Call it a great public victory or the success of pressure groups, but the Sarawak government has decided against relocating the Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum.

This monument of historical significance to Sibu's largely Foochow community was initially to have made way for the expansion of the Sibu Town Square project.

The project by the Wawasan 2020 Team, comprising Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, has the approval of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, and is touted as a major move to beautify and modernise the town.

Malaysiakini has learnt that the memorial museum, which occupies part of the original hospital complex, is to be incorporated into the plans for Phase 2 of the project.

On July 24, State Urban Development and Tourism Minister Wong Soon Koh announced that government was bowing to public pressure.

Sibu people,especially its largely Foochow residents, are sentimental about the hospital built on land contributed in the 1930s by a wealthy Foochow businessman, Lau King Howe.

This was after Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, the third and last White Rajah, gave approval for a hospital to be built.

The hospital received its first patient in 1937 and closed its doors in 1994 after a new government hospital was built. Part of the complex was subsequently turned into the memorial museum.

When it was announced the museum was to be relocated to give way to the expansion project, there was a hue and cry from various groups.

For several years, community leaders, doctors, NGOs, associations and guilds, and many heritage-conscious residents have been registering strong opposition against its relocation.

'Work together'

Reacting to this, DAP state chairperson Wong Ho Leng said today: "The announcement shows the importance of pressure groups working against wrong decisions of the BN government."

"It is yet another example that DAP stands together with the vast majority of the people in Sibu who want to see the preservation of something important, significant and relevant.

"It also shows that, when there is unity in making a just demand, the government will have to reconsider its decision making process and bow to pressure."

He said the site of the hospital should have been legally designated a historical site and preserved as such.

"Instead, BN leaders allowed the site to be converted into a town square, thus defeating and defying the fundamental purpose and object of the 1993 Ordinance."

Earlier, BN local leaders had said the removal of the memorial museum was "unavoidable".

TONY THIEN is malaysiakini's Sarawak-based stringer.