Dr Jeffrey (middle row, middle) in the online conversation with Sabah media members.
KOTA KINABALU (May 14): “I never regretted anything. I was prepared to die for my country,” said Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.
“And I did die. Ya. I died but I was alive.
“They took my freedom. They took me from my family, everything from me. I know I was right. I don’t have regrets. In fact, I was glad that I could do something for Sabah and I hope the future generation would take this struggle until we achieve our freedom,” said Dr Jeffrey in reply to a question from a reporter at the Sabah Way Forward and Kupikupifm Sabah online conversation with him on his 33rd Internal Security Act (ISA) detention anniversary on Monday.
The same reporter also asked Dr Jeffrey if he still suffered nightmares from his experience at ISA.
“Yes, I do. Whenever I talk to people — people ask me questions especially what was my experience, I become emotional. I was asked, a few days ago of people betraying me and I got emotional and I broke down”.
Dr Jeffrey was then asked who betrayed him, and he replied: “A lot of people. I don’t want to mention.”
“When you are taken away for no reason and you have no way to fight the government because you are arrested, there is no trial and no charge. You don’t know when you are going to get out. People around you, your friends, sometimes your family, you know, they think that is the end of you and start betraying you,” he said.
Another reporter inquired about Dr Jeffrey’s whereabouts prior to his arrest and why he decided to surrender himself.
“I had to move from place to place because every day I was being followed and monitored. Even at my house there was police at the gate. I had to escape from the house by pretending to be the driver. When the police asked where was Datuk, I said he is inside the house. Of course, it was me answering, and I never returned to the house. I know I was monitored, so I keep on moving.”
He said he finally surrendered but not because he wanted to surrender.
“I think it was not right for them to hunt me. They took my passport away. What I want was to be honest with them. When I signed the appointment on 13 May, I signed on 10 May. I stuck with that appointment, not thinking I would be detained on that particular day, I thought it was just appointment,” he said.
He claimed that he was cheated.
“They said it was appointment to see the OCPD. And it was not true that the OCPD was looking for me. It was them looking for me, and I never got out and gone home after that. I came to Kapayan, they brought me to airport, they flew me on Malaysia Airlines, I believe, and I did not know the passengers were all special branch police because when I asked to go to the toilet, everyone stood up and followed me as if I was going to escape from the plane,” he added.
Dr Jeffrey said he was brought to Pulau Pinang for one night because the plane could not land in Kuala Lumpur at that time.
“When we reached Kuala Lumpur, they blindfolded me. That was the end of my consciousness of what I see. I lost the world then. In fact I wrote a song called ‘where is my country’, ‘numbo no pogunku’ because I was blindfolded,” he said.
He also shared that during the first week of detention, he was angry with God.
“I settled down after that, and thanked God for the experience given to me to go through and I will continue the struggle despite everything,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey added that while at detention, he watched other detainees who were suffering and wanted to kill themselves, climbing the building, hitting their head on the wall in frustration.
“I told myself not to fall into that category and I told myself that I should be there to learn about behaviour under detention and by doing that, I was able to withstand all the isolation, all the problems,” he said.
At the same time, he said that he also helped others emotionally and was able to provide counseling to other detainees.
“I got my willpower from understanding myself better,” he said on surviving the detention
“That was how I survived. I wrote books. I wrote songs. I wrote poems. I made friends with the detainees, made friends with the Communist detainees, for example, and they taught me how to do the Qigong and in return I taught them Taekwondo. We had to kill time because I noticed those wasting away by keeping their emotion, anger and their regrets into themselves and make them suffer their detention,” he said.
“But it is not easy to be detained and to be away from your family, to be confined, to lose your freedom. Not easy. I was glad I was strong enough to survive until today,” he said.
He was also asked if he harbored any ill feelings towards the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, Dr Jeffrey replied that he has no problem with Dr Mahathir.
“In fact when I was in detention, I was asked whether I hated Mahathir. I said no. I don’t hate him but I am angry with him. I forgive him,” he said.
