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Article Excerpt
I first met Zaini Ahmad in Kuala Lumpur in 1985 when he was in charge of the hostel for Sabah students in Jalan Ampang while working for PERKIM, the Muslim Welfare Association of Malaysia. As executive secretary of Partai Ra'ayat Brunei (PRB), he had been in Manila en route to New York to present a joint memorandum to the United Nations on behalf of the three Borneo territories' major political parties when the Brunei Rebellion erupted on 8 December 1962. The memorandum suggested that in place of the Malaysia proposal there should be a Borneo Federation with Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin as its Head of State, but all this was overtaken by events. Detained by the British authorities in Hong Kong, where he had sought asylum, he was returned to Brunei in early 1963 and subsequently spent more than ten years at Jerudong prison camp. Efforts by the Commonwealth Relations Office in London, Amnesty International and the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to have him released were made in vain. He was subsequently reported in 1966 to have offered to renounce his Brunei citizenship if he was allowed to go into exile and to have been offered political asylum in Malaysia in 1968, but the Brunei authorities did not respond.
On 12 July 1973 (which happened to be Sultan Sir Omar All Saifuddin's birthday), Zaini, Secretary-General Jasin Affandy and six other senior PRB detainees escaped by sea to nearby Limbang in Sarawak in an operation orchestrated by PRB leader A.M. Azahari's brother, Sheikh Saleh Sheikh Mahmud, and his nephew. Reportedly, the "springing" had covert support from the Malaysian government in the person of Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs. At this point the Malaysian government, still irked by the Sultan's refusal to join the new Federation in 1963 and by the treatment of some of its senior civil servants who had been seconded to Brunei, was committed to supporting free elections in Brunei. The freeing of Zaini and the others was probably intended as a warning to the Sultan to be more liberal or bear the consequences.
Safely established in Kuala Lumpur, Zaini was by no means content with his status in Malaysia. As a political refugee, he could not obtain a Malaysian passport and was consequently unable to travel freely outside the country. However, he played an active part together with Azahari in the re-grouping of the PRB in exile in Kuala Lumpur in May 1974 and its subsequent efforts (vigorously assisted by the Malaysian government) to mount sufficient international pressure through Commonwealth and Middle Eastern leaders as well as the United Nations to force elections in Brunei. Indeed, in 1975 the Malaysian government went so far as to sponsor a PRB delegation to present the case for Brunei's independence to the UN Committee on Decolonization. In addition to his diplomatic efforts, Zaini published a number of books, including a collection of documents on the history of the PRB, to publicize its cause. He also completed an M.A. thesis on nationalism in Brunei at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia which was published in 1984 and reprinted in 1989.
Relations between Kuala Lumpur and Brunei deteriorated rapidly as a result of this pressure, with Sir Omar Ali (who had abdicated in his eldest son's favor in 1967 but was still highly influential) expressing renewed interest in regaining control of the Limbang territory which had been ceded to Rajah Charles Brooke of Sarawak in 1890. Sarawak's Chief Minister, Datuk Abdul Rahman bin Ya'akub, subsequently led anti-Brunei demonstrations. In the tit-for-tat exchange, Brunei withdrew all its students from Malaysian educational institutions and banned Sarawak government vehicles from passing through its territory. While the subsequent revival of the PRB in Limbang was countenanced by the Malaysian authorities, there were also petitions and demonstrations there which favored the return of Brunei rule.
When the revived PRB's campaign had come to nothing after ten years of effort, and relations between Kuala Lumpur and Brunei had warmed, particularly after it achieved independence in 1984 and joined ASEAN, Zaini decided to return to Brunei where he believed he had something to offer. He wanted an official assurance that he would not once again be placed in detention, but his letters to the Brunei authorities expressing his desire to return were never answered, in the meantime, he was anxious to complete a higher degree in international relations in Australia or the United Kingdom and I endeavored to assist him in this through my contacts at the Australian National University and the London School of Economics (LSE), where Dr. Michael Leifer arranged a six-month unpaid fellowship (which was not taken up). It was no doubt Zaini's intention to obtain a further qualification as a means of obtaining a senior post in Brunei's newly-created Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where his long political experience and intellectual sophistication could have been put to extremely good use. However, as long as the former sultan, Sir Omar All Saifuddin, was alive, there was little chance of that happening. Sir Omar (better known as the Seri Begawan), as can be seen from the interview below, seems never to have forgiven Zaini for his political involvement which he saw as a personal betrayal as well as a threat to the security of the kingdom. When Sir Omar died in September 1986, Zaini no doubt believed that the main obstacle to his return had been removed.
Thwarted in his ambition to complete a doctoral degree overseas, Zaini enrolled instead in 1988 at the University of Malaya where he was supervised by Professor Khoo Kay Kim for a dissertation on the history of the PRB. On I April 1993, when it seemed that there would never be any assurance from the authorities that he would not be further punished, Zaini took a big chance and returned to Brunei. He was promptly placed in detention once again--this time for more than two years. Released on 19 July 1995 after being pardoned by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, he suffered a stroke in December 1997 which caused him to lose the use of his left side for some time. After his recovery, he was given employment in the Pusat Sejarah, the History Centre established and run by Pehin Dr. Jamil, Brunei's official historian, in order to prepare his doctoral thesis for publication. He now lives in quiet retirement in Bandar Seri Begawan with his eldest son and family, receiving physiotherapy for his ailment and attending to his responsibilities as a devout Muslim. When I last saw him in July 2008 he was physically frail but in good spirits and had lost none of the remarkable mental acuteness that I remembered so well. He presented me with a copy of his revised doctoral thesis which he had published in Brunei in 2003, Brunei Merdeka: sejarah dan budaya politik. This had apparently been approved by Brunei's Special Branch, which continues to pay him a modest pension.
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