Press Release

Villagers’ farm road dug up and broken by Saremas

14 August 2009 – Around 24 smallholder oil palm farmers from Ulu Suai in Niah are asking Saremas 1 to immediately repair the road that they had dug up, rendering it unusable for almost 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, 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, 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.”

 

 

Press Statement was released by:

Siew Choon Siak

Rumah Rajang, Suai

H/P: 0198657076