Kpg. Wawasan residents appeal to govt

MIRI: Twenty-two families of Kampung Wawasan in Suai, Niah in the Miri division, have made a passionate appeal to the state government to urgently take the necessary action to exclude all the land that they have occupied and cultivated from the provisional lease issued to Mega Jutamas Sdn Bhd.

The said area which is about 250 acres is known as Lot 95 Sawai Land District which is used by the company to plant oil palm.

“We, the residents of Kampung Wawasan, Suai, Niah, Miri Division, Sarawak wish to appeal to the Sarawak State Government to exclude all the land which we have occupied and cultivated from the provisional lease issued to Mega Jutamas Sdn. Bhd,” said Edi Anak Ingah, Secretary of the Village Security and Development committee.

He said that Mega Jutamas is owned by a few shareholders who are already ‘multi-millionaires’ and who also owned other companies which have already been given thousands of hectares of State land by the Sarawak Government for loggings and oil palm plantations in various places in Sarawak including in Niah and Suai areas.

For these few individual ‘multi-millionaires’ they only need the land in Lot 95 to make additional business and profits, he said.

“But for us, this land is our only land on which we and our family members have built our houses and which we have cultivated productively with food and cash crops.

“Therefore, this land is our only shelter, source of food and income,” said Edi.

Edi’s statement came in the wake of a court case October 5, 2011 in which the villagers failed to claim the land from the company.

The villagers are waiting for the written judgment before deciding whether to appeal to the higher courts or not.

Edi added: “This is the time and opportunity for the Government to prove to us and all Malaysians that its promise of "1MALAYSIA – Rakyat Didahulukan (people first)” is real and not a mere empty election slogan whereby in practice, it is the already super rich towkays who are being ‘didahulukan’ or given priority.

“In our case, we were the ones who have lived on or occupied and cultivated the land much earlier. The provisional lease was only issued to the said company many years later.

“We have also continued to live on or occupy and cultivate the land until today with the encouragement of the Government and its agencies,” he said.

Edi said that before the provisional lease was issued, the people have repeatedly applied for the land which applications were supported by our elected representatives, namely, YB Dato Seri Tiong King Sing, (MP for Bintulu) and YB Datuk Dr Stephen Rundi, (ADUN for Kemena) who are both from the ruling coalition parties (BN).

The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) which has a representative from the Sarawak Government has also assisted them by granting them licences to harvest and sell their oil palm fruits from their gardens.

The Subis District Council has also charged or collected levies in lieu of rates for our oil palm gardens.

The village committee has also been approved by the District Office and their Tuai Rumah has been officially invited as their Tuai Rumah to attend or participate in official functions, he said.

Further, the provisional lease issued to the company was issued subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study to be undertaken by the said company.

The EIA Report has been prepared and submitted to the Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB) which members, include the Chief Minister and Minister of Planning and Resource Management as Chairman, the State Secretary as Deputy Chairman, the State Attorney General, the Director of Lands and Surveys, the Director of Forests and the Director of Agriculture.

“Most importantly, the EIA Report approved by the NREB expressly and specifically requires that the areas (in Lot 95) are to be conceded to the plantation for development and areas to be left undisturbed (where required) must be clearly defined and agreed upon by all parties concerned.

“This requirement in the said EIA Report obliges the Sarawak Government to take necessary action to survey the land in Lot 95 to mark out the areas already occupied and cultivated by us therein and that these are to be excluded from Lot 95 or the said provisional lease.

“However, until today, this has yet to be done by the Government or the NREB or the Land and Survey Department,” Edi added.

“We have even referred the dispute between us and the said company over the land in Lot 95 to the court as we strongly feel that based on all of the said encouragement given to us by the Government and its said agencies, we have a legitimate expectation that our lands or gardens in Lot 95 would be excluded from the provisional lease.

“Unfortunately and to our great dismay, the Miri High Court has dismissed our said action.

“Therefore, we have no other alternative but to call upon the Sarawak State Government to now discharge or exercise its said responsibility (in accordance with the said expressed requirement in the said EIA Report) to take urgent and the necessary action to exclude our said lands or gardens from Lot 95 or the said provisional lease which is also in accordance with or in the fulfillment of its promise of 1MALAYSIA – rakyat Didahulukan,” Edi said.

Appeal to TYT to help settle NCR land issue

Residents of four longhouses of Ulu Suai, Batu Niah, Miri have submitted a memorandum to TYT Yang Dipertua Negeri Sarawak Tun Abang Muhammad Salahuddin seeking his help to intervene in their dispute with an oil palm company, Mega Jutamas Sdn Bhd over a piece of land of 313.54 hectares at Lot 95.

The memorandum was submitted on 27 August 2009 to the Astana by a seven-man delegation led by Siew Choon Siak. It was received by his Aide-de-camp.

Copies of the memorandum have been extended to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, State cabinet ministers and elected Dayak representatives.

