Datuk Sebastian Ting Chew Yew
MIRI: SUPP yesterday returned fire at PKR for alleging that its president Dr Sim Kui Hian was playing to the gallery, accusing the Peninsula-based opposition party of being incapable of understanding Sarawakian minds.
In a statement its secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting Chew Yew said Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How’s take on the issue was off the mark.
“I am not surprised because no ‘Malayan’ or ‘Malayan opposition parties’ will ever understand the minds of true Sarawakians,” he claimed in the statement issued to rebut See’s remarks on Dr Sim’s call that the word ‘state’ not be used to refer to Sarawak.
Ting said See should read Annex A, Part II, Section 4(2) of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 which says the Federation of Malaysia is made of the States of Malaya, the Borneo States of Sarawak and Sabah and the State of Singapore.
“ADUN Batu Lintang should be able to differentiate the English usage of capital ‘S’ and lowercase ‘s’. The Malaysia Agreement 1963 never refers to the states of Kedah, Penang or Perlis instead it refers to the ‘States of Malaya,” he pointed out.
Both Ting and See are lawyers on the opposite side of the political divide, and the former is Piasau assemblyman.
Ting said See should also read Part II Section 4(3) of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 where the ‘States’ were territories defined before ‘Malaysia Day’, which again did not refer to Kedah, Penang or Perlis but to the whole of Malaya, States of Sarawak and Sabah and the State of Singapore.
Therefore, the States of Malaya here refers to Malaya as one ‘Region’ or one territory because that was the boundary for Malaya before ‘Malaysia Day’, Ting argued.
He said the Malaysia Constitution before 1976 was exactly as it appeared in Annex A, Part II of the Malaysia Agreement.
He said those amendments in 1976 were made by Parliament without the consent of Sarawak and Sabah legislatures.
“Dr Sim’s statement, inter alia, was asking for those rights and entitlements as contained in the Cobbold Commission, the Inter-Governmental Committee Report, Malaysia Act 1963 and Malaysia Act 1963 (chapter 35) be returned to Sarawak.
“Therefore, what Dr Sim is doing will not hamper any efforts for the return of autonomous power to Sarawak, instead it may speed it up,” he said.
The SUPP secretary-general said everyone should be on the same page and speak up for the best interests of Sarawak and all Sarawakians.
He urged all Sarawak elected representatives, irrespective of their political affiliations, to rally together, be united and speak in one voice to achieve autonomy for the state in the very near future.