, forests, local government, state holidays, water supply and resources, library and museum. The federal government is supposed to be responsible for internal security, defence and foreign affairs.

The above changes in policy have been disguised as necessary and required to have uniform and ease administration throughout the federation but these can also be seen as neo-colonization of Sabah and Sarawak by Malaya in reality and practice after the colonial British left.

References

↑ Bastin, John Sturgus (1979). Malaysia; Selected Historical Readings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9783262012165.
↑ Rawlins, Joan (1965). Sarawak - 1839 to 1963. Macmillan & Company, (Original from the University of Michigan Press. p. 240.
↑ Sarawak Constitution

18-point agreement

Erosion of Borneo state rights

See also

References

Further reading