KUCHING: The Cobbold Commission Report 1962 is considered misleading and a fraud by many legal experts.
Wikipedia describes the Cobbold Commission as a Commission of Enquiry set up to determine whether the people of North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak supported the proposal to create the Federation of Malaysia consisting of Malaya, Brunei, Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak. It was also responsible for the subsequent drafting of the Constitution of Malaysia prior to the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. The Commission was headed by former Bank of England governor, Lord Cobbold.
Since the fraud has been made public, the current members of Parliament and the governments of Sabah and Sarawak should not say that they have never known about it, said political activist Voon Lee Shan.
“They should not insist on amending the federal constitution by reinstating the lost status of Sabah and Sarawak as equal partners of Malaya in the federation.
“The Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) is a fraud in itself because it says nothing about Sabah and Sarawak being equal to the Federation of Malaya”, he said in a written statement.
Another fraud in the so-called agreement was that at the point that it was signed on July 9, 1963 Sarawak was not a sovereign nation.
In fact, the signing of MA63 violated established international law because Sabah and Sarawak at that time were still colonies of Britain.
“Under international law, only sovereign nations have the legal standing to sign treaties with one another. Thus, the signing of MA63 was also in contravention of Article 7 of the United Nations Decolonisation Declaration of 1960 (UNDD),” he said.
Legal experts also believe that MA63 should be treated as an invalid treaty after Singapore exited from Malaysia.
“The MPs and state governments of Sabah and Sarawak would betray the trust of their people if they insist on or participate in the amendment to the federal constitution,” he said.
“The remedy that Sabah and Sarawak should immediately take now, instead of seeking to amend the federal constitution, is to inform or make representation to the United Nations giving their views that the formation of Malaysia should be considered null and void.
“At the same time, Sabah and Sarawak should under the supervision of the United Nations take steps to proceed with decolonisation process under Article 1514 of the United Nations Resolutions before deciding the fate of Sabah and Sarawak further.”
For decolonisation process many legal minds believe that Britain still has a political obligation to see the decolonisation of Sabah and Sarawak be properly done in accordance with international law. With United Nations Resolutions 1514 and 1541, Sabah and Sarawak were said to be gifts from Britain to the Federation of Malaya on September 16, 1963, to enlarge the territories of the federation.
On that day, Datuk Ong Yoke Lin, the Permanent Secretary to the United Nations from the Federation of Malaya notified that upon the acquisition of Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, the Federation of Malaya took a new name called the Federation of Malaysia.
Therefore, to many legal experts, Malaysia is Malaya and Malaya is Malaysia, he said.
