An open letter to James Masing

Hornbill Unleashed
By SKY (Sim Kwang Yang)
email: Kenyalang578@hotmail.com

Dear James,

You have been reported by the Borneo Post online (31.3.2009) as blaming Jawah Garang for the lack of development in Batang Ai, because Jawah did not lobby for projects during his five terms as MP.

This sort of political narrative from a personal friend of 25 years astonishes me. Surely a person with such academic credential and long record in politics like you can say something more inspiring?

Development projects are a right to be enjoyed by tax payers, and not candies to be dangled by the ruling parties in any election to fish for votes.

Ibans are tax-payers too

The poor Iban in Batang Ai may not pay much in income tax, because they are so poor in cash income. But for everything they buy, such as daily necessities, farm tools, fertilizers, fuel, machinery, construction materials, food, clothing, seeds, and everything they need, they pay the excise tax, sales tax, and the import tax already hidden in the retail price.

The only tax-free things they enjoy are the air they breathe. As tax-paying citizens, they have the basic human right to development in basic infrastructure.

Social Contract

Then there is the social contract. I do not mean the silly social contract that UMNO refers to. I mean the one proposed by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, whom you must have read in your pursuit of a Ph. D.

That contract is a theoretical construct, but its does offer the ground for the legitimacy of government.

There, a government is legitimate morally as long as it looks after the personal security, the prosperity, and the natural rights of citizens. When that government fails in its duty to the governed, then the people have the right to change the government – by a revolution even according to Locke.

Therefore, it is the duty of the federal and state government to provide basic development to the people of Batang Ai, even without the MP lobbying for it! That is what a government for the people, by the people, and of the people is supposed to do.

No money?

You may offer the lame excuse that Sarawak is too vast, with over 5000 villagers spread in isolation. It is too expensive to provide basic infrastructure to all poor Sarawakian in the rural area.

How about the money generated from the timber wealth? How can they be channeled to the people rather than a few connected individuals? How about the profit generated by land use for plantation purposes? These are within the jurisdiction of the Sarawak state government after all.

How about the fantastic wealth generated by Sarawak’s indigenous oil and gas? Since you and your state government are so good at lobbying, why have you not lobbied for 20% royalty from the black gold beneath our feet?

Look at the West

In West Malaysia, electricity supply has reached 95% of the population. I think clean water and road access are about that figure. I do not like UMNO, but let’s give them credit for making some real change in rural Malaya. In the Klang Valley, the per capita income is something like RM 5000 per month! Lim Guan Eng has just announced that there are no longer cases of hard-core poverty in Penang State. Somehow, some of the money used in developing Malaya must have come from revenue from Sarawak oil and gas?

In contrast, 80% of the Iban probably make less than RM 1000 per year.

Since you and your colleagues in the Sarawak BN are such effective lobbyists, can you please get some more funds from UMNO to eradicate poverty in Sarawak?

You and Sarawak BN have a powerful bargaining chip. You can threaten to withdraw support for the BN at the federal level, and help Pakatan Rakyat form the next federal government. After all, UMNO now depends on you guys to hold on to power in Putrajaya!

Many years ago, you told me in a private conversation that the Dayaks cannot be in the opposition. When I started in politics in 1978 in Bandar Kuching, many Chinese voters told me the same thing too.

This is where we disagree. The Dayaks can be in an opposition that can take power to become the government for the sake, not only of the Dayaks, but also for justice for all Sarawakians and all Malaysians.

I am now a private citizen and a pensioner. The Borneo Post would probably not print my letter. So I have to print it here, in cyberspace. I hope one of the readers will send it directly to you

If you choose to reply, please send it to my email below. I promise you it will be published here in full and without censorship. Then we can have a frank debate between two fellow Anak Sarawak, just as we did about two decades ago in the media on the Bakun Dam.

Good health to you and your family,


Yours truly,

Sim Kwang Yang

(Kenyalang578@hotmail.com)

Bawin: Not one Dayak leader is sincere

Andrew Ong | Mar 7, 09 11:23am

When Nicholas Bawin, a Sarawak PKR Dayak leader was asked whether he could name any Dayak leader whom he thinks is sincerely looking after the interests of the community in the state, he paused for a moment and declared “None”.

“None I can think of who can be considered exemplary in steering the Dayaks towards further progress and development,” he said during an appearance on Mkini.tv ‘Uncensored’ talkshow last week.

