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Minorities At Risk Project: Home    

Chronology for Kadazans in Malaysia

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Date(s) Item
Feb 1990 Jeffrey Kitingan, the brother of Sabah's Chief Minister and the Director of the Sabah Foundation, the main state investment arm, was charged in a high court early this month with seven counts of corruption after lengthy investigations by federal anti-corruption officials. This has been a widely publicized case, viewed as politically motivated by observers and officials of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), the ruling party dominated by Catholic Kadazan tribespeople. "It is political harassment. They [the federal authorities] are doing it because they don't like a government that is headed by a Christian", said a senior official of PBS (Reuters, 2/28/90). Since the PBS toppled the federal-backed party to sweep to power in 1985, it has drawn the ire of Kuala Lumpur by loudly complaining that some promises made that got Sabah to join the Federation back in 1963 have not been kept. The most vocal critic has been the Harvard-educated, Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, the influential PBS ideologue who is considered the second most powerful figure in Sabah after the Chief Minister. He has stated, among other things, that the civil service in Sabah is dominated by West Malaysians instead of Sabahans. He has also demanded that Sabah, which produces a fifth of Malaysia's crude oil, be paid half its share in oil royalties. The PBS Manifesto largely endorses these issues. Malaysia's three oil-producing states are given 5% of their oil revenue and Kuala Lumpur distributes development expenditures separately to the states. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has denied that the Kitingan case is politically motivated. He also asserted that federal-state relations were good (Reuters, 2/28/90).
Jun 1990 Amnesty International has expressed concern about the fate of three Malaysians arrested for alleged subversive activities. The three -- identified as Benedict Topin, executive Secretary of the Kadazan-Dusun Cultural Association and two former policemen -- were arrested last month under the country's Internal Security Act (ISA). A legacy of British colonial rule, the act was widely used against communist insurgents in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the ISA can still be invoked against anyone considered a threat to national security, including government critics. Federal police authorities contend that the arrested persons were involved in a plot to form a secret army and hire mercenaries to pull Sabah out of the federation.
Jul 1990 The Christian-led multi-racial PBS has retained power after bitterly fought elections for the Sabah state legislature. The PBS, led by Australian-trained 49-year-old lawyer and Roman Catholic Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, won 36 seats while the Muslim-dominated United Sabah National Organization (USNO) took the remaining 12 seats in the 48-member Sabah state assembly.
May 1991 A Malaysian High Court postponed the corruption trial of the Chief Minister of Sabah for seven months. Joseph Kitingan allegedly faces three charges of awarding his relatives construction and timber concessions. The PBS quit the ruling federal coalition, National Front (NF), led by UMNO just before the recently held general elections, a move that Prime Minister Mohamad referred to as a "stab in the back" (Reuters, 5/7/91).The United Malay National Organization (UMNO), the dominant partner in the ruling 11-member National Front, has won a by-election in the opposition-controlled state of Sabah. This is the first time that UMNO had contested a seat in Sabah. Political observers contend that UMNO's victory by a sizeable majority will assist its plan to take control of Sabah and crush the PBS. It is also likely to sow the seeds for UMNO to eventually become a multi-racial party. UMNO, formed 45 years ago, had until its entry into Sabah based its support on Muslim-Malays in peninsular Malaysia.
Jul 1991 Prime Minister Mahathir has expanded his National Front coalition to include two more parties from the politically volatile Sabah state where federal police say they are probing a secessionist plot. The parties are the Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat or AKAR (People's Justice Party) and the small ethnic Chinese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The AKAR draws its support from Sabah's Kadazan-Dusun tribe which propelled Catholic Chief Minister Pairin Kitingan's PBS to power more than six years ago. Therefore, AKAR's admission into the National Front appears to be an attempt by federal leaders to undercut Kitingan's political base by wooing the Kadazan-Dusun community into a proposed multi-racial coalition that Prime Minister Mohamad wants installed in Sabah.
