Kadazans in Malaysia

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| Overview | Chronology | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | Risk Assessment | References

Total Area of Malaysia: 329,750 sq. km

Capital: Kuala Lumpur
Population (1995): 583,000 (This is around 2.9% of the country population of 20.1 million. The country population is drawn from 1995 UN population estimates.)

Overview

Quantifying the Kadazan population in the Malaysian state of Sabah is a problem of definition as the cross-cutting identities of language, religion, and culture serve to produce differing results. The central government of Malaysia stopped making ethnic distinctions with the 1980 census, opting instead to use a general classification, "pribumi", to denote all of Sabah's "indigenous" peoples. This category is inclusive of all groups except the Chinese and Indo-Europeans.

The term Kadazan was used previously to denote people primarily of the Dusun ethnic group, which is numerically the largest of Sabah's aboriginal groups. Its contemporary usage seems to favor the politicized religious distinction between the several aboriginal groups who are mainly Catholic and animist and the several Malay, immigrant, and aboriginal peoples who profess Islam. Using only the "aboriginal" criterion from the last census that utilized ethnic distinctions, the Kadazan population was estimated at about 610,000 or 60% of the region's population; whereas the addition of the "non-Muslim" criterion reduced the figures to about 480,000 and 50%.

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The British protectorates of Sabah and Sarawak were only incorporated into the Malaysian federation in 1963, ostensibly to offset the Chinese-ethnic influence due to the incorporation of Singapore. The fact that Sabah was historically a part of the Sulu Sultanate, centered on the Sulu archipelago which is part of the Philippines, has given impetus to territorial claims by the Philippine state and periodic disputes between the contending countries.

Sabah was initially governed (1963-1967) by a Kadazan political party, the United Pasok-Momogun Kadazan Organization (Upko). However, from 1967 until the 1985 electoral victory of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), the state government of Sabah was dominated by the minority ethnic-Malays. During the nearly 20 years of Malay domination, the mass immigration of Muslim peoples from the neighboring countries of Indonesia and the Philippines ( approx. 500,000 in the late 1980s) was encouraged as a means of bolstering Muslim influence and thereby ensuring continued Muslim pre-eminence in state politics. Of these, around 350,000 were refugees and illegal immigrants, most of whom are Filipino "Moros" (see separate entry) fleeing poverty and strife in Mindanao.

The major issues confronting the contemporary Kadazans are those political and economic issues relating to their religion-based social status (and the status of culture in general) and the issues relating to the status of the mainly Muslim, immigrant groups in Sabah. The sweeping electoral victory of the PBS in Sabah in 1985 provided the Kadazans with an opportunity to implement remedial reforms in the administration and policies of the state government and to enhance their group's status. Relations with the central government in Kuala Lumpur, however, have been strained. The center's decision to pursue a policy of harassment of the Kadazan officials in Sabah has placed constraints on many proposed remedial reforms.

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Conditions for the previously neglected and disadvantaged aboriginal peoples have improved in the late 1980s. Ethnic associations such as the Sabah Kadazan Association (SKA) have organized to promote native culture and to protect native interests. Efforts are currently being made by the state government to integrate many of the illegal immigrants, to repatriate those that cannot be integrated, and to halt further immigration.

Chronology

1990

February: Jeffrey Kitingan, the brother of Sabah's Chief Minister and the Director of the Sabah Foundation, the main state investment arm, was charged in a high court early this month with seven counts of corruption after lengthy investigations by federal anti-corruption officials. This has been a widely publicized case, viewed as politically motivated by observers and officials of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), the ruling party dominated by Catholic Kadazan tribespeople.

"It is political harassment. They [the federal authorities] are doing it because they don't like a government that is headed by a Christian", said a senior official of PBS (Reuters, 2/28/90).

Since the PBS toppled the federal-backed party to sweep to power in 1985, it has drawn the ire of Kuala Lumpur by loudly complaining that some promises made that got Sabah to join the Federation back in 1963 have not been kept. The most vocal critic has been the Harvard-educated, Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, the influential PBS ideologue who is considered the second most powerful figure in Sabah after the Chief Minister. He has stated, among other things, that the civil service in Sabah is dominated by West Malaysians instead of Sabahans. He has also demanded that Sabah, which produces a fifth of Malaysia's crude oil, be paid half its share in oil royalties. The PBS Manifesto largely endorses these issues. Malaysia's three oil-producing states are given 5% of their oil revenue and Kuala Lumpur distributes development expenditures separately to the states.

