KUCHING: The best way to handle past breaches of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) is for a concerted effort towards getting back what has been eroded, said Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali.
The Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring) said if people only dwelled on the mistakes of the past, they would not be able to move forward and thus issues would not be solved.
“We move forward and try to be practical about it. We have to fight for our eroded rights in a measured and responsible manner,” she said.
She said this in response to a question on why past leaders had allowed the breaches of MA63 to occur, posed during a webinar entitled ‘Navigating the Impacts of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 on National Integrity’ organised by Yayasan Perpaduan Sarawak (YPS) on Thursday (Aug 12).
“I believe that after we signed MA63, our leaders back then were very focused on nation-building. Sabah, Sarawak, and even Malaya – we were not a rich country back then.
“We had just come out from being a colony of the British, so we were not rich. Our people were poor and we were backward,” she said.
Sharifah Hasidah said leaders back then were focused more on nation-building – building the country and its people.
“Now that things are better and we are more open and educated, we think that we ought to fight for our rights,” she said.
