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Extracted from Malaysiakini
Natives won Round 1 in NCR land
battle
Tony Thien | Jun 27,
A group of Bidayuh families in
This follows the granting of an interim injunction in chambers by Kuching High Court judge David Wong to the 138 Bidayuh families in Kampung Bengoh, Padawan, near Kuching,
The court today allows the application of Bidayuh Biatak village chief Kais Anak Genyai, 77, and six other plaintiffs, representating
the families, to stop Naim Cendera
Lapan Sdn Bhd, a quarry licence holder,
from entering their farmland.
The natives said that the stone quarry would cause damages to fruit trees and
other crops in their NCR land, located near the foothills of Gunung Rumbang.
Kais (photo,
far right) and the six other plaintiffs as well as several
villagers, accompanied by their counsel See Chee How,
went to Naim Cendera office
in Kuching to serve the interim order papers on the
company this morning.
The villagers through their lawyer filed the writ of summons recently against
the company, the land and survey department and the state government, claiming
damages for the destruction to their land and crops and to stop the
encroachment of their NCR land by the company.
Hearing of the case has been set for July 14 before judge
Linton Albert in the Kuching High Court.
Naim Cendera Lapan is a wholly-owned subsidary
of Naim Cendera Bhd, a listed property and construction company which is
closely linked to powerful state politicians.
Villagers rely on
shifting cultivation
Kampung Bengoh, about an
hour's drive south of Kuching, has existed for more than a century, and the villagers
depend on shifting cultivation for food crops and the harvesting of birds'
nests for their livelihood.
In the suit, they also
state that the alienation of the land of about 25 hectares for quarrying
purposes to the company is unlawful and should not have been done as they have
native customary rights over the land.
The villagers have lodged two police reports after seeing workers from the
company working on their farmlands.
“We want them to stop encroaching into our lands,” Kais told Malaysiakini today.
Malaysiakini
learnt that the quarry licence has been given to a
contractor of a nearby dam project to extract stones for construction works
relating to the RM365 million Bengoh Dam over a
period of five years.
The dam project has been awarded to Naim Cendera, which in turn has sub-contracted the work out to a
Chinese company, Sino Hydro, for half the original contract sum.