North Borneo was granted
its Independence on 31 August 1963(1). Sixteen days later it formed
Malaysia with Sarawak, Singapore and the Federation of Malaya i.e. on
16 September 1963.
Donald Stephens, Tun Fuad
as he was known then, was appointed Sabah's first Chief Minister
while Datu Mustapha was appointed her first Head of State. Datu
Mustapha had expected that as Head of State, he would retain many
functions previously in the purview of the all powerful Governor.
When he realized that contrary to his expectations, it was the Chief
Minister who wielded power, he became frustrated and refused to
co-operate with Stephens. It got so bad that the government was
unable to efficiently go about conducting the business of governing.
The Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, mediated and the solution was
for Stephens to step down. Stephens stepped down on 31 December 1964
and took up the position of federal minister for Sabah Affairs and
Civil Defense. Replacing him as Chief Minister was Peter Lo who
previously held the position as Federal Minister without
portfolio.(2)
In June 1965, Lee Kuan
Yew who had been championing Malaysian's Malaysia, challenged the
capability of federal leaders to govern and suggested that Singapore,
Sabah and Sarawak as recent entrants to Malaysia, and perhaps Melacca
and Penang as well in view of the high presence of Chinese in their
populace, as well as being former Straits Settlements themselves,
formed a partition. He said these states could form a new nation. He
said those states that preferred a Malay's Malaysia could stay on
their own. In mid-July, there were racial clashes between the Chinese
and Malays in Singapore which led to the Tunku to decide that
Singapore should be booted out. On 9 August 1965, a resolution was
passed in the federal parliament to separate Singapore from
Malaysia.(3)
Stephens, now a Datuk,
claimed that he was not consulted upon with regard to the booting out
of Singapore and he should had been consulted since he was the
Federal Minister for Sabah Affair. Together with Peter Mojuntin, the
Secretary General of United Pasok Momogun Kadazan Organization
(UPKO), he toured the state telling the people that Sabah should
re-examine the Twenty Points, the conditions of Sabah's entry into
Malaysia. Recalcitrance in Sabah was the least that the Tunku wanted
because during this period, the Konfrontasi was ongoing, the Tunku
was afraid that this might give President Sukarno of Indonesia, the
excuse to step in and annex Sabah into Indonesia.
There was also
speculation that Stephens was going to pull Sabah out of Malaysia and
link up with Singapore. If this happened, Sarawak would had followed
suit. Hence on 13 September 1965, the Tunku flew into Jesselton and
fired Stephesn as Federal Minister for Sabah Affair and Civil
Defence. This, the Tunku hoped, would limit his activity in state
level. At the same time, the Tunku was already thinking of ways to
neutralize Stephens and Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun became his
prime candidate. Tun Mustapha was in Tunku's opinion, the only
politician in Sabah with the stature to challenge Stephens. During
this time, Tun Mustapha was still the Head of State.(4)
The Tunku encouraged Tun
Mustapha to re-enter politic. Tun Mustapha was initially reluctant
but agreed later when Tunku agreed to his requests for a fair degree
of autonomy, logistical and economical assistance from the federal
government and the help of a politically trained lawyer. Three days
later, Tun Mustapha stepped down as Head of State to challenge
Stephens in the incoming first election of an independent Sabah. Syed
Kechik was sent to Sabah to help Tun Mustapha to neutralize
Stephens.(5)
Syed Kechik engineered
the coup to get Datuk Donald Stephens to step down as President of
UPKO and retire from politic. He was also to convince UPKO members to
force Peter Mojuntin into retirement and that his paper, The Sabah
Times would run articles suggesting that USNO and UPKO should merge
in the interest of bumiputra unity. In the book, The Politics of
Federalism, it insinuated that Tun Mustapha would have sought
alternative arrangement to save the face of a long-standing
colleague. A passage from the book aptly described the situation,
“The two were unwitting actors in a drama written by the federal
government, and both felt compelled to play out their roles, however
reluctantly”. The book further went on to say that had the
encounter was between Stephens and other parties in the Sabah
Alliance, he would have emerged unscathed, given his powers of
articulation and pursuasion but this encounter was with Kuala
Lumpur(6)
I will not go into detail
on why Stephens agreed to these(you will have to get a copy of the
book for more details), suffice to say that he was outmaneuvered.
Meanwhile, Syed Kechik was aware that even with Stephens departure
from politics, UPKO still posed a danger. Ganie Gilong, now the
President of UPKO, was still calling for a re-examination of the
Twenty Points and UPKO enjoyed popular support from the people. Syed
Kechik cornered and coerced Ganie Gilong into making a public
statement that UPKO would refrain from talking about the Twenty
Points publicly but instead would discuss it internally. UPKO's
apparent rapprochement with USNO made headlines throughout the
country.(7)
Fast forward, Sabah had
its first General Election and UPKO had a few Assemblymen elected.
The following are a few excerpts from the book which painted the
author's opinion of our early politicians:
“For them, to join up
with the ruling government could be construed as a patriotic gesture
in the interests of the nation. The real motivation for defection,
however, was the accorded status of becoming a minister, the
accompanying benefits of a line of credit with local banks, and the
possibility of a timber concession. These were to be decisive.