Jan 1992 Following a seven month recess, the corruption trial of Sabah Chief Minister Kitingan has begun. If he is convicted, it could force the renegade leader to resign. Residents are worried that economic backwardness will be the price to pay for "political defiance". More than a year after the PBS pulled out of the NF, leaders of the ruling PBS appear divided over whether to mend fences. Federal political pressure was backed with financial pressure when Kuala Lumpur took control of Sabah timber industry, the state's main source of revenue (Reuters, 1/12/92).
May 1992 The leader of Sabah has appealed to Prime Minister Mohamad to release his brother and six others detained without trial for allegedly plotting secession. Bernama, the official news agency, quotes Kitingan as stating, "I openly appeal, on behalf of my parents and relatives of all the other detainees, for them to be freed...In all fairness and justice, abolish the ISA and let the detainees go free so they would be able to join their families and lead a normal life" (5/13/92). The US State Department states that Malaysia's detention of political critics under the ISA during 1991 undercuts an otherwise improved human rights record.
Jul 1992 PBS President and Chief Minister Kitingan, who has returned unopposed for the top party post, has failed to get his followers to work out a compromise in the triennial party elections. The poll is likely to be a tight contest between two main factions in the party -- one headed by Deputy Chief Minister Dompok and the other by Finance Minister Kurup. One Deputy Chief Minister, Yong Teck Lee, who represents the Chinese, has aligned himself with Dompok, while the Muslim Deputy Chief Minister, Baharom Titingan, is aligned with Kurup. Dompok, Yong and Baharom are incumbent Deputy Presidents of the party -- each respectively representing the three main ethnic groups -- the Kadazans, Chinese and Muslims.
Nov 1992 While meeting with Prime Minister Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur, some leaders of the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut tribes submitted a memorandum on programs to attract non-Muslims in Sabah to join UMNO. A Kadazan-Dusun-Murut Task Force had been formed earlier to speed up the process. The UMNO Sabah now reportedly has 265,000 members, of which 70% are Muslims and 30% are Christians.
Apr 1993 The Muslim-based USNO joined in a coalition with the PBS to rule Sabah. The USNO is now backing the PBS on demands for greater state autonomy and other issues. The alliance now controls 42 out of 48 seats in the state assembly. The leader of USNO was made the state's Sports and Youth Minister. Prime Minister Mohamad has stated that he is seeking USNO's expulsion from the National Front (Reuters, 04/14/93). This means Sabah's PBS-USNO government will be even more cut off from Kuala Lumpur. Reports suggest that Sabah, once Malaysia's richest state, is now sliding into economic stagnation because of its confrontation with the federal government (The Straits Times, 4/16/93). While the rest of Malaysia continues to enjoy rapid economic growth, Sabah with its depleting timber resources, recorded negative growth in 1991 and is facing growing unemployment.
Aug 1993 While joining the national day celebrations organized in Kuching (capital of Sarawak), Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged states to strike a proper balance between local and national interests so that wealth could be better distributed. "The state governments will only lose out if they place their own interests before everything else", he said (Inter Press service, 8/31/93).
Oct 1993 Kuala Lumpur is taking steps to bolster Labuan Island, now a federal territory but originally a part of Sabah, to make it a world-class banking hub and tax haven. One of the PBS' demands is to regain control over Labuan. It was ceded to Kuala Lumpur in 1984 by the then state government.
Feb 1994 Pairin Kitingan was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Sabah, after his PBS party obtained a wafer-thin victory of 25-23 seats in the 48-seat state Legislative Assembly.
Mar 1994 The leader of the National Front coalition, S. Dandai, was sworn-in as Sabah's Chief Minister, replacing Kitingan, who incurred Prime Minister Mohamad's wrath by pulling his PBS out of the NF to join the opposition before the 1990 general elections. Kitingan was forced to resign on March 17 after assemblymen from the PBS, including his brother Jeffrey Kitingan, defected en masse to the NF. Some of them formed new parties to become partners with the National Front. Kitingan's resignation ended nine years of PBS rule in Sabah. Still Kitingan remains popular among the Kadazans as the Huguan Siou (paramount leader), a lifetime title bestowed upon him.
