Page 32 - CONTENTS

32
The New Rajah
Sometime in 1965 in Borneo during the Confrontation campaign when
I was commanding C Company in Ba Kelalan, I went down to the B
Company base at Long Semado for a couple of days, as the Company
Commander was away.
When we had finished our military briefing and tour of the area, I
called on the headman of the Murut community who lived in the
longhouses in that area. He was also the headmaster of the local
school.
We sat on his ‘verandah’ - outside his house - and talked about this
and that. The radio was on. Suddenly there was an announcement
that the Federation of Malaysia was in crisis because Singapore was
about to break away - that is to leave Malaysia.
This was news to me, as it was to my host. Malaysia had not been in
being for very long. It had initially consisted of the nine Malay States,
the four Straits Settlements of Penang, Labuan, Malacca, and
Singapore, plus the two Borneo territories of Sarawak and North
Borneo (later call Sabah). The Sultan of Brunei had declined to join.
It was because of this newly constructed Malaysia that Indonesia had
started the ‘Confrontation’ - and thus why we were there in the
Sarawak border area.
The headman asked me what all this meant. Why was Singapore
breaking away? I didn’t know; nor did I know how this was being
handled politically. A lot of questions and thoughts went through my
mind. After a while in silent thought, the headman came up with a
proposal that certainly not occurred to me.
“If Singapore can do this, why can’t we? We could create a separate
state of Muruts here in 5th Division of Sarawak. I could be the Prime
Minister and you could be the Rajah.”
A mind-blowing thought! Where we were, it took about six days to
walk down to the coast. There were no roads or vehicle tracks. We
were only in touch with the outside world because of radios (no
satellites at that time) and by helicopter. If it hadn’t been for these last