Page:Report of the Commission of Enquiry North Borneo & Sarawak.pdf/17

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supported, subject to certain conditions: and their resolutions (which had been published in the Press) were formally presented to us when the Commission visited Kapit on the l9th March. The resolutions were the following:

"l. The Head of the State of Sarawak to be a native of Sarawak.
2. The Head of each State in the Federation of Malaysia to be eligible in due course to be the Mead of the Federation of Malaysia.
3. Adat Lama (traditional custom) to remain under the control of the Government of the State of Sarawak as it has until to-day.
4. Land to be under the control of the State.
5 English to remain the official language of the State of Sarawak and to continue to be one of the official languages of Malaysia.
6 Freedom of religious worship.
7. There is to be adequate representation for Sarawak in the Federal Government.
8. British officers to remain until replaced by properly qualified local people. Natives to have a fair share of Government employment.
9. Sarawak natives to enjoy the same status and privileges as Malays in Malaya
10. Education to be a Federal subject and to be equalised throughout Malaysia as seen as possible. Sarawak natives to have a fair share of overseas scholarships.
10. Immigration to remain under the control of the State of Sarawak.
12. Powers reserved in the Constitution to a State may not be changed without the agreement of the State.
13. Development in Sarawak to be accelerated."

43. This was an expression of opinion to which we attached very great weight. The 51 Chiefs at the conference together were said to represent some 112,000 lbans out of a total population of nearly 238,000 and many delegations of lbans who came before us at different centres in the Third Division confirmed that they supported the Kapit Resolutions. In a small number of cases a demand was made that they should either be accepted without alteration or that any changes should be made only after there had been opportunity for further discussion with the Iban people.

44. While the great majority of the Ibans in the Third Division who were in favour of the Malaysia plan took their stand on the Kapit Resolutions, there were sortie groups who gave their full support to the scheme on the basis of the recommendations in the report of the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Commmittee.

45. In many places, more especially in the more remote areas and in areas where the Ibans form a proportionately smaller section of the population, a feeling of general uncertainty was apparent. It was represented to us by Ibans and others who had given the matter careful thought, that the Kapit Resolutions had to be considered against a background of implicit trust in the British Government. Hitherto, the lbans had been looking forward to the self-government which had been promised to them, and the principal reason why