Sabah rights and interests have been sacrificed

Kota Kinabalu, Tuesday, 4 May 2010: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president, Datuk Yong Teck Lee, today said the weak explanation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Petronas has been given commercial right to operate oil Blocks J and K in Brunei under commercial arrangement CA1 and CA2 (also known as Blocks L and M in Malaysia) has exposed the fact that the federal government has sacrificed Sabah's rights and interests. In effect, the ministry was trying to explain an illegal and unconstitutional act.

"The Ministry had asserted that the key elements of the Exchange of Letters in Brunei on March 16, 2009 between Malaysia and Brunei was the delimitation of maritime boundaries, maritime access, commercial arrangement for oil and gas and land boundaries.

"Why then did the then Prime Minister not mention anything about oil and gas and the loss of maritime territories when he proclaimed that Brunei had agreed to drop their claim on Limbang after the Exchange of Letters on March 16, 2009 between him and the Sultan of Brunei?

"In fact, immediately after our then Prime Minister's declaration that Brunei had dropped their claim on Limbang, the Brunei Second Foreign Minister issued a vehement denial that Brunei had dropped the Limbang Claim. There was no response from Malaysia . So, at the time, I had thought that it was the Bruneians who had got themselves a bad deal without realizing it until it was too late. This is because I was doubtful that Malaysia would make such a mistake in bilateral negotiations. As we now know, our then Prime Minister had told only half the truth by disclosing the Limbang issue but not the loss of the oil blocks.

"Instead of disclosing the loss of our maritime territories, the then Prime Minister chose to declare only that Brunei has dropped its claim on Limbang. Why was the Prime Minister completely silent on the loss of Blocks L and M that Malaysia has signed away?

"Why were the Malaysian people, including ex-Prime Minister Tun D. Mahathir Mohamed, made to wait until the announcement by Murphy Oil Corporation in the New York Stock Exchange on 22 April 2010 that the two blocks are "no longer a part of Malaysia"? The announcement shows that prior to the Exchange of Letters, the blocks were indeed a part of Malaysia .

"Why were Petronas, the Prime Minister and our Sabah Chief Minister completely silent on such an important issue? Was there something to hide? Or did the government find it impossible to justify the contents of letters of March 16, 2009? Why was neither Parliament nor the Sabah State Legislative Assembly informed?

"Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs also tried to justify the loss of Sabah's 3 million acres in Blocks L and M by relying on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS 1982) which gave the areas to Brunei. If UNCLOS 1982 is so clear cut that the 3 million acres belong to Brunei , then why did Malaysia award the same area to an oil company (Murphy Oil) in January 2003?

"Does the Ministry think the people have forgotten that the previous month (December 2002), Malaysia had just won the Sipadan/Ligitan case at the International Court of Justice? Malaysia was already an expert on international law on territorial disputes. Surely, our government and Petronas lawyers were already convinced about the Malaysian status of Block L and M before awarding them to Murphy Oil.

"Were our foreign ministry officials, our government's lawyers, our mapping department, Petronas and other agencies so incompetent not to have known whether the areas were within Malaysian or Brunei territory?

"Our current Prime Minister calls the solution to the boundaries issue with Brunei as "win win". What "win win" is he talking about? For Sabah, it is "lose lose" because Sabah lost the 5% oil royalties worth RM 16 billion and 3 million acres of maritime territory. The "win win" is only for Petronas. This shows that Sabah 's rights and interests have been sacrificed.

"This is the price that Sabah has to pay for being the "fixed deposit" of the Barisan Nasional. It seems that Sarawak, which has no UMNO in their state, is doing far better than Sabah which ironically is dominated by UMNO. As stated by ex-Finance Minster Datuk Mohd. Noor Mansor recently, it is time for UMNO to leave Sabah because UMNO has failed to protect Sabah's interests and rights in Malaysia . It is also time for the federal officials to stop insulting the intelligence of Malaysians in Sabah for thinking that we can be easily taken in by their flimsy arguments," said Yong.