Asked whether he has any confidence in the current crop of Dayak leaders in power today to help the community, Bawin said “some may have tried to help but I don’t see them achieving much success”.

“Compared to the other races, the Dayaks are lagging far behind economically. And in education too. I feel sorry for our community,” Bawin said.

Bawin, the Sarawak PKR deputy liaison committee chairperson, explained that it was for this reason that many far-sighted Dayak leaders and professionals are now in PKR hoping to bring about changes for the betterment of the community.

“We have told our leader Anwar Ibrahim that we are really serious about working towards getting the people to believe and trust in PKR so that the party can be a force to be reckoned with,” he declared to talkshow host Francis Paul Siah.

Taib Mahmud a disappointment

On his views of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, Bawin said it was unfortunate that his group has no chance to meet Taib yet to discuss Dayak issues.

He then related the oft-repeated disappointment with the chief minister, saying that Taib has only enriched his family and cronies while the majority of Sarawakians, especially the Dayaks, get no help from him.

“It is well known that many of his family members, proxies and cronies are all multi-millionaires. Their companies are making millions, some for not doing anything at all. I don’t think this is right,” Bawin lamented.

The Iban from Batang Ai is the front-runner to be the PKR candidate for the April 7 by-election in the constituency. And Bawin is as local as anyone can get in the area - his longhouse is situated just above the Batang Ai dam, so he says.

He revealed that he was in the State PKR candidate selection committee for the Batang Ai by-election and that the party has several credible candidates ready to represent the party in the electoral contest.

Asked whether he should recuse himself from the selection committee since he was also an interested party, Bawin explained that “the final decision will be made by the national PKR leadership.”

He fancies the party's changes in the by-election as he and his party members have been very active in the area for several years. Bawin himself first contested in Batang Ai as far back as 1987. It was on a Sarawak National Party (Snap) ticket then. He did the same in 2006.

"I'm confident that people understand our pursuits and struggles. They can see that we are people who are serious in bringing change," Bawin said.

The urgent reform that Batang Ai folks would be hoping for is changes to how the state government deals with native customary rights (NCR) land issues, he said.

Bawin, a seasoned campaigner for Dayak rights, said many rural folks want to see an end to private companies taking over NCR land while being abetted by the state government

"Even within state land, there are lands that are subject to NCR," he said.

Bawin stressed that land was such an important asset to the Dayaks because without land, the community is nothing. “The fight for NCR land will never end because our customs and traditions must be protected for our future generations", he declared.

In his days with Snap, a BN coalition partner, Bawin had his share of power too. He sat on the board of the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation for 11 years and served as deputy president of the state-run Majlis Adat Istiadat which looks into indigenous affairs from 1992 to 2005.

Dayakism still alive

On PKR, Bawin expressed confidence that the party has the support from young Dayaks and professionals. Many followed him in signing up with the party late last year.

"What makes PKR attractive is that the party has good, credible leaders. Anwar Ibrahim is well known at home and abroad and we have very high hopes in him to lead the country one day," he said.

On his stint with the yet-to-be registered Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC), Bawin said that he had left the party to be part of PKR due to its multi-racial makeup

"You look at the scenario in Malaysia. It is important to have a multi-racial party. We must think big. No matter how strong the Dayaks are, we are still the minority in the country.

"That is why we must join forces with bigger groups which are stronger," said Bawin.

However, he disagreed when the host suggested that the old concept of 'Dayakism' was now dead among the Dayaks in PKR.

"The feeling (of Dayakism) is still the same, but we have to consider that Sarawak is a multi-racial society. We cannot pursue one-race interests. We must change," he added.

Tear down Sarawak's bamboo curtain

Sim Kwang Yang | Jan 3, 09 5:05pm

The banned entry of PKR MP N Gobalakrishnan into Sarawak on Christmas Eve has stirred up a mini-storm in both the Land of the Hornbills and the alternative media in West Malaysia.

Once again, the question on the mind of many Malaysians is this: why should a citizen require a passport or a permit to travel to a territory within the Federation of Malaysia?

To answer this question, we have to revisit the early days shortly before the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

It was a period of intense negotiations, fuelled by fear, confusion, and the imperative for the formation of Malaysia in view of the armed communist insurgency in Sarawak, the threat from the Indonesian Konfrontasi, and the recent armed revolt in Brunei led by Ahmad Azahari that spilled into Sarawak.