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Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has denied that the Kitingan case is politically motivated. He also asserted that federal-state relations were good (Reuters, 2/28/90).

June: Amnesty International has expressed concern about the fate of three Malaysians arrested for alleged subversive activities. The three -- identified as Benedict Topin, executive Secretary of the Kadazan-Dusun Cultural Association and two former policemen -- were arrested last month under the country's Internal Security Act (ISA). A legacy of British colonial rule, the act was widely used against communist insurgents in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the ISA can still be invoked against anyone considered a threat to national security, including government critics. Federal police authorities contend that the arrested persons were involved in a plot to form a secret army and hire mercenaries to pull Sabah out of the federation.

July: The Christian-led multi-racial PBS has retained power after bitterly fought elections for the Sabah state legislature. The PBS, led by Australian-trained 49-year-old lawyer and Roman Catholic Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, won 36 seats while the Muslim-dominated United Sabah National Organization (USNO) took the remaining 12 seats in the 48-member Sabah state assembly.

1991

May: A Malaysian High Court postponed the corruption trial of the Chief Minister of Sabah for seven months. Joseph Kitingan allegedly faces three charges of awarding his relatives construction and timber concessions. The PBS quit the ruling federal coalition, National Front (NF), led by UMNO just before the recently held general elections, a move that Prime Minister Mohamad referred to as a "stab in the back" (Reuters, 5/7/91).

The United Malay National Organization (UMNO), the dominant partner in the ruling 11-member National Front, has won a by-election in the opposition-controlled state of Sabah. This is the first time that UMNO had contested a seat in Sabah. Political observers contend that UMNO's victory by a sizeable majority will assist its plan to take control of Sabah and crush the PBS. It is also likely to sow the seeds for UMNO to eventually become a multi-racial party. UMNO, formed 45 years ago, had until its entry into Sabah based its support on Muslim-Malays in peninsular Malaysia.

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July: Prime Minister Mahathir has expanded his National Front coalition to include two more parties from the politically volatile Sabah state where federal police say they are probing a secessionist plot. The parties are the Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat or AKAR (People's Justice Party) and the small ethnic Chinese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The AKAR draws its support from Sabah's Kadazan-Dusun tribe which propelled Catholic Chief Minister Pairin Kitingan's PBS to power more than six years ago. Therefore, AKAR's admission into the National Front appears to be an attempt by federal leaders to undercut Kitingan's political base by wooing the Kadazan-Dusun community into a proposed multi-racial coalition that Prime Minister Mohamad wants installed in Sabah.

1992

January: Following a seven month recess, the corruption trial of Sabah Chief Minister Kitingan has begun. If he is convicted, it could force the renegade leader to resign. Residents are worried that economic backwardness will be the price to pay for "political defiance". More than a year after the PBS pulled out of the NF, leaders of the ruling PBS appear divided over whether to mend fences. Federal political pressure was backed with financial pressure when Kuala Lumpur took control of Sabah timber industry, the state's main source of revenue (Reuters, 1/12/92).

May: The leader of Sabah has appealed to Prime Minister Mohamad to release his brother and six others detained without trial for allegedly plotting secession. Bernama, the official news agency, quotes Kitingan as stating, "I openly appeal, on behalf of my parents and relatives of all the other detainees, for them to be freed...In all fairness and justice, abolish the ISA and let the detainees go free so they would be able to join their families and lead a normal life" (5/13/92).

The US State Department states that Malaysia's detention of political critics under the ISA during 1991 undercuts an otherwise improved human rights record.

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July: PBS President and Chief Minister Kitingan, who has returned unopposed for the top party post, has failed to get his followers to work out a compromise in the triennial party elections. The poll is likely to be a tight contest between two main factions in the party -- one headed by Deputy Chief Minister Dompok and the other by Finance Minister Kurup. One Deputy Chief Minister, Yong Teck Lee, who represents the Chinese, has aligned himself with Dompok, while the Muslim Deputy Chief Minister, Baharom Titingan, is aligned with Kurup. Dompok, Yong and Baharom are incumbent Deputy Presidents of the party -- each respectively representing the three main ethnic groups -- the Kadazans, Chinese and Muslims.

