KOTA KINABALU: Tun Mustapha Datu Harun seized the opportunity under the Emergency Ordinance following the race riots in peninsula on May 13, 1969, to arrest more than two dozen people under the Internal Security Act (ISA).
This was despite Sabah facing no racial strife like in peninsula and those arrested comprised those who opposed his Usno-led State Government in the election like Yap Pak Leong and George Chin, among others.
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This is disclosed in his post-humous memoir “What Sabahans Should Know” by Sabah’s first English language Reporter, Datuk Mohd Fauzi Patel.
The book was compiled based on written materials and interviews with Patel before his death in 2012 by Daily Express Chief Editor Datuk James Sarda and Universiti Malaya History professor Datuk Dr Danny Wong.
It was Patel’s wish two months before his passing that various details pertinent to events and happenings at that time be disclosed, so that future generations will have a better understanding of the issues and controversies and arrive at their own conclusions.
“The crackdown silenced the opposition completely. Everything died down and ran underground. Nobody wanted to talk openly about anything,” Patel said.
Patel said he was also arrested under the ISA but this happened five years later when he returned to the Sabah Times as its Editor. The paper was by then owned by Mustapha.
However, Mustapha, was often away from the state in foreign capitals and left the day-to-day of the State and the paper to a team of loyalists who were unhappy that the federal government led by Tun Razak was unhappy with the way Sabah was being run.
Razak then gave his blessings to the formation of Berjaya led by Stephens, Harris and Yeh Pao Tze to mount a multi-racial challenge involving Muslims, KadazanDusuns and Chinese in the state elections that Berjaya won by an eight-seat majority in 1976.
Patel said when Usno lost the elections, he had to appear before Mustapha’s aides, including Syed Kechik, every morning to brief them on the political news.
Around the time of the elections in May 1976, one person was killed in bombings in Sandakan and he had no choice but write an editorial about suspected police involvement.
“Police chief Yusof Khan lodged a complaint and I was arrested under the ISA.
“Luckily I was not put away in detention. I was charged in court the next day and fined RM500,” Patel said.
Exposing the occupational hazards that journalists faced at the time, Patel said several were kicked out of Sabah without reason during both Usno and Berjaya.
Ken Martinez from Sabah Times and later Ronnie Duclos were the earliest victims. Then there was Samad Mahadi who was kicked out by Mustapha’s brother, Aliuddin, also for writing an editorial that offended the state government. From Daily Express, one Leong was expelled. After Berjaya formed the government, a Daily Express Chinese editor was also expelled.
There were also occasions when peninsula journalists were assaulted for coming to Sabah to expose wrongdoings. One of them was a Straits Times reporter, Albert Ramalingam, who was assaulted as he walked back to his hotel at night.
Patel also spoke about the time when he was forced to publish items against his will and for which, he claimed, he was later blamed as sabotaging the paper.
It happened on the day he intended to quit the Sabah Times.
“On the day I was supposed to quit, someone gave me materials to publish. Someone else wrote the editorial and the front-page news and everything.
“Though his name was not there I could guess who the writer was. So, I just published the thing. I was to make sure the thing is published. It was condemning Syed Kechik,” he said, adding it was high-risk and he only agreed to publish if there was a plane to leave immediately.
However, a worker telephoned Mustapha’s son, Hamid, in the middle of the night about the front page. Hamid stopped the edition.
Patel had already left by then. “The plane was waiting for me. I was asked to go away for a while,” he said. He went to India and disappeared for one month.
He also spoke about how the newspaper (Sabah Times) experienced instances of deliberate sabotage from within. “Workers were paid to damage their own paper.
They threw away screens used for photographs, cut the electricity many times and made pictures go missing.
“So many things, little bit here, little bit there. Very dirty,” Patel said. “The paper still came out but had blanks here and there.”
Asked how Mustapha took all this, Patel said “He (Mustapha) was living in his own world, while to Syed Kechik the newspaper was a small thing, small issue.
“He (Syed Kechik) was worried about bigger things than about the newspaper,” he said.
Asked what the sensational report that was supposed to hit the streets the next morning, he said it was something about him (Syed Kechik) allegedly dictating everything and controlling the party and media.
