SUPP lying over MA63 documents, says DAP
KUCHING: Sarawak United Peoples’ Party ( SUPP)’s inconsistent and contradictory statements over obtaining important documents on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 ( MA63) just goes to show the credibility problem of the oldest political party in Sarawak.
In highlighting this, state Democratic Action Party ( DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen said SUPP was blatantly lying to the public on such an important matter.
“This is a clear and false lie of SUPP. A year ago, they tried to portray an image, telling the people that they were so serious about fighting for Sarawak’s autonomy,” he told a press conference at the party’s headquarters here yesterday.
The criticism came following SUPP leaders, in a news report yesterday, denying ever travelled personally to England but instead the documents were sent over by someone.
Chong even showed a newspaper cutting from a Chinese daily dated July 15, 2016 in which SUPP claimed that they had a team who went all the way to England to retrieve and bring back pertinent documents relating to MA63.
“Ultimately, in politics and in life itself, honesty is still the best policy. You don’t lie because in the end people will fi nd out that you lied. This is a lesson to SUPP,” he said.
Chong deemed the move by Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg in sending a MA63 legal team to London to search for and study any references related to the state’s rights under MA63, as the joke of the century.
“Why I say so — Sarawak together with Sabah, Singapore and Malaya formed Malaysia in 1963 and since then Barisan Nasional ( BN) has become the government of the day,” he said.
“For more than half-a- century being the government since the formation of Malaysia, Abang Johari is telling us they do not have the sets of documents leading to the formation of Malaysia,” he added.
Chong questioned what the BN government has been doing all these years, only to make their move now to seek such important historical documents of how this country had been formed.
“This must be a joke. This is so unacceptable, so ridiculous. I believe that’s why when the late ( Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri) Adenan Satem was the chief minister, he did not play to the tune of the SUPP jokers claiming to have gone to England to retrieve documents about the formation of the country,” he said.
“Abang Johari obviously is of a different category from Adenan as he is trying to emulate what SUPP did a year ago,” he added.
Nevertheless, Chong felt that the government should let the past stay in the past and focus on capitalising and leveraging on their 25 BN MPs in Parliament for without them, the BN government will never get the budget approved.
“Past is past, leave this historical archive documents to the Museum Department for the historians to research while the government of the day should move forward to demand more from the federal government,” he said.
The budget, he continued, will be tabled in Parliament in October and as such, the state government should make sure that in these next three months, the federal government agrees to the 20 per cent oil royalty that Sarawak is demanding.
“Failing which, the 25 Sarawak BN MPs will not support the budget tabled by ( Prime Minister Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak) and Umno BN will fall,” he added.
Chong thus called on Abang Johari not to continue with all the ‘sandiwara’ (drama) of going to the UK to look for documents, but rather act on what they have at the moment to demand more from the federal government.