Extracted from Malaysiakini

No compensation: Villagers cry foul

Tony thien | Jul 18, 08 12:14pm

The multi-billion-ringgit Bakun hydro dam in central Sarawak has not only displaced 10,000 natives from their original homes in upper Balui but also deprived other natives as the original inhabitants of their native customary rights (NCR) land now occupied by the ‘new arrivals’ or resettlement people at Sungai Asap.

"The Sg Asap land of many thousand hectares which is the resettlement village site is actually ours and we’ve never been compensated for it," said Jude @ Juda Anye, an educated member of the Kenyah community from Uma Sambop, the nearest of five longhouses in Sg Belaga, to the Bakun dam.

He said the Barisan Nasional’s elected representatives for the area, Hulu Rajang MP Billy Abit and Belaga state assemblyperson Liwan Lagang as well as the state land development minister Dr James Masing have not done anything about it despite knowing the facts of the case.

Several members of the village development and security committee (AJKK) have turned to Malaysiakini to highlight their predicament after a team from the land and survey department, armed with machineries, moved into their areas along the Bakun-Tubau road Tuesday to start demolishing houses said to be illegally occupying state land.

The eviction notice was issued about two years ago and was to be enforced before the March 8 parliamentary elections. But after intervention by some quarters, this was postponed indefinitely.

As if losing their NCR lands in Sg Asap, about 20km away, is not enough, what remains of their NCR lands of several thousand hectares nearer the village along the Sg Belaga near the Bakun dam itself has been included in two oil palm leases given out by the state government to two companies – Shin Yang Forestry Sdn Bhd and Ekran Plantation Sdn Bhd.

Court action

Jawa Lawing, 56, and seven other plaintiffs representing themselves and 72 families from Uma Sambop have filed a court action claiming their NCR on the land.

In his affidavit, Joseph Lejau, 55, a teacher, said it is not proper for the state government to issue the leases to the two companies to plant oil palm on their NCR land.

"As this is our NCR land, we should have been consulted and priority should have been given to us to carry out plantation projects," he said, adding their main reason for instituting legal action is to ask for the land to be returned to them.

"We should also be compensated for the loss of our land and our resources for the last 13 years," he said in the affidavit filed by their lawyer See Chee How of Baru Bian & Co Advocates. The case is set for hearing next month.

There are more than100 families in Uma Sambop - which has been in existence for more than a century, with the inhabitants originally from the Baram area in northern Sarawak..

The natives have produced evidence to claim NCR on the lands around them, including the existence of the present primary school first established in 1956, structures of old homes and grave sites.

Meanwhile, the natives have taken issue with a statement attributed to Masing which was widely reported in local newspapers yesterday. He said the structures erected on the land now being demolished by the enforcement team were illegally erected on state land.

"The houses have been demolished because that area, I believe, has been compensated and taken over by the government and the NCR on that land has been extinguished," the minister added.

A spokesperson for the Kenyah group told Malaysiakini that the minister was wrong in saying that, adding that the affected land is clearly NCR and that no compensation has been paid by the government to acquire it.

Malaysiakini learnt that the government needs the land within 100 metres from the main Bakun road for the construction of the overhead transmission cable from the Bakun hydro dam as well as to clear the land of ‘squatters’ to make way for plantation activities by the companies.