There were virulent voices in Sarawak against the Malaysian proposal then, mainly from the Sarawak Communist Party and their political front, the Sarawak United People’s Party (Supp). There was even talk of an alternative new political entity, to be composed of Sarawak, Brunei and the North Borneo Territory, later renamed Sabah.

For most pro-Malaysia political leaders in Sarawak, their greatest motivation was one of fear: the inability of the state to sustain itself on its own steam.

With a population of 800,000, and minuscule state revenue, how would Sarawak build its security forces to protect its territorial integrity? This Achilles’ heel had been made abundantly clear in those turbulent times of armed bloody conflicts in many parts of the state.

Another pull factor for these leaders was the successful land development programmes in Malaya at that time. It was thought at that time that if Sarawak joined Malaysia, the introduction of similar programmes would greatly help in the socio-economic development of this socio-economically backward state.

Then, another fear crept in. Some were worried that if the Sarawak immigration door was thrown open to the rest of the country, there would be a massive influx of West Malaysians, against whom, the yet-to-be-developed Sarawakians could not be able to compete.

Some kind of immigration safeguard was required to protect the interest of Sarawakians in the new federation of Malaysia.

Anti-Malaya resentment persisted today

This and other concerns have led to the signing of the Twenty Point Agreement that formed the basis of confederation of Malaysia, giving special, though limited, autonomy to Sarawak – and Sabah as well.

The sixth point of the Twenty Point Agreement states that:

“Control over immigration into any part of Malaysia from outside should rest with the central government but entry into Sarawak should also require the approval of the state government.

“The federal government should not be able to veto the entry of persons into Sarawak for state government purposes except on strictly security grounds. Sarawak should have unfettered control over the movements of persons other than those in federal government employ from other parts of Malaysia into Sarawak.”

In the 45 years since then, the socio-economic gap between East and West Malaysia has grown wider. The anti-Malaya resentment has persisted until this day.

When I first joined the DAP in 1978, the Chinese voters were told by SUPP not to support a West Malaysian party, a party from “outside”. It took over two decades of hard work, before the first DAP candidates were elected to the Sarawak state assembly.

Even today, I read on Dayak blogs calling for Sarawakians not to join the PKR because it is a political party from the “West”.

Most Sarawakians – including this writer – would support the continued existence of limited autonomy on matters of immigration in Sarawak. A case can perhaps be made for the abolition of such an apparent anomaly only after Sarawak has come to par in social economic development with the Klang Valley.

If it sounds parochial, it also has to be accepted that in a federation of states, regional peculiarity in politics is a fact of life. I should also mention in passing that English is still one of the languages spoken in the Sarawak State Assembly!

It’s an abuse of power

Having said all that, the declaration of Gobalakrishnan as a persona non grata does smack of abuse of power by the Sarawak state government in gaining unfair advantage over opposition parties in the state.

It did not come as a surprise, following the PKR announcement of making Sarawak and Sabah their frontline states amidst speculation of an early Sarawak state general election sometime this year.

PKR is the largest opposition party in the Parliament, and is one of the major partners in the ruling coalition in five peninsular states. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim would become prime minister if he can seize the two jewels in the crown in East Malaysia.

If and when the hoards of the PKR army from West Malaysia descend upon Sarawak during a state general election, it is still to be seen whether the Sarawak BN can fight off such an assault.

Recently, Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Daud Abdul Rahman said that the ban on Gobalakrishnan was an isolated incident, and that in the past, Anwar and Lim Kit Siang had been allowed entry without much ado.

But there have been numerous precedents of such politically motivated ban on entry into Sarawak in the past.

No entry to even Tengku Razaleigh

In 1978, when the DAP crossed the South China Sea and began setting up new branches in Sarawak, DAP national leaders then had been banned too from entering the state at immigration check point.

Lim Kit Siang, Lee Lam Thye, and Karpal Singh had all to be carried on a wheelchair onto the return flight to Kuala Lumpur at the Kuching airport. I should know; I was there 30 years ago at the Kuching International Airport to witness the farce, as the secretary of the newly-formed DAP Kuching branch.

During the 1991 general election in Sarawak, I was the DAP Sarawak state chairman. I had arranged for Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, president of our then political partner Semangat 46, to campaign in some Malay constituencies.

