Tragedi ribut Greg masih segar dalam ingatan rakyat Sabah

Tragedi ribut Greg pada 26 Disember 1996, masih segar dalam ingatan rakyat Sabah.

Malam 26 Disember 1996, rakyat Sabah dan Malaysia dikejutkan tragedi ribut Greg yang menyebabkan lebih 200 maut dan kira kira 1,000 hilang.

Kawasan paling teruk terjejas, Keningau dimana lebih 200 mangsa maut dihanyutkan arus deras Sungai Pampang, sebahagian besar mereka keturunan Toraja atau Tator, Indonesia.

Kejadian berlaku di saat kemeriahan sambutan Krismas 1996.

Sungai Pampang yang amat kecil, boleh menjadi amat besar akibat hujan lebat, sambil membawa kayu balak dan lumpur.

Arus sungai yang teramat deras dipenuhi batang balak dan lumpur itu meranapkan rumah di sepanjang tebing Sungai Pampang, ketika ramai mangsa sedang tidur.

Pasukan keselamatan bertungkus lumus mencari mangsa yang terperangkap yang dianggarkan 1,000 orang namun tidak berjaya meskipun dibantu ramai anggota dari Semenanjung Malaysia dan Luar Negara termasuk menggunakan khidmat anjing pengesan.

Sebuah kubur besar masih ada di Keningau, menempatkan mangsa ribut Greg.

Insiden itu amat mengejutkan sehingga Perdana Menteri ketika itu Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad menyifatkannya amat luar biasa kerana ribut boleh sampai ke Keningau, sebuah kawasan pedalaman di Sabah.

Mahathir turut melawat tempat kejadian diiringi ketua menteri Sabah ketika itu Datuk Yong Teck Lee pada awal Januari 1997.

Kota Kinabalu turut lumpuh akibat ribut dengan pokok tumbang dan billboard serta kontena kapal diterbangkan angin sehingga 300 km sejam ke laut dan ke mana mana sahaja.

Antara mengalami kerosakan bangunan Dewan Undangan Negeri Sabah di Likas dan Stadium Likas apabila 1 lampu limpahnya tumbang.

Pelbagai pihak turut menghulurkan bantuan berupa derma wang tunai serta barangan keperluan antaranya syarikat korporat dan stesen TV3 yang menganjurkan kempen kutipan derma untuk diserahkan kepada kerajaan negeri agar disalurkan kepada mangsa.

Moga kita dijauhkan dari bencana seumpama ini pada masa akan datang dan semoga manusia mengambilnnya sebagai iktibar.

Kemalangan di Kg Opor, Keningau, 1 maut

Sebuah kenderaan pacuan empat roda yang dilaporkan dalam perjalanan menghantar kepingan getah, terhumban ke dalam gaung sedalam 100 kaki atau 33 meter di Kg Opor, Keningau, Sabah.

Bomba menerima panggilan 9.55 pagi dan mengejarkan 5 anggota penyelamat diketuai Pegawai Bomba Kanan 1, Mohd Sabri Hassan.

Kenderaan pacuan 4 roda ini dinaiki 2 lelaki. Namun seorang didapati sudah meninggal dunia manakala seorang lagi cedera.

Kenderaan jenis Toyota Hilux ini dipercayai hilang kawalan sebelum terhumban ke dalam gaung.

Semoga roh mangsa bersemadi dengan aman.

Dan semoga kejadian ini dijadikan iktibar oleh pengguna jalanraya lain agar sentiasa berhati hati di Jalanraya.

O-K-K Sedomon bin O-K-K Gunsanad descendants reject 'Rumah Besar Sedomon' as cultural heritage

Descendants of former Sabah State native leader OKK Sedomon OKK Gunsanad on Wednesday, 17th August 2011, said they have rejected the Sabah State Government's proposal to turn their ancestral home in Bingkor, Keningau, or better known as "Rumah Besar Sedomon", into a cultural heritage of the State.

Led by Nilakrisna James, Sedomon's granddaughter, and daughter of Doreen Sodomon, Sedomon's daughter, they said it was wrong for the Government not to consult the landowners.


Nilakrisna Isnarti James, grand-daughter of OKK Sedomon

Nilakrisna said she received a letter from the Director of the Sabah Museum Department on July 22, 2011, stating the Government's interest to turn the Rumah Besar Sedomon into a cultural heritage.

She, however, said the family or rather 17 descendants of her grandfather did not agree to the proposal.

"My grandfather had wanted the house to remain a pusaka (heritage) for his descendants and it is our wish the house continues to be our communal home," she said in a press conference at TNGC Clubhousei Jalan Bundusan.

