#历史开讲 #
The first meeting of the new Legislative Council was finally held on 5 December 1962, when the Brunei People's Party submitted its first motion for the British to return sovereignty over North Borneo and Sarawak to Sudan; Union Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo; It was guaranteed that Brunei would not join Malaysia and achieve full independence in 1963.
Perhaps at the authority of the Sultan of Brunei, the speaker of the Legislative Council immediately rejected the Brunei People's Party motion. As early as April 1962, in a motion on the "Malaysia Plan", the Sultan obtained the authorization of the Legislative Council by a margin of 24 to 4 - full responsibility for Brunei's accession to the "Malaysia Plan". Sudan seems reluctant to share this power with the Brunei People's Party, much less to share their platform. When legal means failed to stop the "Malaysia Plan", some leaders of the Brunei People's Party had to launch the Brunei uprising on December 8.
It should be emphasized here that Azahari of the Brunei People's Party himself was not directly involved in the uprising, and he was in Manila that day. The de facto leader of the Brunei uprising was Yassin Avandi, secretary general of the Brunei People's Party. Yassin initiated this military change with the North Kalimantan National Army as his own commander-in-chief.
The program of the Brunei uprising was the establishment of an independent federation of North Borneo. The Brunei uprising was not essentially an uprising against the Sultan of Brunei, as its goal, the Commonwealth of North Borneo, was still a constitutional monarchy, led by the Sultan of Brunei himself and his successor. Therefore, the Brunei Uprising was an uprising of the Meiji Restoration, not a Xinhai Revolution.
In the early days of the uprising, the Nationalist army's "Qing Jun's side" slogan played a role, and a large number of Brunei civilians joined the rebels, believing that the uprising was fighting for the Sudan. But the defeat of the Nationalist army was doomed from the first day of the uprising, and they failed to control the personal freedom of the Sultan of Brunei, who managed to flee on December 9.
On the same day, the Sultan of Brunei issued a proclamation indicating that he himself had nothing to do with the uprising. This announcement instantly crushed the legitimacy of the uprising, and a large number of Sudanese supporters laid down their arms, and the situation of the uprising took a sharp turn. By December 11, the rebellion in Brunei's main cities was largely oppressed, and the Lam Mon area, where the rebel army was most active, was recovered on December 12, and the Brunei uprising finally failed on December 20.
On the same day, the Sultan of Brunei declared the Brunei People's Party illegal, and Azahari himself became a wanted criminal in Brunei. Subsequently, the Sultan of Brunei directly dissolved the Legislative Council and formed a 14-member emergency parliament, 10 of the 14 seats were appointed by the Sultan himself, and the remaining four were extended by the original parliament according to their functions, including the High Commissioner of Brunei White.
So far, the Sultan of Brunei has become the biggest beneficiary of the Brunei uprising, he can finally take power, and the results of the August district council elections will be buried in the dust of history along with the Brunei People's Party. Thus, instead of undermining Sudan's authority, the Brunei uprising strengthened his control over the Legislative Council, while the Brunei People's Party became an illegal political party. But none of this means that the uprising is meaningless, at least the British side began to reflect on whether the Sultan of Brunei could help the British realize the "Malaysia Plan".
As a result of the Brunei uprising, the British began to wonder if the Sultan himself was a nationalist he could trust. On December 15, 1962, White presented his preliminary views on the Brunei Uprising. He argued that the Brunei uprising was essentially destructive to the implementation of the Malaysian Plan, "which undermined the authority of the Sultan of Brunei in Brunei, and this uprising made Brunei an uncertain factor in the Malaysian Plan, and this unstable factor may even spread to Sarawak and North Borneo like an infectious disease."
At this time, White's judgment remained that the Sultan of Brunei was the victim of this uprising, which was aimed at overthrowing the current Brunei. However, five days later, the Sultan of Brunei publicly declared that "the Brunei People's Party is illegal and wants Azahari", an action that caused White to change his previous views. It must be reiterated here that the Brunei uprising completed its oppression on December 20, but the specific interrogation has not yet been completed.