Together with some other Semangat 46 luminaries, Razaleigh too was banned from entering Sarawak!

The latest victim of such a twisted ban has been Suaram director Dr Kua Kia Soong. He was making numerous trips to the interior of Sarawak on many fact-finding missions on the problems faced by the Sarawak indigenous communities. Apparently, his findings were deemed too unfavourable to the state government there.

The Sarawak BN ruling class has also consistently abused this power over immigration to reject local community activists their application for a passport to travel overseas.

Since the early 1990s, and especially after the Rio Earth Summit, Sarawakian NGO personnel and community leaders like Thomas Jalong of the SAM Marudi office, Jok Jau Evong of the Rumah Bawang Residential Association, Gara Jalong of the Long Geng Kenyah community, Raymand Abin of the Borneo Resource Institute (Brimas), Wong Meng Chuo of the Institute for Development and Alternative Living (Ideal) and others have all been denied their passports.

Likewise, NGO activists such as Chee Yok Lin of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) and Meenakshi Raman, (legal adviser of the Consumer’s Association of Penang) as well as several other NGO personnel from the Peninsular and Sabah are still refused entry into Sarawak.

Gobala ban not ‘isolated’ case

The original intention of the limited immigration autonomy bestowed on the Sarawak state government was meant to protect the socio-economic interests of Sarawakians.

But there has been a consistent trend in past decades for the Sarawak BN to abuse it to silence legitimate dissent from both within and without Sarawak. The declaration of the latest ban on a PKR MP as “isolated” is sheer humbug, balderdash, and nincompoop talk.

I am glad that Anwar has been appointed the head of the Sarawak and Sabah PKR.

The splintered and garrulous opposition forces will need a leader of his stature, tenacity, and resourcefulness to forge the widest possible rainbow alliance across ethnic, regional, religious, and party lines for a historic advance towards democracy and justice in these two dictatorial and backward states.

The way forward for Anwar in Sarawak will be fraught with traps, pitfalls, and quicksand.

One of these obstacles is the very real possibility that the state government there will declare him as yet another persona non grata.

In their desperation, the Sarawak BN leaders may even ban most of the Pakatan Rakyat leading lights from entering the state, including such well-known figures as Lim Guan Eng, Khalid Ibrahim and Nik Aziz Nik Mat. They are addicted in a compulsive manner to playing on an uneven field after all.

The PKR and the DAP lawyers in Sarawak would do well to dig out their statue books and law journal articles on this subject now. There must be a way of challenging the state government on their abuse of immigration powers.

At least, the ban on Gobalakrishnan should be filed in court to test the wisdom and the courage of the Borneo High Court.

Win or lose, such a court case would highlight how the Sarawak BN government has abused their control over immigration autonomy to protect their own interest rather than the interest of the Sarawak people.

It would indeed be a revealing statement on how fearful and desperate those Sarawak BN leaders are over the prospect of losing power in Sarawak.

About the Author: SIM KWANG YANG was Bandar Kuching MP from 1982-1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009

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To All Readers, Visitors and Friends all over the world, I wish all of you and your family a Merry and Blessed Christmas, and Happy New year 2009.

For some 2008 will have been their best year and for others not so good. Either way you need to take a break every now and then and this is a great time to do it.

Thank you for all your support this year. I appreciate every comment and all the feedback that I get. Without you there would be no blog.

May 2009 be your best year ever.

Sarawak's renewed political hopes

By Sim Kwang Yang
editor@thenutgraph.com
16 Dec 08 : 8.00AM

Illustration of Dayak people, dated 1864 (Public domain; source: Wikipedia.org)

SARAWAK'S Dayaks seldom feature with any significance in the national imagination of Malaysia, and certainly do not make headlines in the national media. This reflects the political marginalisation of the Dayaks in their home state.

The Dayaks collectively make up nearly half the state's population, and by the logic of communal politics, they should dominate politics in Sarawak. They did, briefly, during the early years of Merdeka, when their political vehicle was the Sarawak National Party, or SNAP. The president of the party then, Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan — an Iban — was the first chief minister of Sarawak, serving from July 1963 to September 1966. He was removed from office by a federally initiated Declaration of Emergency and a constitutional amendment resulting from a protracted constitutional crisis. Since 1970, the office of the chief minister has been held by two Melanau Muslims.

