ABSTRACT
The British Borneo colonies of Sarawak and North Borneo, and the protectorate of the Brunei sultanate, all populated by indigenous peoples regarded as part of the Malay ethnic family, to be incorporated as components of Malaysia might be the appropriate panacea. The Tunku’s ‘Malaysia’ proposal sent ripples across the region: from Singapore across the South China Sea to Kuching, Brunei Town, and Jesselton through the Visayas to Manila. In December 1962, nationalists in Brunei, the hugely wealthy small kingdom on the North Coast of Borneo, formed the Army of North Kalimantan and, demanding greater democracy, engineered a rebellion against the Sultan and seized a large number of hostages. The intention to create a wider federation that encompassed then-independent Malaya, and the remaining British colonial possessions in Southeast Asia, notably Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei, and North Borneo, would result in a reconfiguration of the regional geopolitical setting.
