APRIL saw the declassification of two reports – one by the Malaysian government and the other by an Australian tribunal – on the 1976 Double Six Tragedy.

The Malaysian report was declassified at the order by the High Court in March while the Australian report was made available to the public as a result of a request to the tribunal by Harris Salleh, a former chief minister of Sabah.

Meanwhile, in a few days, Malaysia will be commemorating the 54th anniversary of the May 13, 1969 racial riots.

As such, this is probably the best time to talk about truth-seeking as part of transitional justice in Malaysia.

What is transitional justice? Transitional justice is the redress of past wrongdoing through methods such as truth-seeking, prosecution, reparation and institutional reforms.

The term is normally used in the context of a post-authoritarianism or post-civil war society but it is also frequently applied for redress against injustice faced by indigenous peoples in white settler societies.

While the term is usually applied to human rights violations, it has also been increasingly used in the context of large-scale corruption and economic crimes.

As a country that has just emerged from electoral authoritarianism in 2018 and one that is still in the process of consolidating democracy, transitional justice is something that we should be paying attention to.

While the government has committed to institutional reforms, it should bear in mind that such changes cannot take place without addressing the wrongdoings in the past.

We can take the human body as an analogy: Institutional reforms are the healthy exercise and diet undertaken to strengthen the body but the body cannot be fully healthy if it still has festering wounds.

Truth-seeking through a review of past wrongdoings is the first step towards healing a nation.

In this context, the declassification of the Double Six Tragedy reports is a welcome development. The incident has had lasting effects ion Sabah’s politics and is surrounded by conspiracy theories. 

The plane crash took place on June 6, 1976 in Kota Kinabalu. Newly installed Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens were among the people killed in the crash.

His deputy, Harris Salleh, took over as the new chief minister. A week later, Harris signed a 5% oil royalty agreement with then finance minister and Petronas chairman Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who was in Sabah and had met with Fuad before the crash.

The previous state government, which had a bad relationship with the federal government, had refused to sign the deal.

Over the years, countless theories have been raised over the cause of the crash, including that it was conspiracy to murder Fuad. Political developments after the incident further fuelled speculation. In the same year of the crash, Parliament passed the constitutional amendments to downgrade the position of Sabah and Sarawak within the federation.

Many people believe that Fuad, an ardent proponent of Sabah rights, would not have allowed the amendments to ass if he were still alive.

The amendments were finally reversed in 2021 after a first failed attempt in 2019.

The Sabah government under Harris also ceded Labuan to the federal government in 1984, which was one of the contentious issues that led to the fall of the Berjaya government in 1985.

In the years since, Harris has been viewed by many Sabah people as a leader who lacked backbone and who had ceded many of the rights of Sabah after Fuad’s tragic death.

Some even believe that he was involved in the death as he was the direct beneficiary of it. He presumably had had enough of the talk when he asked for the reports on the crash to be declassified.

With both reports now in the public domain, it is hoped that the truth will emerge.

Part 2 will argue for the declassification of the official documents on the events of May 13, 1969 as a necessary step to heal the nation. – May 6, 2023.

* Rayner Sylvester Yeo is a member of Agora Society. He was born in Sabah and is currently residing in Kuala Lumpur. Having grown up in a mixed-ethnic, multi-faith family and spent his working life in public, private and non-profit sectors, he believes diversity is the spice of life.