Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Colonisation & Decolonisation
After the war, which left many of Borneo's cities in ruins (mainly from Allied bombing),
the North Borneo Chartered Company ceded authority over what is now Sabah to the Brit-
ish Crown. In Sarawak, the White Rajah returned briefly under Australian military admin-
istration but, overwhelmed by the cost of rebuilding, transferred sovereignty to the British
government.
Local opposition to Sarawak's transformation from an independent kingdom into a
Crown colony was widespread. Those demanding continued rule by the White Rajahs en-
compassed not only Anthony Brooke, Charles Vyner Brooke's nephew and heir apparent,
but also many indigenous Sarawakians. The White Rajahs may have been of British stock,
but after three generations many did not consider them outsiders but an integral part of
Sarawak's cultural and ethnic patchwork.
In 1949, after a four-year war, the Dutch -
facing tremendous international pressure, in-
cluding an American threat to cut off postwar
reconstruction aid - withdrew from the Dutch
East Indies. Indonesia, including Kalimantan,
which had remained on the sidelines during the
conflict, gained independence.
Later that year, Sarawak's second colonial governor, Duncan Stewart, was stabbed to
death in Sibu. Secret British documents uncovered in 2012 indicate that the assassins,
hanged in Kuching in 1950, were not partisans of Anthony Brooke, as long suspected, but
rather were seeking an Indonesian takeover of Sarawak. Anthony Brooke, after spending
his life as a self-appointed ambassador of peace, died in New Zealand in 2011 at the age
of 98.
Allied bombing raids against Japanese targets in
1945 left Sandakan in ruins, so authorities moved
Sabah's capital to Jesselton, now Kota Kinabalu.
Malaysian Independence
When the Federation of Malaya, consisting of the states of Peninsular Malaysia, was gran-
ted independence in 1957, Sarawak, British North Borneo (Sabah) and Brunei remained
under British rule.
In 1962 the British proposed incorporating their Bornean territories into Malaya. At the
last minute, Brunei pulled out of the deal, as the sultan (and, one suspects, Shell Oil)
didn't want to see the revenue from its vast oil reserves channelled to the peninsula. In
September 1963 Malaysia - made up of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Sabah and
Sarawak - achieved merdeka (ie independence; Singapore withdrew in 1965).
 
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