Also present at the press conference were Sedomon's four daughters, Doreen, Irene, Susie and June, who also represented their children, and his granddaughter, Nelly Sedomon, who represented both her father, Peter Sedomon, and Sedomon's eldest daughter, Catherine Sedomon.

She said there is a special condition in the land title where the Rumah Besar is located, that is the "land cannot be transferred to aliens."

The pusaka (heritage) inheritance provision states that the landowners could only effectively pass their title to a direct bloodline of Sedomon, she said.

The title, she said, was issued to Sedomon on May 10, 1940 for a period of 999 years after the completion of the house.

The OKK Sedomon's Rumah Besar or Big House is situated on 12 acres of land and was built between 1937 and 1941. It took 4 years to complete as the works were done manually using very basic tools whereby every piece of timber was cut to the required specifications.

The timbers used in the construction were from the jungle, about 40 to 50 kilometres away from the house, transported using a "Guyudan" a Dusun term for a buffalo-drawn cart.

The workers of the house were generally of Chinese origin and they were instructed by OKK Sedomon to build a house which imitated the architecture of early 18th century Malay Sultanate palaces.

The house had a dining passage in the ground floor, a gathering area for festive season or villagers gathering for Tapai drinking session. Tapai is Sabah's traditional rice wine and is stronger than beer, stout and whiskey.

In 1942, the family who lived at the house or Rumah Besar was forced to leave by the brutal Japanese military who used that house as their dwellings during World War II.

The brutal war caused great distress and loss to the family, their farms and live-stocks were completely destroyed by the marauding Japanese army.

Shoot outs between the Japanese Imperial Army and the Australian military also happened right in the Rumah Besar or Big House.

Today, bullet holes can still be seen on that house. Even a small pond was created at the side of the house, caused by bombs.

Many prominent figures, important people and distinguished guests visited the house.

They included Sir William Goode the former Governer of British North Borneo, Right Honourable Duncan Sandys, British Minister for Commonwealth Relations, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, the 1st Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Razak Hussein (second Prime Minister of Malaysia), Tun Datu Mustapha Datu Harun (former Chief Minister of Sabah), Tun Mohammed Fuad Stephens (former Chief Minister and Governor of Sabah), Tun Ahmad Koroh (former Governor of Sabah),

"Upon Sedomon's death (on 8th March 1966), the land was declared by the Registrar to vest upon Sedomon's 10 children and bypassed his wives, whom at that time, were considered 'alien' to the bloodline and therefore not entitled to inherit the land," Nilakrisna said.

Despite no one staying in the big house, she said family members have been using it regularly for celebrations such as weddings, Kaamatan Festival and also for funeral ceremony.

To this, Nilakrisna said the law was not created to arbitrarily bypass the terms and conditions of land titles and deprive private owners of their right to use, to have and to hold their property and homes in peace without government interference and intervention.

She said if the Government used the Cultural Heritage (Conservation) Enactment 1997 to bypass specific terms and conditions and allowed the "alien" Council under the enactment to simply bulldoze its way into private properties on the pretext that their homes looked architecturally historical, then owners in this State might as well demolish and build their homes every 10 years or design space age homes.

She said they have a right to live in their homes and all present owners should have the priority to decide how they wish to maintain, decorate, renovate and develop their own homes and land.

Moreover, she said, the Rumah Besar Sedomon is not the only old home in Sabah that survived the war and nor is it architecturally unique.

There are houses with similar design such as in Tuaran, she said.

"Since 1963 until today, neither the State Government nor the Federal Government nor any of the State leaders, past or present, has bothered to fight for the Sedomon name to have any historical relevance in the history books, the museums or anywhere else," she said.

Sedomon's name, she said, has almost been obliterated.

"He was never important enough to this country to even be accorded any State award, not even BK (Bintang Kinabalu), let alone the title 'Datuk', which many have wrongly been reported in the media," she said.

The booklet "OKK Sedomon Bin OKK Gunsanad and His Rumah Besar" she co-wrote with Sedomon's ninth daughter, in June 1997, is the only one dedicated by way of a biography. There are only 5,000 copies in circulation.

Therefore, the sudden interest in the Rumah Besar and the lucrative 12 acres in Bingkor clearly has nothing to do with Sedomon's incredible leadership or the ordinary architecture, and any excuse by the Council to that effect would just be an act of hypocrisy, she said.

She said in the next 928 years, the land property shall be vested in Sedomon's bloodline and not be vested in or controlled by or monitored by alien persons, alien companies, alien councils or alien committees or anything alien from anywhere.

