Sejarah Negeri Sarawak

Sejarah Negeri Sarawak

Asal nama sebenar Sarawak tidak dapat dibuktikan secara saintifik dan mutlak. Bagaimanapun menurut beberapa pendapat nama Sarawak asal seperti berikut:-

* Nama Sarawak berasal daripada nama Sungai Sarawak . Sungai Sarawak meliputi kawasan yang digelar sebagai "Sarawak Prosper" menganjur dari Pedalaman Kuching di Bau sehingga ke Samarahan.
* Nama Sungai Sarawak adalah diambil dari nama sejenis galian batu bijih iaitu "serawak" yang mengandungi belerang dan antimoni (Rujuk Kamus Dewan edisi 3). Ini bertepatan sekali dengan sejarahnya iaitu semasa Sarawak di bawah pemerintahan Kesultanan Brunei, wilayah Sarawak ketika itu kaya dengan antimoni.

Sejarah purba

Sarawak ialah salah satu negeri di Asia Tenggara yang diduduki oleh manusia.Ia berlaku kira-kira 40000 tahun dahulu. Penemuan arkeologi seperti tulang manusia, tembikar, dan bekas perkuburan membuktikan bahawa manusia telah mendiami Sarawak sejak sebelum Masihi lagi.
[sunting] Kurun-10 hingga kurun 19

Sarawak dikatakan berada di bawah kekuasaan kerajaan Srivijaya pada kurun-10 hingga kurun-13. Penguasaan kerajaan Srivijaya ke atas wilayah pesisiran Sarawak telah membolehkan orang-orang Melayu dari Sumatera berhijrah dan menetap di kawasan pesisiran Sarawak. Orang Melayu telah membuka penempatan mereka di Santubong yang merupakan antara pelabuhan entrepot terpenting di Nusantara. Ini telah dibuktikan dengan dengan penemuan bahan artifak seperti pasu zaman dinasti Han Cina di Santubong.

Setelah kejatuhan kerajaan Srivijaya pada kurun-13, Sarawak dikuasai oleh kerajaan Majapahit. Seorang putera Raja Majapahit iaitu Raden Menteri Dipati Jepang atau Datu Merpati Jepang telah berhijrah ke Sarawak pada kurun ke-15. Baginda telah berkahwin dengan Datu Permaisuri anak perempuan Raja Jarom Jawa di Johor sebelum berhijrah ke Sarawak. Daripada keturunan Datu Merpati Jepang, muncullah golongan bangsawan Melayu Sarawak yang bergelar Abang. Golongan Melayu perabangan Sarawak telah memegang jawatan terpenting seperti Datu Patinggi, Datu Temenggong, Datu Bentara pada zaman pemerintahan Brooke di Sarawak.

Penglibatan Inggeris

Apa yang diketahui secara pasti, Sarawak terletak di bawah penguasaan Kesultanan Brunei pada awal abad ke-19.

Sarawak merupakan sebuah wilayah yang dikawal secara tidak rapi oleh Kesultanan Brunei pada awal abad ke-19. Kemudian pada 1839, James Brooke datang untuk menghantar surat pada Gabenor Sarawak, Rajah Muda Hasim. Beliau meminta bantuan James Brooke untuk membantu menenangkan keadaan Sarawak yang kacau bilau. Pejuangan Dayak menentang penjajah Brunei terbukti hebat manakala James Brooke yang mempunyai angkatan perang yang lengkap dan beberapa kali cuba menenangkan pejuang Dayak. Sebagai balasan, James Brooke dilantik menjadi gabenor Sarawak pada 24 September 1841, dan seterusnya Rajah pada 18 Ogos tahun berikutnya.

Pada asalnya, wilayah ini cuma merupakan hujung barat Sarawak yang kemudian, yakni kawasan di sekitar Kuching. Sewaktu kematiannya pada 1868, anak saudara Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke menjadi Raja. Beliau pula diwaris oleh anakandanya, Charles Vyner Brooke.