Jun 1994 Prosecutors dropped all corruption charges against Jeffrey Kitingan, former Director of the Sabah Foundation. He was elected to the State Assembly on a PBS ticket, the party that is headed by his elder brother. However, shortly afterward he left the PBS to join the National Front.
Aug 1994 The NF state government has initiated a series of transfers, demotions and sacking of civil servants who worked closely with the previous PBS government. Most of the transfers affected native Kadazans and Muslim leaders deemed close to the PBS.
Jan 1995 The deputy president of the Kadazan/Dusun based Parti Demokratik Sabah (PDS) says that ensuring that the Kadazan/Dusun community supports the Barisan Nasional (National Front) will be among his top priorities. Datuk Bumburing was recently appointed as a Minister with Special Functions in the Chief Minister's department (New Straits Times, 01/14/95).
Feb 1995 An agreement has been reached between the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association and its rival the United Sabah Dusun Association to officially call the Kadazan and Dusun languages "Kadazandusun". The language will be standardized and eventually taught in schools. There are reported to be no major differences between the Kadazan and Dusun peoples; in 1963, the term Kadazan was also applied to the Dusun (New Straits Times, 02/12/95).
Feb 14, 1995 In a move to eradicate the widespread use of alcohol, two competitions that involve the use of rice wine will be scrapped from May's Kadazan/Dusun Pesta Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) (New Straits Times, 02/14/95).
Apr 1995 The Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) that supports Kadazan claims is attempting to attract the Dayak and Iban communities. The party plans to contest 10 of 24 seats in Sarawak in the April election (The Straits Times, Singapore, 04/06/95).
Apr 27, 1995 The governing National Front, led by Prime Minister Mohamad secured a landslide victory in national elections. The NF, which is a coalition of 14 parties from the major ethnic and religious communities, won 162 out of 192 parliamentary seats and 338/394 state seats. The opposition DAP suffered a major defeat, winning only 9 federal seats and 11/394 seats in state polls (International Herald Tribune, 04/27/95; Reuter Textline: Sydney Morning Herald, 04/27/95).
Oct 1995 The Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat Bersatu party has been given until the end of December by the Registrar of Societies to resolve its leadership crisis. The appointment of a temporary president, Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, is being challenged by deputy president Pandikar Amin Mulia and 30 of the party's 46 supreme council members (New Straits Times, 10/31/95).
Nov 1995 Prime Minister Mahathir is inviting people from Sabah to work in peninsular Malaysia. Sabah's unemployment rate is 7% while peninsular Malaysia faces a shortage of workers. A new association, the Koisaan (United) Cultural Development Institute (KDI) has also been established to improve the quality of life of the indigenous peoples in Sabah (New Straits Times, 11/30/95).
Aug 1996 The government announced the creation of a state-run trust fund aimed at distributing the nation's wealth to all people pf all of Malaysia's ethnic groups, breaking with the trend of government-run trusts aiding only people in groups indigenous to Malaysia. The $1.2 billion fund attempts to promote savings and provide financing for infrastructure and privatized projects. Prime Minister Mahathir says that this trust does not indicate that the government plans to eliminate the New Economic Policy. He maintains that the NEP is still essential to correct existing disparities (The Reuters Asia-Pacific Business Report, 08/28/96; Asiaweek, 9/27/96).
