UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT OR UNDEMOCRATIC FRONT?
Firstly – agree with Meramat’s accurate observations on UBF in response to Irene’s narrow view.
We in Sarawak are much in need of a united front to assert our autonomy if not national independence. The Malayan opposition parties in Sarawak cannot be expected to do a great deal as the local leaders answer to a foreign master.
But whether we want a united front to be led by our J. Messing is not even a consideration or choice judging by his total lack of leadership and submission to UMNO PBB dictates. There are other strong and articulate “Phds” around who would make very good leaders and spokesman for Dayak rights and Sarawak autonomy/indpendence.
Secondly in reference to the acronym “UDF” generally means “United Democratic Front”.This is a name which has been used world wide by progressive left parties to unite against the local conservative forces.
It would be hard to imagine that Jimmy Messing forming such a “UDF” party since the only progressive thing about his politics has been to progressively sell out his people.
48 years of land robbery and oil plunder is good enough testimony of how all the Sarawak PBB BN political parties betrayed the country and people to UMNO colonialism. They did nothing to stop the colonial rape and plunder but became a partner to the colonization of our country and nation (Sarawak).
Down the years both Sabah and Sarawak people have seen how failed political parties morphed and re-emerged as “new” and with more grand sounding names to fool the people for till the next election….
The Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS, or United Sabah Party) in Sabah is just such an example. It was formed following many years of growing Sabahan unhappiness (still growing) with UMNO political dictate and ruination of the Sabah socio- econmic life with UMNO style politics. PBS won the 1985 State elections – first round. Following this UMNO engineered a series of “riots” to de-stabilised Sabah and another election was held and this time PBS won even more convincingly.
However having gained power by the people’s will they betrayed them within one year. The Kitingan brothers became well known for this betrayal. (To this extent Irene Kana is correct about her concern).
In the years that PBS was in power nothing really changed. Sabah just slided down into deeper social-economic disaster as this period saw the implementation of Mahathir’s mass transmigration programme of pendatangs into Sabah.
That is why many Sabah/Sarawak people are cautious of Jeffrey Kitingan forming the United Borneo Front (they love the word “united”) and now they co-opted the unheard of (hardly) Sarawak STAR to start their GE13 campaign after UBF was rejected by the Registratar of Societies. UBF is obviously a name with a local “separatist” ring about it and Jeffrey has been playing on the Sabah people’s genuine feeling to get out of Malaysia. He speaks the truth about Sabah’s plight but many are sceptical about his sincerity. But some are still prepared to give him a chance. After all the UBF is not just Jeffrey.. there are others who appear to be solid advocates of Sabah autonomy/independence.
This is where Sarawak politicians differ from Sabah politicians. Although we have a strong tradition of Sarawak independence struggle from the 1940s to 1990s this trend has been diluted largely by the betrayal of the SUPP. We recently saw how the SUPP leaders paid for their betrayal of our country and people after their sell-out to UMNO colonial rule.
So coming back to Jimmy- the need to form this and that party is more to re-resuscitate their failed politics which the Dayaks find lacking in any leadership by their failure to defend Dayak rights. They have sensed that they lost Dayak support and confidence in them.
Even though Dayak parties are part of the PBB BN alliance and by fact of the Dayaks being the majority people, these leaders have sat by the sidelines and failed to strongly oppose the oppression and rape of their own people.
From this failure has grown a new awareness and Dayak opposition similar to the Sabah political developments. Dayak people are seriously questioning the value of being part of Malaysia and becoming a fixed deposit and treasury whereby UMNO has a free hand in stealing their national treasures to fund Malayan economic development and make UMNO billionaires.
Dayaks never really benefitted from the “independence in Malaysia” but have become the poorest people in this federation.
Still the idea for Dayak unity for progress and democracy is a good idea although unclear if this Jimmy’s thoughts?
So Jimmy if you want to do anything good for Dayaks you can firstly prove your sincerity by firmly demanding that Taib and his rotten gang of thieves return all stolen Dayak land and also land belonging to other Sarawakians. Then you may get all (united) Sarawakian support. We won’t ask you to demand real autonomy or independence because we know since day one you supported UMNO colonization!
Independent historical summary on PBS by Wikipedia:-
“The 1986 Sabah riots occurred between March and May in various locations around the state of Sabah, Malaysia. The riots centered mainly in the capital Kota Kinabalu, as well as in the towns of Tawau and Sandakan. On March 12, seven plastic explosives were detonated in Kota Kinabalu. A bomb was also detonated in Tawau. The riots resulted in the death of 5 people.[1]
The riots occurred in response to the results of the 1985 state election, whereby the newly formed Parti Bersatu Sabah (United Sabah Party) won, ousting Parti Berjaya from the helm of government. Berjaya was the previous ruling party and a component party of Barisan Nasional (BN), the nation’s and federal ruling coalition party. It was reported that mobs took to the streets to bring down the president of PBS Pairin Kitingan from the Chief Minister post.[2]
It was also suspected that the riots were triggered by the losing parties including BN to bring forth a proclamation of emergency in order to justify a takeover by the federal government[3] similar to those which happened in 1966 in Sarawak and 1977 in Kelantan.[4]
PBS later sought to have snap election because of political manoeuvering causing PBS representatives to defect.[5] Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed also tried to negotiate with PBS to form a coalition with BN in return for peace in the state.[3] Finally the election was held on 4 and 5 May, 1986. PBS won again and this time with a bigger margin.[6]“