It is unconscionable that an Act passed in 1997 should undo the noble intentions of the North Borneo Government under the British for Sedomon, who was awarded the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the British Empire.

"If the people in this country choose to ignore his illustrious life, I am sure Sedomon would not be bothered.

"But he would have vomited blood if he knew that his direct descendants will be in any way challenged or limited in the way they choose to live in his house or his land by the decision of aliens in an alien Council appointed by the State Government," she said.

To this, she said the State Government should respect and prioritise the decisions and rights of private landowners.

There are many hundred-year-old houses in Britain and Australia and the governments there, she said, do not interfere with private ownership that makes private investors confident that buying an ancient home is a good investment.

The Government should look into how Britain does it with the National Trust, which is not run by the government of Britain.

She also expressed the family's apology to the Prime Minister and his family for a report that quoted her uncle, Justine Sedomon, which has not been authorised by any other members of the Sedomon family.

The opinions and statements made in the report, she said, belong exclusively to Justine Sedomon and do not reflect the family's views.

The late OKK Sedomon Bin OKK Gunsanad along with his younger brother GS Sundang (former Deputy Minister of Sabah) were two prominent native leaders in Sabah before Sabah gained Independence from the British North Borneo on 31st August 1963 and subsequently formed Malaysia together with Sarawak and Singapore on 16th September 1963.

OKK Sedomon opposed the Malaysia's federation proposal on the ground that his people were not ready for such a political arrangement. He instead preferred self-government and independence to come gradually for Sabah.

Has Sedomon's far sighted wish came true, Sabah would have been an independent nation today, just like Singapore and Brunei who prospers more than Sabah despite much less in size. Singapore as we know does not have rich natural resources and minerals as enjoyed by Sabah such as Oil and Gas, Palm Oil and world class tourism destinations, and yet Singapore is more prosperous in terms of GDP than Sabah.

When the Malaysia federation proposal was presented, OKK Sedomon felt that the native people of North Borneo were politically too immature to participate meaningfully in the new federation. He through Pasok Momogun urged that the native people should be educated and the territory be developed. Only after all these had been done, Sabah would be in a better position to make a decision on the proposed Malaysia federation.

OKK Sedomon was born in 1894 and died in 1966 at the age of 72 years old.



During his lifetime, OKK Sedomon was noted for his achievement in the British North Borneo and awarded the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 9th June 1961.

He took over his father, OKK Gunsanad Kina as the District Chief in 1936 and assumed this role until his death in 1966.

Sedomon was also the Native Chief. Any disputes among the villagers in the remote place called Keningau, were brought to him to be settled amicably, according to the native customary laws.

OKK Sedomon active political career began in 1962 under UPKO or United National Pasok Momogun Organisation, led by himself and his younger brother, GS Sundang, which represented the native people of Sabah or rather known as North Borneo at that material time.

Pasok Momogun controlled and gained majority support of the indigenous people in the inland districts of Sabah whereas another party known as UNKO (United National Kadazan Organisation), formed in 1961 by Donald Stephens, later known as Tun Mohd Fuad Stephens, commanded the support of those on the coastal areas of North Borneo.

Misunderstandings and differences in opinions between UNKO and Pasok Momogun possibly created the beginnings of a politically terminological division between the Natives of North Borneo.

Donald Stephens waged an aggresive campaign to replace the term "Dusun" by "Kadazan" adn this was strongly opposed by GS Sundang who suggested that it was not appropriate to homogenise all Natives in North Borneo as "Kadazan".

OKK Sedomon is fondly remembered by all who knew him as a great man with few words. Throughout his life, he dedicated his life for the people, his people, the Natives of North Borneo, later known as Sabah.

OKK Sedomon who had 4 wives, died suddenly and mysteriously from unknown causes on 8th March 1966 after returning from a dinner party.

His legacy lives on.

Rest in Peace Sir...

Source : Daily Express 18th August 2011 and O.K.K SEDOMON BIN O.K.K GUNSANAD AND HIS RUMAH BESAR Booklet by June Sedomon and Nilakrisna Isnarti James.

Batu Sumpah Keningau, Sabah, Malaysia

Legenda Batu Sumpah Keningau

Ketika Sabah bersetuju untuk bergabung dengan Sarawak, Singapura dan Tanah Melayu untuk membentuk sebuah persekutuan dikenali Malaysia yang kemudiannya tarikh 16 September 1963 dipilih sebagai tarikh peristyharan, satu perjanjian 20 perkara turut dimeterai bagi melindungi hak dan keistimewaan kaum etnik di Sabah yang terdiri lebih 40 etnik termasuk Kadazan-Dusun-Murut, Bajau, Sungai dan sebagainya.