Wilayah Brooke diperluaskan dengan pantas di bawah ketiga-tiga raja itu, kebanyakannya melalui penjejasan kawasan yang pada nama sahaja di bawah kawalan Brunei. Sebenarnya, Brunei cuma mengawal kubu-kubu sungai dan pantai di kebanyakan wilayah yang telah lenyap. Oleh sebab itu, kebanyakan keuntungan yang dicapai adalah melalui penjejasan pembesar Islam dan puak tempatan yang hilang kemerdekaan de factonya.

Dinasti Brooke memerintah Sarawak selama seratus tahun dan mencapai kemasyhuran sebagai â??Raja Putihâ? ("White Rajahs"), dan diberi taraf yang serupa dengan raja-raja India dalam Empayar British.

Berbanding dengan banyak kawasan empayar yang lain, keluarga Brooke bermaksud pengamalan dasar paternalisme untuk melindungi penduduk tempatan daripada eksploitasi oleh empayar Brunei dan pendatang asing. Mereka memerintah dengan bantuan pemimpin tempatan dan menggaji pahlawan Dayak sebagai askarnya. Mereka juga menggalakkan imigrasi kelas perdagangan Cina.

Sejarah moden



Jepun menyerang Sarawak pada 1941 dan menguasainya sepanjang Perang Dunia II Sarawak pada masa kekalahan Jepun, 1945 ditadbir oleh British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit yang dikawal selia oleh tentera Australia.

Anti- Cession Sarawak

Sarawak merupakan salah satu daripada punca utama Konfrontasi Indonesia pada antara 1962 dan 1966. Ia menjadi sebuah negara merdeka dan kemudian menjadi negeri autonomi Persekutuan Malaysia pada 16 September 1963 sungguhpun pada awalnya, ia mengalami penentangan daripada sebahagian penduduknya kerana tidak mahu Sarawak diperintah oleh Kerajaan Malaya.

Was this Blackbeard’s sword?

It's one of the latest finds aboard the remains of the ship the Queen Anne's Revenge, known at one time to be the flagship of Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. The vessel ran aground on a North Carolina sandbar in 1718 and was abandoned; modern archaeologists have been excavating the shipwreck for more than a decade. The design and ornamentation of this newest discovery have led the researchers to believe it likely belonged to the notorious pirate himself.

Click image to see Blackbeard's recovered ornaments

NC Department of Cultural Resources

An imposing figure to begin with, according to historians, Blackbeard cultivated a ferocious appearance to seem even more menacing: a long dark beard, numerous knives, swords and pistols strapped to his chest -- even lighted fuses in his hair. In May of 1718, he used the ship to blockade the port of Charleston, S.C., and effectively hold the city hostage until he collected a considerable ransom

He was eventually killed in battle off North Carolina by the Royal Navy, his head suspended from a naval sloop to warn other pirates.

'We have homes and lives torn apart,' Australian official says

Brisbane, Australia -- Recovering from flooding in northeastern Australia will be a "reconstruction task of post-war proportions," a top official in Queensland state said Sunday.

"We have massive infrastructure damage that will take months and in some cases years to fully repair," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told reporters. "We have homes and lives torn apart, in some cases ... by an event of the most traumatic proportions. So we cannot underestimate what is happening."

Police in the flood-ravaged state said Sunday that the death toll from flooding had climbed to 18, and they urged residents to knock on their neighbors' doors as waters recede.

"Many people don't have friends and family to check on them, so it's up to the whole community to do their part and look out for their neighbors," Acting Inspector Gareth Bosley said, according to a statement on the Queensland Police website.

Meanwhile, flood warnings were in place Sunday in Victoria state in southeastern Australia as authorities said heavy rains threatened homes there.

Police said 14 people are missing in Queensland, many of them in the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley areas.

Brisbane begins slimy cleanup

Captain tries to save sinking boat

Australia's international flood victims

Hoping Goondiwindi levees will hold

The missing include people who were swept from cars or were in houses that collapsed.

"Credible and reliable information provided to police indicates that these people were caught up in the storm surge that swept the valley, and police hold grave fears for their well-being," Queensland Police Service said in a statement.

Among those who died were Llync-Chiann Clarke, 31, and her two children, ages 5 and 12, who were swept to their deaths as a rescue fire truck became inundated by floodwaters on a local road. Two other people escaped.