As mentioned earlier, Azahari was in Manila during the Brunei uprising, and there is no direct evidence that Azahari planned the uprising, except that he occasionally supported the uprising through the Manilan media. Although some of the top officials of the Brunei People's Party participated in the uprising, can it be directly judged that the uprising is necessarily related to Azahari himself? However, before the trial was over, in the absence of sufficient evidence, the Sultan of Brunei declared the Brunei People's Party illegal and wanted for Azahari, leading White to suspect that the Sultan of Brunei had known in advance that an uprising would break out.
On December 20, White wrote another letter to Santis: "The manifesto of the Brunei People's Party now shows that their main goal is to establish a Borneo federation under Brunei's leadership. Azahari will become prime minister of the federation, and the Sultan of Brunei will continue to serve as the head of the federation. ”
Even if the North Borneo federation claimed by the Wehrmacht was still a constitutional monarchy, the Sultan of Brunei would continue to lead after the uprising was successful. White added, "After several months of investigation and research, the Sultan of Brunei finally decided to submit a formal request to the United Kingdom for the return of the Lam Dream area to Brunei. "The above two points show that, on the one hand, both the Brunei People's Party and the North Kalimantan Defence Force continue to aim at the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, the ultimate beneficiary of which is the Sultan himself.
On the other hand, the rebels did attack and try to retake the Lam Mon area, with the same objectives as the Sultan of Brunei in 1959. White therefore believed that "this change in secret cooperation between the Sultan of Brunei would have been without bloodshed and no injury to the lives and property of foreigners, and there would have been no United Kingdom intervention". White's letter unreservedly listed "evidence" that the Sultan of Brunei himself had a close relationship with Azahari, and now he believes that the Sultan knew from the outset that an uprising would break out.
Selkuk echoed White's speculation that the Sultan of Brunei was not a trusted nationalist. In his letter to Macmillan, Selkuk stated, "Although I have no evidence, I, like the High Commissioner of Brunei, believe that the Sultan of Brunei was not completely unaware of the occurrence of this rebellion." But what effective measures can they take for Britain other than suspicion? Since after the outbreak of the uprising, the Sultan of Brunei did not explicitly express his position on the "Malaysia Plan", such as replacing the Brunei Sultan with a nationalist leader who absolutely supports the "Malaysia Plan" through power? The answer is no, because the replacement candidate is the wanted Azahari.
In his memorandum, White noted that the Sultan of Brunei is not the only nationalist leader supporting the Malaysian project in Brunei. In fact, Azahari had been in contact with Bandun Abdul Razak, a Malayan union and had promised the Malays that if he became the leader of Brunei, he would get the Brunei People's Party to accept the "Malaysia Plan", and the Malays acquiesced to this arrangement and invited Azahari's delegation to visit Malaya. Even White himself did not try to hide his identification with Azahari, saying in a mid-September 1961 report: "As a nationalist leader, he [Azahari] appears moderate now, and it is not unpleasant to work with him."
Even before the uprising, there seemed to be rumours in the circle of British officials that the United Kingdom would arrange for Azaharii to be an official in Brunei after Brunei joined Malaysia and gained independence. After the uprising, the British ambassador to Jakarta also approached Azahari and made the above suggestions to him, hoping that it would support the Malaysian plan.
Although there is no direct archival evidence that this secret arrangement exists, a letter dated 4 January 1963 from Selkuk to Wallace, then Assistant Secretary of State for Colonialism, shows that this arrangement is not rumored but real. The letter reads that "at present, [it is judged] that Azahari cannot hold an official post in Brunei after independence". Therefore, it can be inferred that there was a British plan to make Azaharii an official in Brunei, but the uprising put this arrangement on hold. But with Azahari wanted, the only way to continue with the Malaysia Project is to put aside distrust of the Sultan of Brunei and continue to cooperate with him and defend the legitimacy of his rule.