November: While meeting with Prime Minister Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur, some leaders of the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut tribes submitted a memorandum on programs to attract non-Muslims in Sabah to join UMNO. A Kadazan-Dusun-Murut Task Force had been formed earlier to speed up the process. The UMNO Sabah now reportedly has 265,000 members, of which 70% are Muslims and 30% are Christians.

1993

April: The Muslim-based USNO joined in a coalition with the PBS to rule Sabah. The USNO is now backing the PBS on demands for greater state autonomy and other issues. The alliance now controls 42 out of 48 seats in the state assembly. The leader of USNO was made the state's Sports and Youth Minister.

Prime Minister Mohamad has stated that he is seeking USNO's expulsion from the National Front (Reuters, 04/14/93). This means Sabah's PBS-USNO government will be even more cut off from Kuala Lumpur. Reports suggest that Sabah, once Malaysia's richest state, is now sliding into economic stagnation because of its confrontation with the federal government (The Straits Times, 4/16/93). While the rest of Malaysia continues to enjoy rapid economic growth, Sabah with its depleting timber resources, recorded negative growth in 1991 and is facing growing unemployment.

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August: While joining the national day celebrations organized in Kuching (capital of Sarawak), Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged states to strike a proper balance between local and national interests so that wealth could be better distributed. "The state governments will only lose out if they place their own interests before everything else", he said (Inter Press service, 8/31/93).

October: Kuala Lumpur is taking steps to bolster Labuan Island, now a federal territory but originally a part of Sabah, to make it a world-class banking hub and tax haven. One of the PBS' demands is to regain control over Labuan. It was ceded to Kuala Lumpur in 1984 by the then state government.

1994

February: Pairin Kitingan was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Sabah, after his PBS party obtained a wafer-thin victory of 25-23 seats in the 48-seat state Legislative Assembly.

March: The leader of the National Front coalition, S. Dandai, was sworn-in as Sabah's Chief Minister, replacing Kitingan, who incurred Prime Minister Mohamad's wrath by pulling his PBS out of the NF to join the opposition before the 1990 general elections. Kitingan was forced to resign on March 17 after assemblymen from the PBS, including his brother Jeffrey Kitingan, defected en masse to the NF. Some of them formed new parties to become partners with the National Front. Kitingan's resignation ended nine years of PBS rule in Sabah. Still Kitingan remains popular among the Kadazans as the Huguan Siou (paramount leader), a lifetime title bestowed upon him.

June: Prosecutors dropped all corruption charges against Jeffrey Kitingan, former Director of the Sabah Foundation. He was elected to the State Assembly on a PBS ticket, the party that is headed by his elder brother. However, shortly afterward he left the PBS to join the National Front.

August: The NF state government has initiated a series of transfers, demotions and sacking of civil servants who worked closely with the previous PBS government. Most of the transfers affected native Kadazans and Muslim leaders deemed close to the PBS.

Update 03/24/96

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1995

January: The deputy president of the Kadazan/Dusun based Parti Demokratik Sabah (PDS) says that ensuring that the Kadazan/Dusun community supports the Barisan Nasional (National Front) will be among his top priorities. Datuk Bumburing was recently appointed as a Minister with Special Functions in the Chief Minister's department (New Straits Times, 01/14/95).

February: An agreement has been reached between the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association and its rival the United Sabah Dusun Association to officially call the Kadazan and Dusun languages "Kadazandusun". The language will be standardized and eventually taught in schools. There are reported to be no major differences between the Kadazan and Dusun peoples; in 1963, the term Kadazan was also applied to the Dusun (New Straits Times, 02/12/95).

February 14: In a move to eradicate the widespread use of alcohol, two competitions that involve the use of rice wine will be scrapped from May's Kadazan/Dusun Pesta Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) (New Straits Times, 02/14/95).