Perjanjian 20 perkara itu antara lain meliputi Agama, Bahasa, Perlembagaan, Ketua dan Nama Negara, Imigrasi, Borneonisasi, Kewarga-negaraan, Hak istimewa kaum etnik pribumi dan Bumiputra Sabah serta juga hak berkaitan Tanah.

Bagi memeterai lagi penubuhan Malaysia itu, sebuah Batu Sumpah didirikan di Keningau dan dirasmikan wakil kerajaan persekutuan, Tan Sri Manickavasagam. Majlis bersejarah itu turut dihadiri pejuang kemerdekaan Sabah yang juga Ketua Menteri Sabah - Tun Fuad Stephens.

Yang Di Pertuan Agong ke 3, Tuanku Syed Putra Ibni Almarhum Syed Hassan Jamalullail dan Raja Permaisuri Agong turut melawat Batu Sumpah itu pada 1964.

Batu Sumpah ini telah didirikan pada tahun 60 an atas Perjanjian di antara Parti Pasok Momogun yang diketuai oleh mendiang Y.Bhg. Datuk G. S. Sundang @ Datuk Gunsanad Samson Sundang dan mendiang OKK Sodomon Bin Gunsanad yang ketika itu ketua daerah Keningau, dengan Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia.

Turut terbabit sama dalam cetusan idea itu pemimpin tempatan Sabah seperti Datuk Anthony Undan Andulag, Datuk Angian Andulag, Datuk Arif Salleh, Chu Shin Kee dari parti UNKO dan Haji Arshad Abdul Rahim dari parti USNO.

Tujuannya untuk menghormati hak kebebasan beragama, adat istiadat anak rakyat Negeri Sabah oleh Kerajaan Malaysia dan rakyat Negeri Sabah. Pada masa sama penduduk Bahagian Pedalaman Atas (Keningau) bersumpah taat setia kepada Kerajaan Malaysia.

Tulisan di Batu Sumpah Keningau berbunyi seperti berikut (masih menggunakan ejaan lama):

1. UGAMA BEBAS DALAM SABAH.
2. TANAH2 DALAM SABAH DI-KUASA OLEH KERAJAAN SABAH.
3. ADAT ISTIADAT RAYAT SABAH DI-HORMATKAN DAN DI-PELIHARA OLEH KERAJAAN.

SABALEK PULA RAYAT2 SABAH DI-DALAM INTERIOR BERSUMPAH TA'AT SETIA KAPADA KERAJAAN MALAYSIA.

Bagi rakyat di pedalaman Sabah, Batu Sumpah ini adalah lambang dan tanda persetujuan rakyat pedlaman untuk membentuk negara Malaysia dengan Sabah menjadi rakan kongsi sama rata dengan Sarawak dan Tanah Melayu. Hak Hak Sabah di dalam Malaysia adalah dipelihara dan dilindungi dan dipertahankan oleh kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia sepanjang masa.

Batu Sumpah juga adalah lambang Kemerdekaan dan Kebebasan daripada penjajahan dan kelangsungan perpaduan di kalangan rakyat berbilang kaum, serta ikrar dan janji, cinta dan hormat kepada kerajaan dan negara Malaysia buat selama lamanya.

Batu Sumpah itu berukuran 2 meter tinggi, 24 cm tebal dan 1.5 meter lebar di bahagian atas, diambil dari sungai Ulu Senagang oleh Pegawai Daerah Keningau ketika itu, Tan Sri Richard Lind dengan bantuan penduduk Kg Senagang.

Batu Sumpah Keningau bukan sembarangan batu, malahan ia luar biasa kerana telah menjalani proses pemasukan roh oleh 7 orang Bobolian pada September 1964. Bobolian adalah mereka yang mahir berkomunikasi dengan alam roh dengan menggunakan bahasa roh iaitu "Rinait".

Batu Sumpah itu masih dijaga rapi sehingga sekarang di perkarangan Pejabat Majlis Daerah Keningau yang juga berhampiran Hotel Perkasa, Keningau.

Setiap tahun, upacara tradisi untuk menghormati Batu Sumpah itu dilakukan oleh "Bobohizan" atau "Bobolian".



Video di atas pula menunjukkan antara majlis yang diadakan di Batu Sumpah, Keningau sempena Hari Malaysia pada 16 September 2011, dihadiri pengasas United Borneo Front, Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan. Perhatikan tradisi menyembelih ayam dan darah ayam itu dilumuri pada batu sumpah.