The dream of Dayak leaders since has been the restoration of what they consider their political glory: the installation of a Dayak chief minister. Formed in 1983 as a splinter group from SNAP, the Parti Bangsa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) was the vehicle for this mission. The PBDS applied and was accepted as a member of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

In the Ming Court affair of 1987, the PBDS left the BN and joined forces with Persatuan Rakyat Malaysia Sarawak (Permas) to form the opposition Maju alliance. They mounted a credible challenge to the BN in the subsequent state elections, but failed to dislodge Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud from office. Campaigning on the nationalist slogan of Dayakism, they won 15 seats, but eight of their elected representatives then defected to join SNAP and Taib's Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB).

After another unsuccessful election in 1991, the PBDS finally ran out of gas and rejoined the BN in 1994.

More power struggles

A power struggle within SNAP in 2002 led to its deregistration and the formation of the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), which was registered three days after application.

In 2004, there was another power struggle, this time within the PBDS, following the retirement of their long-serving president, Tan Sri Leo Moggie. Like SNAP, the PBDS was also deregistered; the new splinter, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), was formed and registered on the same day. One year later, there was an open acrimonious power struggle within the PRS, and it was resolved only after April 2008.

Tan Sri Leo Moggie (Source: uniten.edu.my) You have to wonder at the power and efficiency of the Registrar of Societies over the fate of political parties. Does this suggest that there are unseen federal government hands working in collusion with the Sarawak chief minister?

And if you've had the patience to follow this tale of Dayak politics in Sarawak thus far, what kind of impression would you now have of Dayak politicians?

Many of these Dayak politicians are my long-time personal friends, and I would cringe to criticise them in public. I also have a lot of respect for many well-known Dayak leaders, especially Datuk Seri Daniel Tajem. Whatever his faults may be, he has shown tremendous strength of character and personal integrity in his long and difficult political career.

Nevertheless, one has to painfully conclude that in the evolution of Dayak politics, personal ambition, vested interests, and the inability to forge consensus have fractured and destroyed one Dayak political vehicle after another. Today, they are divided into so many miniscule Dayak parties that they have no hope of realising the dream of having a Dayak chief minister. The nationalist spirit of Dayakism has been all but self-extinguished.

That is a pity. The Dayaks are now wallowing in socioeconomic backwardness, and some consider themselves third-class citizens after the Malay-Melanau Sarawakians and the Chinese Sarawakians. Hundreds of thousands of Dayak youths have left their homes in search of better job prospects in Singapore and West Malaysia, leaving the old and the very young in the longhouses. The rural communities have been stripped of their youthful forces for regeneration. In pockets of abject poverty, alcoholism is rife.

Sarawak's new dawn?

Recently though, the Dayak community among the educated class and the longhouse folk have been humming with a new kind of excitement.

Slightly more than a month ago, during a dinner in Sibu organised by Friends of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), 4,000 people of all races turned up to welcome Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. They were also witness to a public ceremony in which Gabriel Adit Demong, the current independent Ngemah state assemblyperson and former vice-president of the now-defunct PBDS, submitted his application to join the PKR. His application form was accompanied by 12,000 others.

Another mammoth 6,000-strong sit-down dinner was planned for 14 Dec 2008 in Miri. The grand finale should culminate in Kuching on 19 Dec, where 8,000 people are expected to turn up to welcome Anwar. The people of Sarawak are now stretching their necks forward to see whether there will be more elected representatives and Dayak voters joining the PKR.

The term of the present Sarawak state assembly will not expire until 2011. There is current speculation, however, that the next state elections may be held as early as 2009. The success of the PKR in the 8 March 2008 general election has made the party attractive to Dayak politicians and their supporters. (© Tryatna Anto / Dreamstime)

But the PKR is a multiracial party. It would mean that the PKR and Dayakism are mutually exclusive. Perhaps the brand of Dayakism portrayed by the PBDS ought to be laid to rest anyway. Only by building meaningful bridges with other ethnic communities can the Dayaks lift themselves from their political and socioeconomic limbo. In that context, the PKR is indeed a suitable vehicle for the redemption of Dayak politics.

To dethrone Taib and replace the Sarawak BN as the next state government, there must be a congruence of all opposition forces within the state. The divisive bickering between opposition blocs must now indeed end for a new dawn of democracy in the Land of the Hornbill.

The Dayaks of Sarawak will then make headlines again

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.