PBDSB: We hope legal team's mission to London will dig out reasons why Sarawak agreed to form Malaysia

KUCHING, July 15, 2017 - Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDS) has expressed the hope that the legal team's mission to London will dig out the reasons why Sarawak agreed to form the Federation of Malaysia with Malaya, Sabah and Singapore in 1963.

Cobbold: There should be a general public discussion on the outcome of the legal team's mission to London

"Such enhanced knowledge will put the State in a better bargaining position to demand back what rights and benefits that should belong to Sarawak, but have been lost to Malaya over the years," its president Cobbold John said today.

He said it is for this reason that PBDSB supports the mission to go to London with a view to finding more facts on Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

"After the trip to London by the legal team, a general public discussion of this important matter must be allowed, with representatives from various political parties must be allowed to participate," he said, adding:"The future of this nation does not depend only on the party in power but on all who are concerned about the future and the generations to come."

He said Sarawak has lost so much over the last 50 years  since the formation of Malaysia, and that it is only right and in the interest of the future generations that things should be put right immediately.

Citing an example, he said while MA63 provides for English to remain official language of the State, but because education in Malaysia has been in Malay language, the people in Sarawak have very poor command in the English language.

He said students are taught from kindergarten in the Malay language and when they enter the job market they will not find difficulty in seeking employment in the private sector.

"And at the same time places in the public sector are getting very limited as people from Malaya are also joining the civil service in Sarawak.

"The situation is only made worse for workers from Sarawak as more often than not the interviewers for civil service jobs come from Malaya," he said, indicating that Sarawak has lost even the means to find jobs for its citizen who have to compete with those from Malaya.

Cobbold noted  that the overall the Dayak communities have produced the least number of civil servants in Sarawak, be it in the federal or state departments.

He said it is a fact  civil servants of Dayak origins are rare occupying top positions in the civil service, police and or armed forces.

"The same is true with the number of Dayak students given government scholarships to further their studies in local and or overseas universities," he said.

Cobbold said opportunities in businesses, finances, and other durable economic benefits and spin-offs from long term government policies are not available to the Dayaks.

"Even if such opportunities are supposedly made available, the Dayaks are not having the means to benefit from them because they lack the basics to be able to do so," he said.