“I don’t keep anything. Because if you tie yourself to the past, you never move forward. That is why I look at people, even if they do bad things to me, I let them. I don’t take revenge. I don’t keep any grudges. I let go. I move on,” he added.
“And I am happy Mahathir still lives to see the end of the fight”.
Dr Jeffrey also said that Dr Mahathir held the Prime Minister post for the second time and was responsible for setting up the Special Committee on MA63 (Malaysia Agreement 1963).
“And although people call me ‘gila’ (mad) because I still continue even though I was detained but I was glad that I managed to make everybody ‘gila’, even Mahathir. And if we were to play a game, I think I won because Mahathir became ‘gila’ and he set up the special committee and everybody is in the MA63 table now and I think I am glad that this happened. But I do not want to stop at this MA63 table. We have to move on,” he said.
Earlier on, Dr Jeffrey also mentioned what transpired that eventually led to his detention.
The first thing that happened was that Kuala Lumpur was unhappy with the Sabah State election’s result, which saw Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) victory with a slight majority, he said.
“Kuala Lumpur did not accept the victory of PBS under democratic decision of the people and PBS had to go for another election. And that time the people gave PBS two-third majority. Unfortunately, Kuala Lumpur’s attitude was the same and they created all kinds of obstacles to prevent a smooth running of the government,” Dr Jeffrey recalled.
He added that Kuala Lumpur had in fact, set up another institution to channel development funding so that the PBS government did not receive any development fund from Kuala Lumpur.
“I thought this was very unfair, and therefore I raised a question on 1 January 1987, to question the treatment of Kuala Kumpur towards the Sabah State Government and asked Kuala Lumpur why they treated Sabah like a colony and why they did not respect the Malaysia Agreement and in particular the 20-points,” he said.
“That was the beginning of my troubles, actually. Later on, I was told that Mahathir said that Jeffrey’s Sabah wanted to secede because Jeffrey raised the 20-points.”
He added that it also just so happened at the time that PBS pulled out from Barisan Nasional (BN).
“And so, they put two and two together and used it as a reason to look for me and look at me as a troublemaker because at that time, no one remembered the 20-points and Malaysia Agreement because all this was hidden,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey said that he also met with the Prime Minister then, Dr Mahathir.
“When I saw him, he asked me why I was being naughty and why the special branch report said that I was indoctrinating the people. The last word he told me was ‘Jeffrey, don’t teach the people what they don’t know’.
“And so I became a hunted animal after that,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey also said that there was no plot for Sabah secession, as claimed by the Federal Government then.
“There is no plot. The Sabah PBS government doesn’t know anything and not involved in anything. We have no plot. What we do is a response to Kuala Lumpur to show we are dissatisfied,” he said.
“When we do that, of course the Federal Government doesn’t like to listen to our dissatisfaction. For a long, long time they don’t listen. They treated us like a colony and never look at the Malaysia Agreement. They shut the mouth of everybody,” he added.
“When they shut the mouth of everybody, every leader don’t have the initiative to look at the Federal Constitution, to look at the document how we were created. No one dares,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey said that during that time, he began to question and asked why the Federal government didn’t respect the agreement, the deal between Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya.
“They started to look at me like a traitor.”
He added that they had to find an excuse to put him under ISA (Internal Security Act).
“They used everything, actually. Not just ISA. In the beginning they used income tax, after that they used anti-corruption and when they cannot find (anything wrong), they used ISA,” claimed Dr Jeffrey.
He alleged that his house was surrounded by the army, the police and tracker dogs.
“What was the reason they bring the whole army and police, tracker dogs and so on to surround my house. And why do they have to send about 200 FRU (Federal Reserve Unit) during the Pesta Kaamatan in 1991 just to deliver a letter for me to sign that I would come to the police station on 13 May? Why the need to bring FRU during the Kaamatan just to do that? And what do they need to send that letter during the Kaamatan festival? Why not come to my office to send it? No need. All this drama, to them, is probably to send messages to all others that if you question the Federal Government, this is what happens. Now everybody knows.”