Robert John Kelly, 30, was found dead in an upside-down vehicle in a creek, authorities said. The body of Jean Gurr, 88, who was trapped by rising water, was found in her residence.

A teenager who was afraid of water drowned in the Queensland floods after begging rescuers to save his younger brother first.

Jordan Rice, 13, and his mother Donna, 43, were swept away as a wall of water hit the town of Toowoomba last week.

His family has hailed the youngster's selfless actions.

"Jordan can't swim and is terrified of water," his father, John Tyson, told local newspaper The Toowoomba Chronicle. "But when the man went to rescue him, he said, 'save my brother first.'"

Officials warned the cleanup would take months.

More than 20,000 homes were inundated after the normally subdued Brisbane River turned into a raging torrent as weeks of rain pushed it to more than 4 meters (13 feet) at high tide last week. Residents in Brisbane were urged not to enter floodwaters because of the risk of illness after sewage plants along the river were inundated.

Death toll from Rio de Janeiro flood reaches 537

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 14-- The death toll from the flood which devastated Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state this week has reached 537, local authorities said Friday.

According to the authorities, the flood is considered the worst natural disaster in Rio's history.

Authorities warned the death toll will keep rising, as hundreds of people are reportedly missing, feared buried under the mud and rocks. The access to at least four municipalities is still blocked, making it more difficult for rescue workers to reach the victims.

Electricity has yet to be restored in thousands of households. Water distribution and telephone services are scarce, and in some areas, communication is being carried out by radio.


Some 13,000 people had to leave their homes, and about half of those are currently in improvised shelters in schools and gyms. The local morgues are completely full, and residents gather in front of the buildings, hoping to locate their relatives and friends.

The chaos increased on Friday after a water tower broke in Nova Friburgo. Many residents got scared, and soon there was a rumor that one of the dams in the city had burst, which prompted people to try to flee.

"It was terrible to deal with such a rumor. Many people were sick," Rio's Vice-governor Luiz Fernando Pezao said.

Several dramatic rescues were made in the past three days.

In Sao Jose do Vale do Rio Preto, 53-year-old Ilair Pereira de Souza was rescued by her neighbors with a rope. She did not manage, however, to save her dog, which was carried away by the water. The scene was filmed by a local TV crew and aired on the main news programs.

"I thought I was going to die there. I asked my neighbors not to let me die there," she said.

In Nova Friburgo, 25-year-old Wellington da Silva Guimaraes and his six-month-old son Nicolas spent 15 hours under tons of mud and concrete before being rescued by firemen. Guimaraes' wife and mother-in-law, however, did not survive.

Rio's population gathered to help the victims of the tragedy. The city's main blood bank is receiving a high number of donors, and is likely to be crowded on the weekend. Over 120 tons of food and hygiene products have already been sent to the damaged areas, and several institutions are collecting clothes and mattresses.

The Brazilian Army sent 400 men to help with the rescue work, and the National Security Force sent 225. The Navy and the Fire Department set up three field hospitals in Nova Friburgo and Teresopolis. Six Army and two Navy helicopters are being used for rescues as well.

On Thursday, President Dilma Rousseff visited Nova Friburgo and promised to help the devastated areas.

She released 780 million reais (462 million U.S. dollars) for the reconstruction of the regions damaged by the floods, which include not only the devastated areas in Rio, but also some towns in the neighboring states of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo.

The rain is continuing in Rio's mountain region, and is expected to last over the weekend.

Source:English.news.cn

Dakar 2011: Chile, Argentina and the Most Dangerous Race

The prevailing image of Chile's Atacama Desert is desolate - the mountainous moonscape where 33 miners were trapped underground for 70 days last year until their triumphant rescue. But the driest place on earth has another side. A miraculous sea of flowers blooms there every few years when rain does fall. And this month, for the third straight year, the 16-day Dakar Rally, arguably the world's most prestigious, grueling and dangerous marathon off-road race, or "raid," is winding much of its way through the Atacama, turning it into a deafening, carnivalesque roar of hundreds of cars, trucks, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. "Seeing [this] up close is the maximum emotion," says Gines Pulgar, who drove 3,000 km (1,864 mls) from southern Chile this week to follow the endurance epic, which ends on Sunday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

What South Americans like Pulgar thought would be just a temporary spectacle could become a permanent, and lucrative, fixture on their continent. Until a couple years ago the Dakar, first held in 1978, had been a European-African rally raid, run from Paris to Dakar, Senegal (with vehicles ferried across the Strait of Gibraltar), and back again. But terrorism concerns in North Africa, which forced cancellation of the 2008 running, prompted the race's overseer, the French Amaury Sports Organization, to find a new locale, at least provisionally. (See pictures of this year's Dakar rally.)