The same group also sought the assistance of the Human Rights Commission in Sarawak which promised to raise it with its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

In the memorandum they appeal to the Head of State to intervene since he has been entrusted by the State Constitution to look after interests and welfare of the people of Sarawak especially the natives including the Dayak Ibans, saying that they have exhausted all avenues to solve the dispute with the oil palm company.

“We the poor people would like the Lot 95 that we have cleared and farmed much earlier than the company need to be defended and protected,” said Siew of Rumah Rajang.

He said that they also appealed to the Head of State to tell the company and its workers not to disturb and undermine their livelihood including threatening and frightening them by using gangsters and Police.

“We also want the land be given to us in accordance with the Federal Constitution that gives priority to the natives to be given land titles to their NCR land,” he said and appealed to TYT to urge the government to stop taking away their NCR land and to revoke the provisional lease on Lot 95.

The residents of the four longhouses – Rumah Rajang Ak Sengalang, Rumah Tapu Ak Galis, Rumah Aatat Ak Pengiran and Rumah Umpor Ak Lunsa - began planting the land at Ulu Suai, Batu Niah since 1996 with cash crops and oil palm.

According to Siew, the people have lived peacefully and harmoniously until the government leased the land to Mega Jutamas in May 2005.

Several meetings, he said, have been held with the company and the government and it seemed that the company simply ignored their request and did not respect their culture and their way of life.

Siew said that they have exhausted avenues to settle their dispute with the company including seeking assistance from the State Assemblyman for Kemena, the MP for Bintulu, the Minister of Land Development Sarawak, the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“All our efforts have failed. Now we would like the Head of State to intervene,” he said, adding: “If nothing comes out from this appeal to the Head of State, then we raise the issue at the UN forum of indigenous peoples.

“And this can become a big issue that will have big impact not only on Malaysia palm oil exports, but also on Mega Jutamas oil palm company as well as other oil palm companies in Sarawak,” he said. – The Broken Shield

Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com

Another heartless act against the natives?

Some 24 smallholder oil palm farmers from Ulu Suai in Niah, Miri are asking Saremas to immediately repair the road that they had dug up, rendering it unusable for more than a month. The road, they said, leads from the main road directly to their farms and they use this road to transport their harvested oil palm to the nearby mill.

The farmers are from the following longhouses: Rumah Rajang, Rumah Atat, Rumah Umpur and Rumah Tapu. Because of Saremas’s actions in destroying the road, they are now unable to transport their oil palm harvests and sell their fruits. Their lives and primary source of income has now been disrupted.

Syarikat Saremas (PPB Oil Palm Sdn Bhd) is a company that also owns oil palms in the Ulu Suai, Niah area. On 14 July 2009, the company started digging up and cutting off the farm road in question.

The villagers feel that they have suffered many losses. On 14 July, the village headman, Tuai Rumah Tapu, also a farmer, made a police report in Batu Niah against the company. They have also appealed to the company however the company has refused to entertain their appeal. They say that the manager initiated the action on a directive from the top management, which suspects the villagers of stealing from the company’s plantations.

According to Siew Choon Siak of Rumah Rajang, Suai, one of the farmers’ representatives, “Saremas may have been acting all this while together with another oil palm company, Megajutamas to pressure the village people into giving up and selling their land to that said company.”

“But we did not suspect that Saremas was connected with this land case until our gardens were destroyed and our livelihoods lost.

“The villagers themselves tried to fill in and repair the road on 13 August 2009 but on 14 August 2009, the heartless Saremas dug up the road again”, he said.

Village head, Tuai Rumah Rajang, appealed to government representatives and other authorities to help them resolve the issue between the company and the villagers.

According to him, “If the problem is not resolved quickly, the livelihoods and daily income of the longhouse would be affected as this is our only source of income.”

Punai anak Beriak of Rumah Umpur and a committee member of the Rural Women’s Association of Sarawak (WADESA) also expressed her dissatisfaction with the company’s action. She appealed to the company to not be so cruel and destroy the lives of the villagers.

She said, “This is the only money from the smallholding that allowed our families to send our children to school.”

Jelita anak Bum from Rumah Atat said, “This whole month we were not able to harvest our fruit and all our hard work and income was destroyed because they destroyed the road.”

Amy Alus from Rumah Tapu hoped that the government or top representatives would be able to solve this problem quickly. She was concerned that this oppression by the company would result in a repeat of Ulu Niah history. She did not think the longhouse villagers would be problematic but they were now getting desperate.

According to them, a few months before, Megajutamas had also closed the road of the longhouses in the Ulu Suai area.

Siew, who is also a committee member of the Sarawak Native Customary Land Rights Network (TAHABAS), said that the prior land conflict with Megajutamas started in 2005 and has still not been resolved until today. He said that Saremas deliberately instigated a new problem for the villagers and villagers feel that they do not respect their native rights.

Siew also feels that the problem is not being handled sensitively by a government that carries the PM’s slogan ‘1Malaysia, Nation first’. Government representatives are aware that the community does not want the commercial oil palm company to enter into their communal land area because the company does not respect their rights as indigenous peoples (Orang Asal).

“We want our rights to be respected. We are against all suppression of our rights”. – The Broken Shield

Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com