SABAH 'PRACTICALLY' UNDER COLONISATION

STATE Chairman of the State Reform Party (STAR), Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, said Sabah, though freed from the colonial British in 1963, is 'practically' still under colonisation today.

He said this can be tested with a simple political arithmetic. "We are free if we are free from colonisation or outside power. You are an independent country if you are free to plan and decide your own fiscal policies," he said.

Likewise, he said a country cannot consider itself independent if its own people do not have the power to elect or chose their own leaders.

"Sabah must continue to have this unfettered power to appoint its own Chief Minister if it is a free state. Currently this power has been usurped by UMNO..." he said in his address at a Borneo tea-party at Kampung Patau in Tambunan recently.

Dr Jeffrey also argued that one other important tenet of an independent state is that it must be able to collect taxes for itself, something that Sabah has been squarely denied of.

He said Sabah was in dire situation today because it was denied its rights and freedom as envisaged by a departing British government in 1963 and the founders of the state as well as proponents of the Malaysia Federation then.

"We were 20 years behind ready of any negotiation in 1963. And this has been made worse by complots after complots to make Sabah just one of the smaller states in the Federation.

"The outside power player did everything, including amending the Federal Constitution and forgetting all the 1963 pledges, to make sure Sabah and Sarawak are subservient to the centre, in order for them to plunder our resources and leaving our people poor.

"And that explains why today we are the poorest people in Malaysia even though our state Sabah is the richest in term of resources..." he said.