S4S Chief Peter John Jaban was commenting on PKR lawmaker Zuraida Kamaruddin being barred from entering into Sarawak for the third time recently. “The harsh reality is that the immigration powers are being abused and misused in Sarawak.”
“If the Sarawak Government was serious about Full Autonomy for Sarawak, immigration powers must in fact be strengthened, not in its abuse but in its original form and purpose.”
The Director of Immigration and the Director of the National Registration Department (JPN), for example, must be decided at the state level and not by the Federal Government in Putrajaya, he added. “All Malaysians who are non-Sarawakians must use passports to enter the state.”
“At present, instead of having a belian fence to protect the state, we have a bamboo one which is rotting and fallen to pieces.”
An example of the bamboo fence rotting and falling apart, said Jaban, was the number of peninsular Malaysians in Sarawak as civil servants especially in senior posts, teachers and the like. “The purpose of immigration powers was for Sarawak to protect jobs for locals and not to be abused to bar entry to other Malaysians or blacklist them.”
Another reason to have immigration powers, continued Jaban, was to protect the existing harmony in the state. “We can’t have racists from the peninsula and Muslim NGOs entering Sarawak and doing what they like among the poverty-stricken Christian communities in the interior.”
“Designed also to protect our unique social, religious and ethnic make up, our immigration control should promote our culture of harmony and acceptance of the various ethnic groups.”
Jaban noted that many Peninsular Malaysians complain that autonomy in immigration was unfair and that they should be able to go anywhere they want in this country. “Unfortunately, that has translated in many cases to ‘go where they want and do as they please’. The Muslim NGOs are an example. In that case, what was the purpose of Sarawak negotiating for autonomy in immigration powers? “
The Cobbold Commission, however flawed said Jaban, was correct in saying: “Malaysia should be regarded by all concerned as an association of partners, combining in the common interests to create a new nation but retaining their own individualities. If any idea were to take root that Malaysia would involve a ‘take-over’ of the Borneo territories by the Federation of Malaya and the submersion of the individualities of North Borneo and Sarawak, Malaysia would not, in my judgment, be generally acceptable or successful.”
“This is why S4S was born.”
Sarawakians fear that we will find ourselves in the same sorry and unfortunate state as Borneo neighbour Sabah , swamped by illegal immigrants “now miraculously furnished with MyKads” to the extent that the Orang Asal are no longer in a position to control their own future, lamented Jaban.
“They are a minority in their own and only homeland.”