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Afro-Southeast Asia Archive
(1947 - ) African American Writers in Southeast Asia Archive Excerpt from “A Weekend with Richard Wright Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) The Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC) (1966-1973) Contemporary Korean Art exhibition (1960-1961)
The Malaysia Mission vs. Maphilindo Diosdado Macapagal’s Foreign Diplomacy Robert Kennedy’s trip to the Far East (1964) Newsreels from Sabah
 



Newsreels from Sabah


Malaysian Solidarity Week in Sabah
18 November 1964
17 seconds
Copyright Reuters Limited
All rights reserved

This newsreel footage shows Sabah’s then Chief Minister Dato Donald Stephens inaugurating an exhibition organized as part of Malaysian Solidarity Week in Sabah in 1964. The exhibition showcased the racial diversity of Malaysia and presented some fifty photographs of captured Indonesian insurgents, displayed alongside their jungle uniforms and other paraphernalia. In a speech related to this event, Dato Donald Stephens notes that the Solidarity Week was held to show the world that despite Malaysia being composed of different races, he sees no difference in color and creed. He instead finds community in how people gathered to pledge loyalty to Malaysia. As part of the Solidarity Week, a crowd of 15,000 people gathered outside the exhibition venue, bearing banners and placards in protest of Sukarno’s Konfrontasi doctrine and against Macapagal’s claims to Sabah territory. State offices closed early so that employees could attend the protest.

News footage of Sabahans welcoming Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on October 1, 1968
4 October 1968
4 seconds
Copyright Reuters Limited
All rights reserved


These two captions of newsreels of Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman visiting Sabah to strengthen its ties with the rest of Malaysia feature protest footage from the event. One caption is of the banner “People of Sabah will fight Philippine Colonization” and a burning effigy against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signing of Senate Bill No. 954, also known as the “Sabah Bill,” which institutionalized the Philippine claim to Sabah. While the bill did not claim Sabah as part of the Philippines national territory, it claimed dominion over Sabah based on a 1962 Deed of Cession from the Sultan of Sulu to the Philippines. This argument had drastic implications on the competing claims on Borneo. For one the annexation of North Borneo by the British Government in July 1946 was untenable because the territory belonged to the heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu, effectively placing it under Philippine authority and government. In 1957, the Sultan of Sulu declared that he was terminating the lease signed with British North Borneo Company in 1878 and advocated for the Philippines to recover a portion of Borneo and its adjacent islands to the Philippines. The Philippine congress, with the nudging of President Diosdado Macapagal, would support this in 1962. The Manila Accord in 1963 associated with Maphilindo was based in part of this claim.