Argentina and northern Chile offered the right, challenging terrain - free of security threats - and the rally picked up again in the New World in 2009. This year it's a 9,618 km (5,976 mls), 13-stage odyssey that started on Jan. 1 in Buenos Aires. It headed through the sierras that separate the two countries, looping through the Atacama to Chile's Pacific coast, and finishes back in B.A. on Jan. 16. The drivers and riders locate designated points with little more than maps and compasses. (Comment on this story.)

Some of the rally's most exciting moments have come in the Chilean desert, near the dusty mining town of CopiapÓ - the only city to play host to legs of the rally all three years it's been held in South America - where the punishing sun and topography have put numerous entrants out of the running. This year's 9th and 10th stages were a tortuous route of mountains and dunes from Antofogasta, Chile, through CopiapÓ and back into Argentina, forcing out veteran drivers like Team Hummer's Eliseo Salazar, 57, of Chile, who blew his transmission in the soft sand. "It was brutal," he says. But the region "is the heart of the Dakar," says NicolÁs Noman Garrido, governor of the Atacama province. "I won't even speculate about the possibility of [the rally] not returning next year." (See pictures of a half-century of Daytona.)

Indeed, rally officials confirmed on Friday that next year's Dakar will be held again in Argentina and Chile. "South America has projected the Dakar in its popular historic dimension," says Dakar Deputy Director FrÉdÉric Lequien. "Argentina and Chile are most welcoming territory for the Dakar... and for them [the race] is a global showcase."

So much so that Peru, Bolivia and Brazil have expressed interest in hosting a stretch of the Dakar themselves. That's largely because the showcase brings cases of money. There really is no prize to be won in the Dakar; the more than 400 teams that participate do it not for cash but cachet. But many of them, with power sponsors like BMW, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and Hummer, and famous racers like NASCAR and Indy 500 star Robby Gordon, spend millions of dollars for the souped-up vehicles, crews, equipment, transport and lodging a serious run requires. "This is a rich man's sport," says Roger Willis, one of a dozen members of Gordon's Hummer crew. (Mechanical failure forced Gordon to drop out last week near the Argentina-Chile border.) Argentina paid $5 million to host the Dakar this year - and expects to see a return of $170 million. The region around CopiapÓ expects 15,000 visitors spending almost $10 million. (See pictures of the Chilean miners.)

In stark contrast to the opulence of the big-name camps that pitched tents outside CopiapÓ - and whose trucks open like garage doors revealing replacement tires and myriad drawers full of neatly labeled tools - is the thrift of off-road enthusiasts like architect Juan Carlos Unzue. Like most South America racing fans who never thought they'd see a rally of Dakar's caliber held there, Unzue, 48, sold a plot of land near his home in Villa ConstituciÓn, Argentina, to finance his lifelong dream of riding alongside the world's best racers. He's fallen from his motorcycle twice, and he was even robbed in broad daylight waiting for a light to change in Jujuy, Argentina. Still, he's beaming. "I ran across somebody on Robby Gordon's team," says Unzue, "and he told me, 'You have bigger balls than we do, you're out here without a team.' They couldn't believe it."

And for good reason. Each stage of the Dakar is a slow weeding-out process where vehicles break down irreparably; drivers break limbs, lose their bearings and sometimes flirt with death. (In fact, 49 Dakar racers have been killed in its 32-year history.). That drama fascinates locals like Pulgar, a seaweed packer, who's brought his son in their purple 1955 Ford to catch every turn of the Dakar in Chile. Their lips are chapped and faces burnt. But, says Pulgar, "I didn't want to miss my chance to experience this with my son. I didn't want to say the Dakar was here and we missed it." Chances are the world's top rally raid will roar through their backyard for years to come.