How the 13 May race riots affected Sabah and Sarawak

When riots broke out on May 13, 1969 in Kuala Lumpur, a state of emergency or ‘Darurat’ was declared by then Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah. While the casualties remain under dispute, it is still considered one of the darkest periods in Malaysia’s history today.

Zainnal Ajamain

Although Sabah and Sarawak had nothing to do with the racial riots, the impact of the state of emergency affected us in terms of loss in territory and natural resources.

On December 9-10 last year, Zainnal Ajamain, author of ‘The Queen’s Obligation’ and political analyst was in Kuching for a two-day talk on the ‘Safeguards in the IGC and MA63 (How to safeguard our rights when dealing with the Malayans)’ and ‘How the Borneo States lost their wealth (….and how we got back our territorial waters)’ respectively at Saati Hall, SUPP’s headquarters.

In the beginning

“In the beginning, what Malaya’s interest in us was not so much to balance the population between Singapore and Malaya as for them to bring in the Borneo states into the equation,” said Zainnal referring to the formation of Malaysia between the Federation of Malaya, Singapore and the two Borneo states.

According to Zainnal, a former lecturer in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Menggatal campus, during that time Tunku Abdul Rahman was unaware there were so many ethnic groups in Sabah and Sarawak who were not Malay.

“Tunku said (in 1958) ‘Their people are within our group. They have the same characteristics as we, the same way of living and the sae currency. It would be a matter well worth considering if they approached us.’

“At that time, Tunku was looking at us to approach them. ‘It would be good financially, they have oil’,” said Zainnal.

January 8, 2016
Borneo Post