Another blunder by the Forest Department!

The following story confirms another blunder by the Forest Department, which has been ignoring the plight of the natives. It is only interested to make the cronies and families of ministers rich, richer richest, and the people poor, poorer and poorest. It happens in Sebangan and Sebuyau and everywhere. The Batang Rajang logjam is one of the aftermaths of indiscriminate logging.

Read the following story which appeared in The Borneo Post on November 6, 2010:

Revoke two timber licences – Malcolm

MALCOLM Mussem Lamoh (BN-Batang Ai) has appealed to the Forest Department to revoke two timber licences with immediate effect.

He said the licences issued had violated the native customary rights (NCR) over land in his constituency.

“The issuance of two timber licences on NCR land under Peranan Megamas Sdn Bhd and Mastika Jaya Plantation Sdn Bhd has affected SK Nanga Aup and six longhouses namely Danau, Ng. Kumpang, Bukong, Kandis, Kampung Paoh and Kampung Langgir.

“As those longhouses residents have been there for 13 generations, definitely some of their ‘temuda’, ‘pala umai’ and ‘tembawai’ may look like primary forests,” he said when debating the Supply (2011) yesterday.

Mussem pointed out that not much timber could be extracted from these areas except for isolated ‘pulau galau’ within the licensed areas.

“The revenues that can be collected by the government would not be enough to compensate for the physical damage to their land and crops.

“Moreover, disturbance will be brought about to the river ecosystem and pollution that will seriously affect the gravity-fed water supply for those longhouses,” he said.

He added that most of the affected land had been earmarked by the landowners for oil palm plantation with Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) and development of rubber estates with the Sarawak Farmers’ Organisation.

He also urged the department to be more prudent in issuing timber licences within NCR land where prior field verifications and consultations with the landowners should be done.

The Forest department must not solely rely on aerial photographs and outdated maps over the intended areas, he said.

“The special conditions attached to these types of licences should be properly explained to the affected communities and rigorously monitored by the relevant authorities to ensure the rights of the landowners would not be violated,” Mussem said.- The Broken Shield.

S'wak PKR cries foul over two incidents

Taken from http://malaysiakini.com/news/101899

Barisan National has won the Batang Ai by-election, but the polling was marred by two alleged incidents according to the PKR. One incident supposedly involved phantom voters and the other was about padlocks on ballot boxes being tampered with.

In the first incident, two 40-seater buses and a van, said to have been used for ferrying voters from various parts of the state, stopped near one polling station, SRK Lubok Antu, where they were allegedly carrying voters there to cast their votes before the polling station closed at 5pm.

According to a PKR leader, Dominique Ng, he received a telephone call from a party member telling him that the vehicles were used for ferrying what he believed to be phantom voters.

By the time, the PKR leader and his supporters arrived at the scene, one of the buses had taken off with its passengers while the other was waiting for its passengers to come out from the polling station.

Ensuring a clean electoral process

Ng, who is the Batang Ai PKR coordinator, lodged a complaint with the local police chief and also a senior election officer.

Later, Ng and other PKR people went to a nearby police station and also had a discussion with officials for about 20 minutes inside the SMK Lubok Antu polling station.

Emerging from the meeting, Ng said that he had a list of 50 of those who boarded the bus and managed to check 15 identity cards. They came from Kuching, Mukah and Kanowit. The rest did not furnish their identity cards and no one could ascertain whether they were genuine voters or not.

However, these people informed Ng that they were employees of Kemas. PKR then lodged a complaint that they were suspicious that these people were either phantom voters or they used some other people’s identity cards.

They took action to ensure a clean electoral process especially when the party had complained earlier about the security during the transportation of ballot boxes from 14 polling stations.

The complaint on the ballot boxes was not entertained so PKR decided to purchase separate padlocks to ensure the integrity of these boxes were not compromised.

Ng said that when the boxes were about to be opened later it was found only one original padlock was intact.

Meanwhile, PKR leaders and supporters said they were in state of shock and disbelief at the initial results of the counting involving 15 out of 26 polling districts with a total electorate of 8,129 voters.

Counting started at 3pm after the ballot boxes from the 14 polling stations arrived either by road or helicopter at the tallying centre at Lubok Antu.

News from Batang Ai (Part 13)

The daily update of news

from Batang Ai by-election

----------------------------------

1. Ambrose Labang resigns from PKR

Julau division chairman of PKR Ambrose Labang and his deputy, secretary and a committee member resigned today from Parti Keadilan Rakyat. He went to the BN operations centre at Batang Ai just to announce their resignations.

