Rosli Dhoby

Rosli Dhoby (18 March 1932 – 2 March 1950) was a Sarawakian nationalist from Sibu who, as a leading member of the secret anti-cession organisation Rukun 13, assassinated Duncan George Stewart, the second governor of the British Crown Colony of Sarawak, in December 1949. He was hanged at Kuching on 2 March 1950, a fortnight before his eighteenth birthday. ^{1 2 3}

He was born at House No. 94, Kampung Pulo in Sibu, the second child and elder son of Dhoby bin Buang, a Sibu Malay washerman of Kalimantan descent, and Habibah binti Haji Lamit, of a Sambas Malay family long settled in Mukah. He worked at the Sarawak Public Works Department, resigning in 1949 when the colonial government issued Circular No. 9, attended morning classes as a standard-six pupil, and taught evening classes at the Sekolah Rakyat religious school in Sibu. ¹

He became vice secretary of the Sibu Malay Youth Movement and then, in 1948, one of the founding circle of Rukun 13 under Awang Rambli. At the founding meeting a passage from Surah Ya Sin was read and those present swore an oath of secrecy. The organisation aimed to resist the cession of Sarawak to the British Crown, and Rosli was chosen to kill the new governor because the British would not expect an attempt by so young a person. Under the pen name Lidros he had already published a nationalist poem, "Panggilan Mu yang Suchi" (Your Divine Call), in the newspaper Utusan Sarawak on 28 February 1949. On 3 December 1949 he stabbed Governor Duncan George Stewart at Sibu; the governor died of his wounds. ^{1 2}

Rosli was tried and hanged at Kuching Central Prison on 2 March 1950, together with Morshidi Sidek, Awang Ramli and Bujang Suntong. The four were buried without markers within the prison grounds, where their remains lay for 46 years; on 2 March 1996 they were reburied with a state funeral at the Sarawak Warriors' Mausoleum (Makam Pahlawan) near the Sibu divisional mosque. ^{2 3}