Neither Sabah politicians nor their public were noted for fidelity in
the political arena, where personalities were more important than
issues. And in the mind of a poorly-educated and essentially amateur
politician, crossing over to USNO was not perceived as that
treasonous a political act.
On 2 November 1967, Payar
Juman, the UPKO member for Kiulu, resigned from UPKO to join USNO,
accusing UPKO of creating political tension in the state and taking
the party into the opposition without first having considered the
consequences of this for the rank and file....”(8)
Stephens was by now
financially drained because UPKO was practically bank rolled
personally by him. By this and other factors, he acceded to Tun
Mustapha's demand that UPKO was to be disbanded in the interest of
bumiputra solidarity and its members absorbed by USNO.
Stephens was sent to his
political exile in the form of a High Commissioner post in Australia.
Out maneuvered and cut off from his power base in Sabah.
After the race riot on 13
May 1969, a state of emergency was declared throughout Malaysia. Tun
Mustapha was appointed Chairman of the State Operations Committee
(SOC) with the power to detain. Tun Mustapha used this power to
detain his political opponent. Many opponents were detained including
Yap Pak Leong, an independent Assemblyman who was the sole opposition
in the Legislative Assembly and Khoo Tao Choon, the brother of Deputy
Chief Minister Khoo Siak Chew.(9)
Meanwhile, Syed Kechik
felt that the attachment of Sabah Muslims to Islam was more nominal
than devoted and he worked on a concept of establishing an
organization to promulgate Islam in Sabah. He felt that Islam could
be a binding and rallying force in USNO as it is in UMNO in Malaya.
There was also concern that if the majority of Kadazan Christians
were to allign themselves with the Chinese, they could emerge as a
new power base. He mooted the idea of setting up United Sabah Islamic
Association (USIA) to Tun Mustapha who readily agreed to it since he
had wanted Sabah to be Muslim and Sabah's language to be Malay, in
order to bring the state closer to the situation in Malaya.(10)
The book said Syed Kechik
did not anticipate the zeal of USIA workers in getting converts even
to resort to pressure and intimidation. All he could do was put up
with it tacitly. He also did not deny that there were missionaries
being expelled in Sabah in that period but explained it away simply
as their passes having expired and not renewed. Nonetheless, he
admitted that there were instances where passes were simply
terminated. He also conceded that there were instances where converts
received rewards like money, promotion and timber areas from Tun
Mustapha for their conversion.(11)
The Legislative
Assembly's five year term was coming to an end in April 1972. Peter
Mojuntin, USNO Assemblyman for Moyog, wrote a letter in 1970
addressed to the Prime Minister then, Tun Abdul Razak, accusing Tun
Mustapha of persecuting Christians, running a police state and
covering dishonesty with dishonesty. Hundreds of copies of this
letter were in circulation in Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu. This
was the first salvo initiated by Mojuntin to organize a challenge
against Tun Mustapha. In February 1971, Mojuntin announced that he
would form a new political party, Union of Sabah People (USAP),
however, this did not materialize eventually and Mojuntin bade his
time. (12)
Eventhough emergency regulations had
been lifted for some months, Tun Mustapha was still wielding the
detention powers. The book says this was an indulgence given by Tun
Razak who was very well aware how the wealthy Chief Minister could
personally play in helping out UMNO. One way to keep Tun Mustapha
loyal was to give him the detention power.(128)
By 1974, Tun Mustapha had become an embarrassment to leaders in Kuala Lumpur who found themselves impotent to reign in the wily Chief Minister.
There were also
rumour that Tun Mustapha was going to pull Sabah out of Malaysia. The
rumour was taken seriously for Tunku Abdul Rahman, the former Prime
Minister of Malaysia had issued a public plea to Tun Mustapha not to
pursue secession. (A) The secession rumour was probably the final straw for Tun Razak. Tun Razak summoned Datuk Harris Salleh to Kuala Lumpur and told him that should Tun Mustapha declare Sabah's independence, he would declare emergency, send in troops and install Datuk Harris as Chairman of the SOC. Tun Razak also impressed on Datuk Harris that a new party had to be formed to challenge USNO. The book says Datuk Harris told Tun Razak that the only politician with sufficient stature to lead an opposition against USNO was Tun Fuad Stephens. A few weeks later, after a discussion with Tun Razak, Tun Fuad agreed to provide leadership.(16)
On the morning of 15 July 1975, Datuk Harris Salleh,
Datuk Ghani Gilong, Datuk Peter Mojuntin, Datuk Salleh Sulong and
Mohammed Noor Mansoor escorted by the police, announced at the main
lounge of Borneo Hotel, the formation of Bersatu Rakyat Jelata
Sabah (BERJAYA).(14)
Source : The Politics of Federalism :
Syed Kechik in East Malaysia
(1) Pg 8
(2) Pg 9
(3) Pg 11
(4) Pg 17
(5) Pg 18
(6) Pg 26
(7) Pg 27
(8) Pg 89
(9) Pg 101
(10) Pg 102
(11) Pg 108
(12) Pg 127
(13) Pg 128
(14) Pg 145
(15) Pg 146
(16) Pg 158
(A) Source - The Straits Times 24 July 1975 : Tunku's plea to Tun M: Don't Pull Out