April: The Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) that supports Kadazan claims is attempting to attract the Dayak and Iban communities. The party plans to contest 10 of 24 seats in Sarawak in the April election (The Straits Times, Singapore, 04/06/95).

April 27: The governing National Front, led by Prime Minister Mohamad secured a landslide victory in national elections. The NF, which is a coalition of 14 parties from the major ethnic and religious communities, won 162 out of 192 parliamentary seats and 338/394 state seats. The opposition DAP suffered a major defeat, winning only 9 federal seats and 11/394 seats in state polls (International Herald Tribune, 04/27/95; Reuter Textline: Sydney Morning Herald, 04/27/95).

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October: The Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat Bersatu party has been given until the end of December by the Registrar of Societies to resolve its leadership crisis. The appointment of a temporary president, Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, is being challenged by deputy president Pandikar Amin Mulia and 30 of the party's 46 supreme council members (New Straits Times, 10/31/95).

November: Prime Minister Mohamad is inviting people from Sabah to work in peninsular Malaysia. Sabah's unemployment rate is 7% while peninsular Malaysia faces a shortage of workers. A new association, the Koisaan (United) Cultural Development Institute (KDI) has also been established to improve the quality of life of the indigenous peoples in Sabah (New Straits Times, 11/30/95).

Risk Assessment

Sabah is dubbed as Malaysia's "Wild East" probably because of its volatility that is a result of the interplay among race, religion, immigration, and above all, resource politics. The state is inhabited by about 30 ethnic groups with their own culture and customs, of which the Kadazans and other tribals, the Muslims and the Chinese dominate. While the Muslims and Chinese have traditionally supported the National Front, the Kadazans preferred to press for greater autonomy. However, the Kadazans have been unable to withstand the onslaught of the mighty NF political machine. Kadazan political unity and dominance, held together for 9 years under Pairin Kitingan, has effectively been destroyed. Defections from the PBS have produced three separate political parties, all claiming to represent Kadazan interests. The UMNO-dominated NF is likely to continue its `divide and rule' policy; therefore, it is unlikely that the three Kadazan parties will be effective in promoting Kadazan interests within a Sabah National Front government (Chin, 1994).

Another issue of contention is Sabah's reluctant hosting of a staggering 500,000, mostly illegal, immigrants -- 350,000 Filipinos (from Mindanao) and 150,000 Indonesians -- who now comprise almost a third of the state's 1.8 million population. These mostly Muslim immigrants are viewed as a drain on local resources and they are complicating ties between Malaysia and the Philippines, which has a long-standing territorial claim on Sabah. Local police blame the immigrants for most crimes, alleging that they brought their "gun culture" from troubled Mindanao. The PBS accuses the Muslim-based USNO for letting in most of these immigrants during its 1967-76 rule in an attempt to create a permanent vote bank and to strengthen its political base. The PBS also accuses the Malay-dominated federal government of dragging its feet over the immigrant issue and it wants immigration to be handled at the state level, a demand Kuala Lumpur refuses to satisfy. There are also fears that higher birth rates among the immigrants will further upset the demographic balance and some day a collective immigrant political consciousness could gradually emerge.

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Finally, questions remain over control of the state's natural resources and economic growth. Once a resource-rich vibrant state, things began to rapidly go wrong after the PBS defected from the NF during the October 1990 general election. Federal funds to build infrastructure to attract investors and diversify Sabah's economy were slow in coming from Kuala Lumpur. Added to this is a growing concern about environmental problems which has led to a nationwide policy of restricting logging activities. This move has drastically reduced Sabah' main source of income. With the installation of an UMNO-dominated state government in 1994, the economic squeeze from Kuala Lumpur appears to have ended. However, whether economic carrots will succeed in mollifying Kadazan ethnonationalism remains to be seen.

References

1. Chin, James, "The Sabah State Election of 1994," Asian Survey, Vol. XXXIV, No. 10, 1994.
2. The Europa Yearbook, Fear East and Australasia 1993.
3. Far Eastern Economic Review, 1990-93.
4. Keesings Record of World Events, 1990-93.
5. Nexis Library Information, 1990-95.
6. Phase I, Minorities at Risk, overview compiled by Monty G. Marshall, 08/89.