Aug 17, 1996 In a speech on how Malaysia has achieved racial harmony, Prime Minister Mohamed cited the wide support by all people in Malaysia for the program of affirmative action in favor of bumiputras (indigenous people, but, in practice, Malays). He argued that people of all ethnic backgrounds in the country accept preference program as the driving force behind political stability, as it reduced racial disparities. (The Straits Times [Singapore])
Dec 15, 1996 Malaysia's government forced a group of NGOs--representing indigenous peoples, foreign and estate workers, and women in the country--to postpone a scheduled forum on alleged abuse of police power in Malaysia. Government officials threatened to invoke the Internal Security Act and detain the organizers of the forum if they held it as planned. (AFP)
May 1997 The Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah demanded the clarification of the legal definition of "bumiputra" after Ibans were denied consideration for a bumiputra quota in the state of Malacca. The Malayasian Bar Council issued a statement critical of officials in Malacca, and demanding that all states use a common definition of "bumiputra" and that all bumpitura be treated the same. (The Straits Times [Singapore], May 23, May 27)
May 23, 1997 In an interview with the Financial Times (London), Prime Minister Mahathir indicated that, given the situation of full employment and resultant worker shortages in Malaysia, the government would soon relax some of the economic policies which favor indigenous people in Malaysia. He noted that rules requiring 30 percent bumiputra-ownership of a company's equity have already been dropped in the IT industry in an effort to ensure the sector's continued growth in the country.
Jun 8, 1997 An independent survey discovered that Malaysia, along with China and Singapore, has the most heavily censored media in Asia. The Philippines and Hong Kong have the freest media in the region. (AFP)
Jul 1, 1997 - Aug 31, 1998 Following the collapse of Thailand’s economy, the Malaysian ringgit fell 60 percent to the US dollar during this period, and $(US)119 million dollars were lost on the stock market as the country’s GDP experienced a sudden and dramatic fall. Mahathir pushed an austerity plan for the country, indefinitely deferring infrastructure programs and encouraging Malaysians to buy locally produced goods. (AFP, January 27, August 30, 1998)
Jul 9, 1997 A deputy prime minister called for the rejection of a long-standing policy which requires lawyers from peninsular Malaysia to obtain permits before pursuing work in the states of Sarawak and Sabah. The suggestion was met with strong opposition from leaders of indigenous groups, and no plans were made to repeal the permit provisions. (New Straits Times, August 8, 1997)
Aug 9, 1997 The National Unity and Social Development Ministry announced plans to develop a heritage policy for indigenous peoples in Malaysia. The policy would aim to preserve not just indigenous cultures but industries and resource bases, as well. (New Straits Times)
Sep 3, 1998 Concerns about the political stablity of Malaysia are compounded after Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was ousted from his office amid accusations of sexual impropriety, accepting bribes, and compromising national security. People of all ethnic backgrounds rally behind Anwar, who denies the charges, and launches a challenge to the prime minister. (AFP, September 5)
Sep 20, 1998 Malaysian police arrest Anwar, which unleashes a series of mass political protests (of mostly Malay people) in Kuala Lampur despite warnings by police against such rallies. Human rights activists and lawyers expressed grave concerns about the bases of Anwar’s arrest and his treatment while in detention, and Anwar’s wife carried on his campaign for political reform. (AFP, September 23, October 10)
Feb 14, 1999 Pasok, the oldest political party in Sabah (founded in 1978), announced that it would participate in upcoming state-level elections. Party leaders asserted that Pasok’s mandate is to protect the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples in Sabah, especially the Kadazans and Muruts.
Mar 6, 1999 PDLP leader Moggie reported that the small Iban community in the state of Sabah was benefiting greatly from government development programs and infrastructure, despite the fact that there is no Iban representative in the state’s legislative assembly. Moggie credited the coalition-structure of the BN with ensuring the well being of all people in Malaysia. (Bernama)
Mar 12 - 13, 1999 Despite predictions otherwise, candidates from Mahathir’s National Front (or BN) coalition proved victorious in elections in Sabah against opposition from the PBS. The election results signaled the end of power for PBRS, Akar, and PDS. These elections were considered to be a barometer of the popularity of the embattled administration as national elections loom. (St. Petersburg Times; Asiaweek, March 26)

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Information current as of January 10, 2007