Natives Land Grabbed Systematically By Land Pirates of Sarawak

This is a letter taken from YB Lim Kit Siang's blog about native Sarawakians' plight on the NCR issues that is plaguing our state. It is something that we Sarawakians always knew was happening. Shameful the injustice that is happening right beneath our noses and I'm sure it is happening now too as we speak.

In Sarawak NCR lands are ignored and not respected, in the name of politics of development, which will make the rich richer and the poor natives poorer. The big developments are owned by shareholders who are already rich and Taib Mahmud’s cronies with the revenues / profits are shared among these few shareholders.

Their politics of development is to enrich themselves, self interest and great greed. Now they have deforested the Rajang forests – no more timber to harvest, so they go for native lands whether Temuda, Pemakai menoa, Pulau etc, they simply don’t care.

Taib is nearing his term now and in process to create a dynasty in Sarawak. His son will take over PBB, become chairman & thereafter CM of Sarawak. For the transition period, he may place his YB brother to take over. The manipulations, self-interest & greed will continue. The village people in Sarawak, most of them having no formal education will still vote for Taib coz support from rural areas with cash in election time will be on-going. Taib is great manipulator & having vast cronies here.

They have felled all the timber in Sarawak. Now they go for natives land. For land, they make use of Sarawak Land & Survey Department (SLSD) to get land as they wish. They just walk in SLSD office and choose which land area they want. Form a company for the purpose. Then the company will apply for land. The application will be processed/approved. They will comply with all procedures kononnya, ill-intention all things have been pre-arranged & prefixed.

Then SLSD will survey the land area, give notice through newspaper with description of land the village people will certainly not recognise or aware of. The procedure is legalized & provisional land title is issued by SLSD to the company. They legalised the taking of natives land which is outright robbery. They are robbers & pirates!!

They won’t inform the affected villagers for they don’t want them to know. Unlike the good intention of getting peoples land for genuine purpose of building bridges, roads, infrastructures etc, the villagers were informed and notices sent to kampungs & long houses for them to stake claims, but for purpose of land acquisition for companies things were done in secrecy. It was the other way round.

They confuse people by saying govt never grab peoples land. True but only those genuine purposes for public amenities but not for purpose of land to be given to their companies. That’s the difference here. They confuse the people here with this saying by YB Awang Tengah that govt never take peoples land!!. What a liar. The villagers will never be informed of their evil intention and the company will be sending bulldozers & tractors to the newly acquired land. When they see buldozers, tractors etc only then the natives will know.

Villages will lodge complaints to SLDS, District Office, Police, YBs - the answer is the land acquisition is already legal, nothing much can be done!!! The advice given was “you all (villagers) need to negotiate with the company, minta kasihan mereka!!!! Imagine your own property - your land grabbed by the eagles then minta kasihan. What right do they have?

That’s the damned reply. That’s Taib’s administration here. He has hijacked the government institution. Since no one to turn to, so natives will try to stop the bulldozing of their rubber gardens, farms, empty land which is their “temuda” & “pemakai menoa” themselves. They have no money to fight this legally. Even then they can hardly win coz here all land belongs to state government.

The onus of proof is on the natives. In actual fact it should be those people who is taking natives land to prove the land is indeed not NCR. Our ancestors all have died, their has been no documentation in 1900s just NCR status accord by the land code.

Here natives are not allowed to survey their NCR land but the government can. Even if natives want to survey their NCR land first they need to prove land is planted 90%+ with crops, ok fair enough , then provided the area is not marked for development. Even then SLSD will not give land title to natives.

You know the SLSD, state gov has been hijacked by the pirates, Taib is the one-eyed pirate leader here. He is worst than the Somalia pirates.The rich and influential shareholders will have a very big piece of land for 60 years or more…which is not theirs in the first place.The few rich shareholders will have millions in revenues/profits.

So YB, this is happening everywhere in Sarawak now, natives are being evicted from their land now. Let me give you one of the real scenarios going on now at Serian under Muara Tuang DUN constituency (Taib’s brother) which is under Kota Samarahan Parliament constituency (Taib’s son). They plundered natives land there now under their proxies.

One of the NCR areas given to Usaha Jasamaju Sendirian Berhad, company number 660630-K. locality of land: between batang samarahan and Ensengei road, Serian. Area:354.00000 Ha, more or less convert to Mixed Zone land from 6/12/2006-5/12/2066. Lot number 00890, map sheet number: N5-13-1(5.1) TRN: 08-LCPLS-016-000-00890, Prov. Lease of state land - C. Remarks: Alienation of Land vide L.&S.80 No.69/2006, Svy. Job No.125/2006, DLS’s approval ref: 15/HQ/AL?103/2005(8D) dated 19.10.2006 & SLS’s ref: 15/SD.Doss.NO.AL/34/2006 issued at request of Ting Tiu Gung.

The village people who have been staying there since generations even before the Sarawak Government existed were never informed nor consulted - what more to be invited to have some shares and together participate develop the land there.

When the SLSD survey the areas for 1 month more or less, it was done in total secrecy. When village people ask them, no one would talk or answer. If there is answer they would lie to them. Now they are bulldozing peoples’ land, rubber trees with no regard to natives rights who actually own the land. They bersikap kurang ajar!!

Please YB, help address the issues of land belonging to natives in Sarawak urgently, a lot of lands now being plundered and taken from them right under their noses for Taib’s richness, cronies’ self-gains, greed at the expense of natives. This is only one case, there are many more. More tears of natives befell the land now.

The state government institution has been totally hijacked by Taib & his cronies here. He totally make use of this opportunity. The good example is the land described above. Now they are bulldozing the land, rubber trees, temuda, pemakai menoa, pulau without regard to peoples feelings as fellow human beings - the villagers are helpless now.

Bring this native land issue up to the attention of the whole country - so that the nation knows what Taib is doing here!!! he has hijacked the State Government for greed.

Do something now YB. Don’t be too busy with Semenanjung politics only.

Thank you, YB. God bless you. -Pribumi Sarawak