Dr Jeffrey also said that when he got out of detention, Dr Mahathir called him to apologise and he was sorry he was detained and that he also knew it was cruel.
“So, when you know it’s cruel, why do that to me? I did not do anything wrong. I just questioned the treatment of Kuala Lumpur over Sabah. Why treat Sabah like a colony when we have an agreement to form Malaysia together? And we should be respecting our partnership,” he said.
He added that for him, the incidents that occurred was to show Kuala Lumpur’s control over Sabah.
“To colonise Sabah, to take Sabah’s resources and we are kept like a rascal state. And it is right for someone to raise up the relationship between Sabah and Kuala Lumpur when things go out of hand,” said Dr Jeffrey.
“Imagine, after that, they bring Umno to Sabah; they override the State’s Constitution; they rotate the Chief Minister every two years. What is that? That is totally taking over the government of Sabah and treating it like a puppet government and Sabah was a puppet government since Umno came in, until 2018. And so someone has to raise up the issue, someone has to tell the Federal Government that this was not right. Unfortunately I had to do it,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey was also asked if he was happy with the progress and achievement so far, since it was he who started the struggle for the 20-points and Malaysia Agreement 1963.
“Well first of all, I was actually thinking that my detention did raise up the issue to become very critical to the point that finally, the (federal) government, through (Dr) Mahathir, being the Prime Minister the second time, set up the special committee on the MA63,l.”
He added that although this was good and was progressing, he still felt disappointed because the issue of financial revenue sharing has yet to be complied.
“They still haven’t complied with (financial revenue sharing) for the last 60 years,” he said.
“I am not happy until we get back our autonomy, we get back our oil, we get back our revenue that has been promised,” he said.
Dr Jeffrey was also asked if he thought his arrest was a political move to stop him in the Sabah rights campaign.
He replied: “Yes. It was strictly a move to silent me.”
He added that obviously, that was the line of argument.
“If you look at the newspaper, look at the statement by Mahathir to link me to the 20-points as a basis for plotting to take Sabah out of Malaysia is totally not right,” he said.
“I mean that 20-point is the basis for Sabah to become a reality — without that there would have been no IGC (Inter-government committee report) and no Malaysia Agreement.
“In fact, when the Prime Minister called me before my arrest to say ‘Jeffrey don’t teach the people what they don’t know’ tells everything that what they were to do is to keep me silent. Don’t let them know what Sabah’s rights are. At that time, everything was hidden. Even to get a copy of the 20-points, we had to go through so many difficulties just to get a copy. What else the Malaysia Agreement.”
Dr Jeffrey added that he was surprised to find that most of the rights are in the Malaysia Constitution.
“The first time I raised the issue of Sabah revenue rights, the 40 percent, I was ‘kena koroyok’ (attacked) by the Aduns (State Assemblymen) during the BN (Barisan Nasional) time,” he said.
“And they don’t even believe — even the minister put in charge of Sabah’s MA63 (Malaysia Agreement 1963) eventually told me (that) it is no longer there.”
Dr Jeffrey said that the minister even asked him to read the constitution and when he quoted the constitution and read it, the minister became silent.
He added that even the Speaker scolded him for his persistence in raising the issue.
“When I showed him the constitution, he was shocked that there was this thing — the revenue of 40 percent in the constitution,” he said, adding that this happened after his release from ISA.
He said that after he became a ‘wakil rakyat’ (people’s representative), he began raising the issue.
“Nobody believed me but today everybody wants to become a hero and they want to push it and I am glad because we are all on the same page,” Dr Jeffrey said.
He stressed that the Federal Government has to listen.
He added that he had asked the present Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, if the Special Committee for the MA63 should be continued.
“He (Anwar) said no need and we just implement.
“So today, I am holding on to that promise that the Federal Government will implement the Federal Constitution, the Malaysia Agreement, and that includes our revenue and rights of 40 percent,” said Dr Jeffrey.