The three others are Wong Kee Kai (deputy), Kajang Unan (secretary) and Kundi Untung (a committee member).

He said that the PKR would never be able to carry out development programmes or help the people. People in the rural areas need the BN as such they should not waste their times any more with PKR.

Well, actually it is good that Ambrose Labang resigning from PKR so that it can find better candidates for Meluan and Pakan constituencies, because if we sabong this “manok labang”, he has no “tuah”, except “tuah chelaka”.


2. Tan Sri Khalid, Menteri Besar Selangor, visits Lubok Antu again

Menteri Besar Selangor, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, arrived this evening (5 April) at Batang Ai and his programme is to campaign at Mepi Pasir tonight. Early in the afternoon he campaigned at Changkol.

This is Tan Sri’s second visit. His first visit was on nomination day (29 March). Tan Sri Khalid is very determined to see that Dayak rights are returned to the Dayaks, but what is sad is that, not many Dayaks who have been vocal all this while, are seen at the Batang Ai. Jawah needs all of us to help him defend Dayak rights.


3. Jabu eats his own words

Deputy president of PBB Alfred Jabu anak Numpang last month accused de facto leader of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Anwar Ibrahim of disrespecting the Iban Adat when visiting a longhouse. As a result, Jabu said one person died.

The Iban adat is that when a visitor of high standing visits a longhouse he must be accorded an Iban adat including miring (offerings) and genselan (part of the offerinfgs), so that his visit to the longhouse will bring luck to the longhouse folks. Fair enough.

Now, so many “outsiders” including a number of federal ministers have come to the longhouse to “mess with the Ibans” (to borrow Jabu’s words). The question is: did Jabu arrange these VIPs to undergo these miring and genselan rites? If not why not? For genselan (slaughtering of animals to clean the feet) the Ibans normally used a pig. For a non-Iban could a cow or goat be used?

Genselan is also used to see the liver of the pig. If the liver is long and sharp, it can mean a good omen; a dull and short mean bad luck. BN candidate on the nomination day did use a pig as genselan. Its liver was not seen and further more when Mussen speared the pig, the pig came out a live? Could it mean a bad luck?


4. Final push to win votes

If your read today’s The Borneo Post, all the pages were covered by pro-BM news, indicating a “confirmed” victory for the BN. “BN will win Batang Ai” says the heading in the Post which quoted UMNO vice president Mohd. Shafie Apdal as saying.

Yes for sure, Jawah Gerang is an underdog, but he may spring the biggest surprise. Wait until 8.00 pm on 7 April.

More news to come...stay tune to www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com

News from Batang Ai (Part 10)

The daily update of news
from Batang Ai by-election
----------------------------------

1. Dayak bloggers now known as Specialist instigators

While describing Dayak bloggers as “specialist instigators”, deputy president of Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB) Alfred Jabu Anak Numpang called on the people not to read too much into the blogs as most of the issues written were “cooked-up stories”.

Contents of the bloggers’ information had no quality as what they could do was to “sabong” people hoping that others would turn against BN, thus weakening it.

Of late these bloggers had pitted him against Parti Rakyat (PRS) president James Masing, making people think that he and Masing were now quarrelling.

“They should know that it was I who proposed to the BN that Masing should become the director of operations in the Batang Ai by-election,” said Jabu, who is deputy chief minister.

The Broken Shield highlighted a spat between Jabu and Masing over certain billboards which only carried the PRS symbol and the photographs of its leaders. Confronting Masing, Jabu asked why other symbols of BN component parties and their leaders were not included. Masing explained that in certain areas such as in SALCRA oil palm schemes the PRS symbol was more effective.

I would have thought that since Jabu had been praising SALCRA for successfully turning the scheme participants into “wealth-to-do families”, Jabu’s pictures should be more than a welcome by the participants and the voters. But why the participants hate Jabu?


2. Ting’s statement on SNAP described as “rubbish”

SNAP secretary general Stanley Jugol has rubbished the statement made by the deputy president of Sarawak national Party (SNAP), Ting Ling Kiew that he had the support of the majority of CEC members who wanted to rejoin the Barisan Nasional and had thrown their support to the BN candidate in Batang Ai by-election.

Jugol who is currently campaigning for the Opposition candidate in Batang Ai said that the majority of the CEC members were with him and the president, Edwin Dundang.

“Every one of the CEC members contacted me and assured me that they do not wish to return to the BN,” said Jugol.

Ting’s claim that he had the support of the CEC members were mere “rubbish”, he added.


