SARAWAK rights activist Lina Soo has told Batu Kitang assemblyman Lo Khere Chiang “to put his words where his mouth is” by tabling a motion in the legislative assembly for a Sarawak Independence Referendum Ordinance.

Soo, an advocate of secession from the Malaysian federation, said the people of Sarawak wanted to exercise their right to self-determination.

She added she believed the majority of “fully informed” Sarawakians would back lawmakers who supported human rights and the democratic right of the people to vote.

“Our people are politically mature now and ready to make decisions on sovereignty and the future of our nation,” Soo, who is also State Reform Party Sarawak (Star) president, said.

Lo had, in the assembly on Wednesday, challenged Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to allow Sarawak to hold a referendum to determine whether its people wanted independence.

Dr Mahathir had reportedly said that Sabah and Sarawak folk do not want independence, only autonomy.

Lo had said “let Sarawak decide” if they wanted independence or autonomy after claiming in his debate on the state budget that “Sarawak is practically the colony of Malaya” and that Malaya had siphoned its oil and gas resources with little being returned to the state from the billions of ringgit in revenue earned every year.

Soo challenged Lo to push for the referendum, as “merely issuing a challenge to the prime minister falls far short of its desired effect”.

“It is merely political rhetoric if there is no follow-up action,” she said.

Soo said that the United Nations had in 1963 “sidestepped” holding a referendum on whether Sabah and Sarawak folk wanted to join the federation. – November 8, 2019.