Several factors have been attributed to the outbreak of violence: the widespread belief that the sultans collaborated with Dutch colonial forces; resentment of the aristocratic class, and tension between ethnic and non-ethnic Malays.
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Usman was born the fourth of nine children in Mersam, Batanghari, Sumatra in 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia from a union between his father, H. Usman Abul, of Minangkabau descent and his mother, Cholijah, who was Malayu.
They make up the 5th largest ethnic group in Sarawak, after the Ibans, Chinese, Malays and Bidayuh.