DAP today said it was willing to work together and cooperate with state government leaders in Sabah and Sarawak to ensure that they retained their equal status in the Federation of Malaysia.
Pasty secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (pic) attacked Umno's arrogance in assuming that they were the masters and everyone else had to submit to them.
He slammed Umno's racist and extremist ideologies, saying it had warped and twisted the minds of the party's young leaders and left them with the wrong perception.
Lim said Umno's young leaders had been influenced by the party's policies to the extent that they assumed the party were the masters and others had to be subservient.
"This has caused friction not just between Putrajaya and Sabah and Sarawak but even among the average Malaysians, especially the non-Muslims,” Lim said in a statement today in response to the frustration expressed by Sarawak Land Development Minister Tan Sri James Masing in a report published in The Malaysian Insider today.
Masing accused young Umno leaders of causing friction between Putrajaya and the Sarawak state government as they had adopted the attitude that Umno were the masters."The attack by Masing on the Umno leaders indicates that Sabah and Sarawak have realised that they are not being respected but are instead being exploited by Putrajaya," Lim noted.
Masing said when Umno spoke with them, they make themselves feel as if they were superior and Sarawakians were their coolies.
He said he felt irritated with these leaders as they did not treat those from Sarawak as equal partners in the administration of the federation.
"Sabah and Sarawak seems to be like an appendix to West Malaysia," Masing challenged.
Lim echoed Masing's frustrations with Umno, saying issues which strained state-federal ties included the Home Ministry's decision to ban the use of the word Allah in Herald, a weekly publication under the Catholic church.
"The issue has fanned the anger of the 1.6 million Christians in East Malaysia as it was seen by the people of Sabah and Sarawak as breaching the terms drawn up when Malaysia was first formed."
"Although it has taken Masing almost 30 years of his political career to realise Umno's arrogance and the master-servant attitude adopted by the party towards Sabah, Sarawak and Malaysians, but better late than never," Lim said.
He said DAP was willing to cooperate fully with the state leaders in Sabah and Sarawak to check Umno's arrogance.
"We want to ensure that Sabah and Sarawak retain their status as equal partners in Malaysia and are not reduced to a master-servant relationship reminiscent of the old British colonial era," Lim added.
DAP is willing to support Sabah and Sarawak to demand an increase in their share of oil and gas royalties from the present 5% to 20% and to end the present cabotage policy.
"The time has come to return the natural wealth of both states back to the people and to ensure a fair implementation of the 1Malaysia, 1Price policy.
"The people of Sabah and Sarawak should no longer be discriminated against by having to pay higher prices than those in peninsular Malaysia," Lim said. - November 17, 2013.
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