May 25, 11
ANTIDOTE Seven Kayan and five Penan villagers from Baram are challenging Sarawak's authorities and timber tycoons in court in defence of their communities' ancestral land.
Ngau Wan Ngau, Anyi Emang Lawai, Usun Jok Emang, Laeng Ajang, Wan Ngau Wan, Tabong Tiri, Guro Kiling, Sait Kiling, Jau Kiling, Tua Kampung Sakai Ding, Johnny Lalang and Wan Ding filed a lawsuit at the Miri High Court on May 11.
The villagers, a
ged between 39 and 74, sued the state government and four powerful companies from Miri and Sibu - including industry giants Samling and Shinyang - for invading their land. The natives depend on the forests for their lives and identity.The plaintiffs had travelled from the Kayan settlement of Long Pelutan (formerly Long Miri), and the Penan villages of Long Tepen and Long Lunyim, some 200km from Miri. Long Lunyim logging blockades have taken place for over a decade, leading to police support for the loggers and arrests.
The villagers, both belonging to the Orang Ulu or 'people of the hinterland' grouping, overcame differences in ethnicity, language and culture to present a united front.
The Kayan call their communal forests Tana Daleh, while the Penan refer to their forests as Tana Pengurip. Both have laid out extensive oral histories and physical evidence of settlement to claim native customary rights (NCR) to their land.
The communities argue the ancestors of the Kayan had maintained farmland, fruit groves and land for their customary practice, while the ancestors of the Penan in Long Tepen and Long Lunyim had established a customary claim to the usage of the forests, by hunting and gathering food from the forests and living on sago or uvut, harvested from the forests, as their staple food. The nomadic Penan had left behind traditional huts known as lamin toro.
Nearly 100 villagers made the long trek to Miri to support the plaintiffs. The villagers were represented by land rights lawyer Baru Bian (left), PKR state assembly representative for Ba'kelalan and a fellow Orang Ulu. The villagers, greeted by local leaders from the DAP and PKR, waved a gigantic blue PKR flag - clearly appreciative of the NCR lawyers' work.Rural constituencies, including Baram, are crucial to the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held alongside the 13th general election. The state opposition has been heartened by greater support by Dayak voters for DAP and PKR in the state polls concluded on April 16.
Both DAP and PKR were once derided as 'peninsula' parties, but have now gained ground in state politics. Local opposition party leaders have been working quietly on fundamental issues relevant to daily survival, including NCR. They have had some success in linking corruption in Sarawak's logging and plantation industries with NCR land grabs.
Workings of political patronage
The court case provides an intriguing insight into the workings of Sarawak's political patronage.
The state minister for natural resource
s and planning and Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud (right) had issued logging concessions in Pelutan to three companies - Sibu-based Sarawak Plywood and Tapak Abadi, and Samling - and awarded a licence for tree plantation to Shin Yang.Samling and Shin Yang have sparked controversy before. Both are on the front lines of loggers' advances on NCR land.
In a federal women's ministry report in 2009, loggers were accused of raping under-aged Penan girls in Baram, crimes that Samling denied it had any knowledge of. The Penan Support Group, a coalition of NGOs, has condemned the failure of the authorities to prosecute any rapists.
Samling has also been criticised for unsustainable forestry practices worldwide, earning the multinational company an embarrassing ban from the investment list of Norway's pension fund.
Samling founder Hiew Teck Seng enjoys extremely cordial relations with Taib. Last year, whistleblower news site Sarawak Report documented the transfer of two luxurious mansions in the US from Samling to Taib's family for the knock-down price of US$1.
Shin Yang was at the centre of a NCR conflict in Ulu Niah in 1999. Iban villagers killed four of its employees in a bloody battle. Villagers said the four men were thugs, sent by Shin Yang to threaten the landowners to surrender their land for an oil palm estate. Villagers had described being beaten up, and being threatened with samurai swords.
Despite the controversies, both Shin Yang and Samling remain immune to government reproach, and continue to benefit from logging concession largesse.
An unusual aspect of the Pelutan lawsuit is that the native communities also named Temenggong Pahang Deng, paramount leader of the Kayan in middle Baram, as a co-defendant.
The plaintiffs' court documents claim Temenggong Pahang behaved like a “servant” to the timber companies. The submission states the Temenggong, “by virtue of his office, exercised undue influence and/or coercion” over the Kayan villagers, to facilitate the timber companies' entry to the contested land. The villagers say they had never authorised the Temenggong to make any deals over their communal land.
Another defendant is timber concession holder Freda James, wife of Lihan Jok, former state assemblyperson for Telang Usan. Lihan Jok is a retired headmaster - neither he nor his wife possess any credentials in forestry management.
He was dropped as a candidate for the state election, following a review of incumbent representatives' competency and chances of winning seats.
D
uring his two terms, he had defended logging companies against criticism from international NGOs as well as local NCR landowners. He served Big Timber's interests faithfully, constantly trying to persuade local communities to dismantle their logging blockades.The growing discontent over land acquisition throughout Sarawak has transformed the traditional deference among many of the groups to figures of authority like Taib, Temenggong Pahang and Lihan Jok.
Government officials like land minister James Masing routinely berate Penans for being “good storytellers”, after the Penans reported sexual crimes by loggers. It is harder for Taib's administration to argue that all ethnic groups in Sarawak are lying, when different communities protest against the loss of their land.
Multi-ethnic opposition to Taib's land policies, and the erosion of the old hierarchies, now threaten Sarawak's feudal political system.
After suffering a slide in its share of the popular vote to 55 percent in the state election, the BN remains concerned that land security issues may translate to further losses in the upcoming parliamentary contest.
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