The 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah is one of the seven cardinal sins of the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government betraying the rights and interests of the people.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) has gone full circle, from skepticism of the public when it was first announced to high hopes raised during the public hearings, and to dashed hopes, disbelief and even deeper skepticism when the RCIIIS Report was made public in Kota Kinabalu on 3rd December 2014.

The people of Sabah and Malaysia must not give up hope and must continue to demand action to end the influx of illegal immigrants, revoke identity cards issued illegally, ensure a clean and untainted electoral roll in Sabah and to punish those responsible for the Project I/C and other treasonous scams, acting unlawfully, whether through abuse of power or corruption, in the massive issuance of illegal identity cards to exercise the citizenship rights of voting in the electoral processes.

The debate on the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah cannot come to an end with the RCIIIS Report, but should be taken to a new height of immediacy and urgency.

The publication of this booklet, “The RCIIIS: The Endless Merry-Go-Round”, which is a collection of media statements and speeches of DAP leaders in the first month of the release of the RCIIIS Report, is to ensure that the 40-year-old nightmare of the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah remain in the forefront of public debate and democratic struggle not only in Sabah but also in Malaysia.

Two days ago, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister and the Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee, said: “Although the report is only 396 pages we may need to foster firstly on the contents, comments and recommendations from various groups.”
Does Pairin know what he is talking about?

The RCIIIS report has 368 pages. Has he got another Report of the RCIIIS which is 396 pages? Let him produce such a Report to the people of Sabah.

When the RCIIIS Report was made public in Kota Kinabalu on Dec. 3, Pairin said the report must be followed by drastic action by the government to ensure that illegal immigrants would no longer be an issue in Sabah.

Seven-and-a-half weeks have passed since the publication of the RCIIIS Report. What “drastic action” has been taken by the government to resolve the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, once and for all?

In fact, the 38 days that have elapsed since the publication of the RCIIIS Report on Dec. 3 had been wasted days as virtually nothing had been done as the RCIIIS Report Working Committee has yet to hold its first working meeting.

Even Pairin’s appointment letter as Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee had not been written, and it is most shocking and even outrageous that despite repeated public promptings by Pairin himself, the appointment letter has not appeared although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Naji Razak himself announced Pairin’s appointment nearly two months ago.

Who is supposed to pen Pairin’s appointment letter as RCIIIS Report Working Committee Chairman? The Prime Minister or the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi?

If the letter of appointment has to come from the Prime Minister, why has this not been done when the Prime Minister had the time to go on vacation in Hawaii, cut short his holidays to rush back to the floods catastrophe in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, fly again to Bangkok before falling ill as a result of E Coli, purportedly from the floods?

If the letter of appointment has to come from the Home Minister, why has this not been done when Zahid has the time on Dec. 18 to write a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) vouching for the character of a gambling kingpin standing trial in Las Vegas and pleading for his early return, setting off a major national scandal as the Home Minister not only acted unilaterally by not informing the police and the Foreign Ministry but also contradicted the earlier official police communication to the FBI?

Clearly, the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, which had changed the political demography in the state as well as altered the socio-economic and security circumstances in Sabah does not rate highly in the Putrajaya scheme of things.
In these circumstances, what can Pairin achieve as Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee?

I am shocked that Pairin is operating as if he knew nothing about how to resolve the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah.
How can this be, when all the solutions to the illegal immigrants problem should be on his fingertips.

Surely Pairin has not forgotten that he was toppled as Sabah Chief Minister after 10 years as head of the Sabah State Government precisely by the political conspiracy behind this nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah!

Or has Pairin forgotten all the resolutions on solutions to this problem passed by the annual PBS congress for the past two decades on this issue?

There are at least seven things which Pairin as Chairman of the Working Committee can and must do immediately to resolve once-and-for-all the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Firstly, let the Working Committee declare that ‘Project I/C’ had existed. Secondly, declare that there are illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls in Sabah.

The RCIIIS said that it was most probable that there was Project I/C with I/Cs illegally issued to illegal immigrants and that illegal immigrants were on the electoral rolls.

The Working Committee must be prepared to come forward to declare that both Project I/C existed and that illegal immigrants had been placed on the Sabah electoral rolls, for if both of these problems had not existed in Sabah, then there would have been no nightmare of illegal immigrants changing the political demography of Sabah, reducing native Sabahans to be foreigners in their own land!

Thirdly and fourthly, the Working Committee must implement measures to address these two problems, by the re-issue of new identity cards for all in Sabah and revocation of all old I/Cs obtained illegally by false and fraudulent means as well as a thorough clean-up of the Sabah electoral roll to remove every illegal immigrant improperly registered as a voter.

Fifthly, the Working Committee should ask Purtrajaya to present a bill in the March meeting of Parliament to repeal the Election Amendment Act which barred court challenges to unqualified voters on the electoral rolls after the rolls had been gazetted – a most subversive and undemocratic power given to the Election Commission after the Likas election petition.

Sixthly, the Working Committee must ensure that there is no increase of any single illegal immigrant in Sabah.

Seventhly, the Working Committee should publish the 6,000 missing pages in the RCIIIS Report on the notes of evidence of 211 witnesses, statutory declarations and exhibits.

The RCIIIS Report is a shabby piece of work as it does not present a roadmap for the resolution of the problems created by the influx of illegal immigrants and the unlawful granting of blue I/Cs and voting rights to illegal immigrants.

But the RCIIIS had not been a total waste of time and effort, as for the first time, 211 witnesses have put in black-and-white their accounts of the transgressions against the law, criminality and treachery in Project I/C and other scams which conferred blue I/Cs and voting rights on illegal immigrants.

These 6,000 odd missing pages in the RCIIIS Report must be published, for it will give the people of Sabah and Malaysia the opportunity to judge whether the RCIIIS Report is a fair and faithful representation of the RCI proceedings.

(Statement at the launching of the book “The RCIIIS – The Endless Merry-Go-Round: The 40-year-old Problem of Illegal Immigrants in Sabah” at Hotel Shangrila, Kota Kinabalu on Saturday, 10th January 2015 at 3 pm)