3. No proof that government had taken people’s NCR land?

The Opposition is harping on the land issues by accusing Barisan Nasional of seizing the people’s native customary rights (NCR) land but none could prove the allegations, said Barisan Nasional youth chairman, Fadillah Yusof.

Although the state government had given those who claimed that their NCR lands had been seized the opportunity to provide evidence, no one had come forward until now, he said.

“These baseless allegations will go on and they will try other things, seen or unseen to win people’s support during this campaign,” Fadillah said.

Fadillah must be out of touch. And we cannot blame him since he lives in Kuala Lumpur after being appointed to the post of deputy minister of science, technology and innovation.

Fadillah, there are ample proofs, if you care to check with the Court where the NCR land owners have filed, up to now, nearly 200 cases against the government.

There were also demonstrations and land owners arrested by Police for defending their lands. All these were being published in newspapers. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of land including NCR land in Simunjan have been given to Narodeen Majais, in Samarahan to Taib’s brother-in-law and in Betong, Sri Aman and Limbang to Jabu’s son and cronies.

Fadillah can lie and fool the kampong people, but not their children many of them are professionals.


4. Rayong campaigns for BN

Johnichal Rayong was addressing a gathering at a longhouse when Jawah Gerang arrived. He went straight to Rayong and asked him if he had joined Barisan Nasional.

He told Jawah and those present that he had not joined the Barisan Nasional. “Nama nuan tu kampen ke Barisan Nasional?” Rayong felt embarrassed and left immediately. Jawah then took over and addressed the people.

Any YB wanting to defect to the Barisan Nasional is sure to be accepted immediately. But for Rayong, his application to become a political frog has been put on hold since May last year. Any way he behaves like a BN YB and is being used by Alfred Jabu to fool the people of Batang Ai and Engkilili.


5. The battle of the “outsiders”

Both Jawah Gerang, the PKR candidate and Malcolm Mussen, the BN candidate are contesting for the Batang Ai constituency in this by-election.

They are considered as “outsiders” of Batang Ai as both of them are from the state constituency of Engkilili. Between the two, Jawah is better known because he had served the Batang Ai for five terms as the Lubok Antu Member of Parliament.

But for Mussen, he is a greenhorn and is a stranger to the voters of Batang Ai. No wonder, many people in Batang Ai keep on asking, Mussen who?


6. Message to all the ex-PBDS leaders

This is a special message to all leaders of the defunct Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) who have remained partyless. Please come to Lubok Antu and assist Jawah Gerang in this by-election against the State BN regime which is robbing our people of their NCR land. Let us all help Jawah Gerang to win. In this way we are not only displaying our solidarity and unity, we are also at the same time reviving the spirit of Dayakism.

Datuk Sri Daniel Tajem (pic), the last president of PBDS before it was deregistered, is now in Lubok Antu leading the way to help Jawah.

Remember who destroyed PBDS. Remember who are against the registration of Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC). This is the time we punish those traitors to the Dayak community by voting against their crony.

More to come…stay tune to www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com

Selection of Mussen: what transpired behind the scene?

PRS president Datuk Seri James Jemut Masing holding a photograph of

Malcolm Mussen anak Lamoh, who is BN Sarawak's choice for

the Batang Ai state by-election. - Picture by NIK HARIFF HASSAN

Picture credit: http://www.nst.com.my

Now it is finally known that Malcolm Mussen is the BN candidate for the Batang Ai by-election. Apart from Mussen, the man who is very happy is the President of Parti Rakyat (PRS) James Masing who really fights for Mussen to be his party’s candidate.

Although Mussen’s selection appeared to be unanimous, yet no one knows what transpired behind the scene. Even when Masing entered the meeting room he was not so sure whether his nomination might be accepted as there were names nominated, one by Deputy Chief Minister and deputy president of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Alfred Jabu anak Numpang and the other by Donald Lawan, a businessman with a strong PBB connection. The Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud admitted he had received a number of names for consideration by the Barisan Nasional.

According to Masing, only Mussen’s name was discussed. And during the meeting, Jabu was unusually quiet; normally he was very critical and vocal. Even at the end of the meeting, Chief Minister noticed that Jabu was very quiet and he was heard to have commented: “Fred manah meeting sehari tu nadai maioh jaku” (Fred, it is good to have a meeting today with little discussions).

Jabu’s unusual quietness puzzled BN members at the meeting. Was Jabu unhappy because his “manok sabong” could not fight? Or did the chief minister tell him off and not to disturb Masing’s candidate? - The Broken Shield

Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com