Hostile takeover

AS HEADMAN, Ladon anak Edieh allowed a state agency to start an agriculture pioneering project on his community’s land in Sungai Bawan in the Mukah division of Sarawak.

That was in the mid-1970s when the Sarawak Land Development Board (SLDB) introduced one of the earliest oil palm cultivation schemes on Iban communal land.

Rumah Ladon (Iban longhouses are named after the headmen) and 21 other longhouse communities agreed to the project, based on the official guarantee that respected their native customary rights (NCR) over the land.

The communities were duly consulted and SLDB even conducted rituals according to the people’s adat in obtaining consent for use of the land.

In 1975, it was agreed that a tasih (a token sum) of RM50 per acre for a total area of 9,800 acres for a period of 25 years was to be paid by SLDB. The villagers understood that the land would be returned to them upon expiry of the lease in 2000.

The Ibans of Sungai Bawan, Mukah, Sarawak, protesting the alienation of their land. The communities of 22 longhouses later filed a suit, naming the Sarawak State Government among the defendants. – Picture courtesy of WONG MENG CHUO

Years later, the villagers discovered that the Sarawak government issued a new provisional lease in 1989 to SLDB that not only covered the land cultivated by SLDB but extended over the longhouses, burial grounds and communal farmlands. This time around, there was no consultation, compensation nor were there any measures taken to extinguish the villagers' rights in accordance with the Sarawak Land Code.

Ladon’s son, Ambun, like others from the other longhouses, discovered that the land had been sold to an entity called Sarawak Plantation Agriculture Development Sdn Bhd (SPAD).

New seedlings were planted by SPAD but the company did not reply to letters from the communities – not until they erected a blockade in November 2005.

“When we put up the blockade, we were arrested and put in the police lock-up. Eleven of us were detained for two weeks, some were even re-arrested,” recalled Ambun.

A suit was filed in March last year against SLDB, the Superintendent for Lands and Surveys for Mukah Division and the State Government.

Ambun was one of three community leaders from the Iban tribe who attended the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Kuala Lumpur recently.

The Sungai Bawan Ibans’ experience appears to be the norm in Sarawak, as documented in the report Land is Life: Land Rights and Oil Palm Development in Sarawak launched at the RSPO meeting.

The report revealed more than 100 legal cases where indigenous people are suing the government and companies for violations of their customary land rights. Over one-third of these cases involve oil palm development.

One of the four authors, Sarawak researcher Wong Meng Chuo, said the abuses committed by oil palm development by both state and private entities contradicted the standards developed under the RSPO initiative.

The report concluded that if Sarawak palm oil is not to be excluded from international markets, major changes in laws, policies and practices are required.

Communities in Kalimantan, Indonesia, are facing similar problems of land grabbing. Indonesian legislation classifies the ancestral domain as state-owned forests and the state retains control over the land.

Asmara Syahputra, 23, told a press conference organised by Sawit Watch that a RSPO member started planting on his communal land in 1996. When the community of Dayak Banuaq in Kutai Barat, Kalimantan sought to regain their land, they were intimidated, arrested and subjected to inhuman treatment.

Similar testimonies were made by four other indigenous representatives from other parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Nurbaya Zulhakim of Jambi said RSPO should learn from the experiences of timber certification schemes that failed to address land tenure disputes.

Sawit Watch has, until mid-2007, registered 500 cases of communities facing encroachment upon their lands by oil palm companies.

Leading 10 other local NGOs and one foreign group, Sawit Watch had submitted a request last August, to a United Nations agency charged with eliminating racial discrimination, seeking its intervention in the eroded rights of indigenous people in Kalimantan.

The request was submitted in relation to plans to establish oil palm plantation along 850km of the Indonesia-Malaysia border as part of the Kalimantan Border Oil Palm Mega Project. This area is part of the traditional territories of Kalimantan’s Dayak community.

Being very much self-regulatory in nature, the RSPO is regarded as just the first step. RSPO president Jan-Kees Vis acknowledged that it was impossible to resolve all outstanding conflicts as “we don’t have all the answers”.

However, the 198-member grouping has listed “engaging the governments” as a challenge to move forward. - The Star Online

Sarawak NCR landowners protest company let-down

Tony Thien | Dec 5, 08 10:48am

Owners of native customary rights (NCR) land, representing more than 220 people from two Iban longhouses in Ulu Niah, Miri, protested in front of the Kuching High Court yesterday.

Holding up placards, the group of about 100 expressed anger over the failure of a plantation company to honour its promises to them.

They had signed a joint venture in 1997 with KTS Group subsidiary Niamas Istimewa Sdn Bhd and Sarawak Land Development Board, a statutory body and a shareholder of Sarawak Plantations Bhd, to develop 2,508 hectares of NCR land for oil palm.

Under the Konsep Baru land development scheme, the landowners would hold 30 percent of the equity, the government agency 10 percent and a private investor 60 percent.

Spokesperson Changgai anak Dali said Niamas Istimewa Sdn Bhd had made an initial payment of 10 percent of the agreed sum.

However, he said it has not paid a single cent of the 30 percent by way of unit trust shares to the landowners over the last nine years, even though the harvested oil palm has brought returns to the joint-venture (JV) company.

The landowners have also learned that 10 percent of the equity of the JV company has since been sold to the private investor without their knowledge.

Changgai, 57, told Malaysiakini that the group had asked Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu and State Land Development Minister James Masing to intercede for them, but that there has been no result.

Complaint of encroachment

The landowners, who had travelled from Miri by bus, took the opportunity to mount the protest while in Kuching to lend support to Changgai who is facing a legal suit filed by another company.

Plantation company BLD Resources Sdn Bhd had applied for an injunction to prevent him from entering land under a provisional lease (PL), which it had obtained by the state government.

In 2005, the Land and Survey Department had issued the company a PL known as Lot 91 Sawai Land District, covering1,803 hectares, for oil palm cultivation.

Changgai is alleged to have trespassed on about 80 hectares within the area by planting it with food crops and oil palm.

The case was heard in chambers yesterday before Judicial Commissioner Abdul Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, who allowed an adjournment.

This was on application by the plaintiff’s counsel George Lo on the ground that the suit should include the Sarawak government which issued the PL.

Changgai is represented by Miri-based Orang Ulu NCR lawyer Harrison Ngau (photo-left).

Other residents of Changgai’s longhouse will file a separate suit against the company for encroaching on what they claim to be NCR land within the PL area.

It was agreed to consolidate all the cases for hearing on Jan 13 next year.