SIBU: The Sarawak Taekwondo Federation is an affiliate of the Malaysian Taekwondo Association (MTA) which is a member of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF).
This follows a recent statement by MTA secretary-general Eddie Tuan that MTA had never received any letter from WTF to say that it was no longer its affiliate.
“For the information of all concerned, in the WTF web-site, MTA (membership Malaysia) is recorded as having been its member since 1975. This is the status of the MTA with WTF.
The WTF has yet to send any letter to MTA to cancel its affiliation. So for a certain group always harping on the legality of STF is nothing but sheer lie to best serve its own agenda.”
Eddie noted that STF, a loyal member of the MTA for 30 years, has never indicated that it is a member of the Taekwondo Malaysia.
The MTA, he continued, was now looking forward to Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) to return its status as an ordinary member of OCM.
“We have won our battles in the High Courts to reinstate our status. There are two decisions made by the High Court dated 4 April 2012 and the Court of Appeals May 16, 2013 in our favor. I want to stress here, everyone have to respect the court’s order. No one is above the law,” he stressed.
“We had a letter from the Sports Commission dated July recently to confirm that MTA is returned as a legitimate sports body under the Sport Development Act 1997. The only thing is we have not been confirmed as the main body of the sport of Taekwondo.”
Eddie added the association had also received a letter from the OCM dated 4 April 2013 stating that its membership has been canceled since May 6, 2005.
“Strange to say, it took OCM’s secretary Datuk Sieh Kok Chi eight years to write to tell us this for reasons best known to himself.”
But, he added, on January 4, 2008 the OCM sent another letter to the Director-General of the Ministry of Education supporting the MTA to teach taekwondo in Malaysian schools.
On the oft-repeated argument that only students registered with Taekwondo Malaysia affiliates can represent the country in the sports at international and world tournaments, Eddie said MTA’s focus now was more on the martial art aspect of the art rather than on its short-term sporting aspects.
“We want to represent Taekwondo as a martial art to inculcate positive morals, social values and physical fitness among its practitioners.
As pointed out by Tuan Haji Anuar Abdul Hamid, the deputy director in charge of Co-Curriculum and Art Division in the Education Ministry the ministry sees martial art training as a very important tool to teach them such values.
There are 5.4 million students in about 10,000 schools nationwide. Only the smallest number will get to represent the country at international and world events. For the bigger majority they can certainly enjoy Taekwondo as a martial art”, Eddie said.