KOTA KINABALU: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) and Sabah Sarawak Rights Australia New Zealand (SSRANZ) have rejected a press report dismissing the Republic of Sabah North Borneo(RSNB) Government-in-Exile (GiE) as “pure political rhetoric.”“This commentary misleads the public by attacking RSNB while ignoring the central issue: the illegitimacy of Malaysia’s formation in 1963,” the groups said.
They stressed that the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) was “void ab initio,” as North Borneo and Sarawak, being Crown colonies, lacked the legal capacity to enter treaties and no genuine referendum was held.
Instead, the UK transferred the territories under a “neo-colonial arrangement designed to preserve British and Malayan interests.”Quoting legal scholar Richard Falk, they noted the UN process “lacked fairness, integrity, and independence,” while the ICJ’s Chagos Advisory Opinion (2019) reaffirmed that colonial transfers without consent are unlawful.
“For six decades, Sabah and Sarawak have suffered resource plunder, political subjugation, and denial of autonomy,” PBK and SSRANZ said, adding that the RSNB GiE’s call for independence is “not rhetoric but a legitimate response to the unlawful denial of self-determination.”“The real issue is not RSNB, but the illegitimacy of Malaysia’s formation and the continuing denial of our people’s inalienable right to self-determination,” they said.
