John Joseph| September 3, 2014
Free Malaysia Today
KOTA KINABALU: DAP has clarified it had never advocated the secession of Sabah and Sarawak from the Federation.
“Advocating secession is sedition under Malaysian law,” acknowledged DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang during a visit here for Merdeka.
He was commenting on a statement by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in Sipitang last Saturday that “Sabah belongs to Malaysia” and that action would be taken against those advocating the Borneo nation’s secession from the Federation.
Lim added that no political party, to the best of his knowledge, advocated secession from Malaysia.
What the DAP wanted to see, stressed Lim, was democratic change and reform in the country.
There were many public forums in Borneo and elsewhere since Sept 16 last year that marked the 50th year of Sabah and Sarawak’s Federation with the peninsula.
Three of those forums held in Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Canberra respectively, with the latest being a pre-Merdeka talk, “Malaysia at the Crossroads” in Kota Kinabalu, carried the message that it cannot be business as usual in Borneo for Putrajaya.
It is not known whether the Attorney-General will now haul the speakers at these public forums to court for “seditious” remarks and/or advocating seditious tendencies.
A 2nd People’s Petition, the first being in 1962, was also making its way around Borneo to collect 300,000 signatures for submission to the United Nations on the plight of Sabah and Sarawak in the Federation with the peninsula.
An appeal by activists is also before Queen Elizabeth for a Royal Inquiry into the exact nature and circumstances of the British departure from Borneo.
The appeal refers to a similar inquiry on Hong Kong which was held in London recently.