KUCHING: Santubong MP Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar has told Sabah state advisor Zainnal Ajamain to double check his facts after claiming that Sabah and Sarawak had let slip a chance to get back their rights.
“Zainnal Ajamain is not a law expert. Of course he has spent his focus on learning the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) to understand the document but that alone does not mean that he understands it well enough,” he said.
“Zainnal has to consult with lawyers first to evaluate whether the MA63 did or did not mention Sarawak and Sabah as territories or equal partners.”
Wan Junaidi stressed that there wasn’t any phrase in MA63 that signified Sarawak and Sabah as equal partners to Tanah Melayu in forming Malaysia.
At the same time, he also responded to a 16-minute video commenting that Sarawak lawmakers did not know what they were doing and missed the point.
Wan Junaidi countered by saying Sarawak in fact knew everything, including the meaning behind the facade.
“The eroded rights of Sarawak were not due to the article which was proposed to be amended,” he said.
“Agreements such as Emergency (Essential Powers) Act 1979, Continental Shelf Act 1966, Petroleum Mining Act 1966,Territorial Sea Act 2012 are among those that contributed to the erosion of Sarawak rights. These rights are the ones we are fighting for which is led by the state government,” he continued.
On Zainnal’s claim that Sarawak lost billions by not voting for the amendment, Wan Junaidi said Zainnal failed to see that the damage had been done long before the proposed bill through other agreements that had eroded Sarawak and Sabah’s rights.
