Who are actually oppressing and suppressing the natives, asks Wong Ho Leng

Plights over NCR Land – Oppression and Suppression by BN

By Wong Ho Leng, Sarawak DAP chairman

The Dayaks of Sarawak are entitled to Native Customary Rights (NCR) land, but their plights have long been neglected, only because they are the vote banks of the ruling coalition (the Barisan Nasional [BN]).
Let me narrate 2 stories first.

Story 1:
Rumah Juing, a longhouse at Pasir Emas, Sibu, faces a grim future. The land on which it was built in 1989 will be alienated to a private company. The longhouse folks had been asked to move out, and negotiations for resettlement had failed. More than 200 longhouse folks cried for help from the Barisan Nasional, but no help came. They are trespassers and squatters.

Story 2:
In 1996, the BN issued a Handbook, calling it an “official communication guide on NCR development matters”. They promised those natives who own 50 hectares (123 acres) or more of NCR land undreamed-of wealth. They promised rural folks an annual dividend of up to RM40,000 calculated on the basis of crude palm oil price at RM1,400 per tonne. That would mean an annual dividend of RM325 per acre. But the crude palm oil price has since tripled, yet the undreamed-of wealth was so far-far away in “Never”land. Those natives who have entered into joint ventures to develop their NCR land cannot even wriggle out of the agreement. They also cannot go to the Court, even if they receive no dividends.

Now, let me tell the goings-on.
As the largest state in the federation, no one in Sarawak should be land hungry. Blessed with 124,449 square km (12.4 million hectares) of land, Sarawak is a land of aplenty. The fate of Rumah Juing is an irony, but Rumah Juing is not alone.

No NCR can be created after 1^st January 1958. Section 5 of the Land Code (Sarawak) states explicitly that as from 1^st January, 1958 no recognition shall be given to any NCR over any land in Sarawak, and if the land is state land any person in occupation thereof shall be deemed to be in unlawful occupation of state land.

In normal state of things, longhouses expand due to population growth, or they would split because of disputes. Unlike the Chinese, the natives do not move to urban centers. For those who move out, many have built their longhouses on state land. Though some of these longhouses have been supplied with water and electricity, many have not. More often than not, roads and other infrastructures to their longhouses are pathetic. 

The native legislators (ADUNs) from the BN dare not speak out their plight, as it is political suicide to incur the wrath of their political masters. Often, those who speak out the plight of the natives are ADUNs from the Opposition, us the Pakaan Rakyat, despite stinging criticisms from the BN native leaders that we are not more “Ibans” than they are.
The NCR land size in Sarawak is dwindling, being alienated by the state Government to crony conglomerates for oil palm plantation developments.

Through a scheme seductively labeled “New Concept of NCR Land Development” in 1996, many NCR land have been alienated for joint venture oil palm plantation development with big companies/investors. The NCR lands were amalgamated and titles issued in the name of the joint venture company. The landowners would have no beneficial legal equitable or caveatable interest in the land issued with titles. Apart from dividends promised, they are relegated into absolute obscurity. In this joint venture company (JVC), the Land Custody and Development Authority (LCDA) will hold 10% equity, the natives participants are given 30% equity, and the balance 60% equity will be procured by the investors who will inject cash to the venture.

As at 13^th May, 2009, 406,425 hectares of NCR land had been agreed for New Concept NCR land development involving 26 joint ventures. As at 22^nd June 2011, the area had been expanded to 412,219 hectares involving 34 projects.

Although the development involves the natives’ own land, more foreigners are employed than from the longhouse community. The natives received pathetic amount of dividends from these joint ventures.

On 13^th May 2009, James Masing, the Minister of Land Development, told the state legislature that only 4 out of the existing joint ventures managed to pay out dividends amounting to RM2,301,116.86. That represents an annual return of RM0.27 per acre to the landowners, a sum hardly sufficient to buy a cigarette!


Though the state Government has been asked to update the dividend pay-out, no information is available as yet.

The LCDA and its associated companies faced problems from these joint ventures. On 18^th February 2011, the LCDA and the state Government lost a legal battle involving the joint ventures of NCR land development at Pantu, Sarawak (Kuching High Court Suit No.22-1-2005-1(SG), known as the “Pantu case”.

The native ancestors had settled in Pantu since 1880. The Plaintiffs landowners are the 7^th generation settlers. Attracted by the promise of undreamed-of wealth by the BN Government, the enthusiastic landowners involved themselves in the joint venture. In 2004 their crops and fruit trees were cut and their lands cleared for oil palm plantation envisaged under the Joint Venture Agreement by Indonesian workers of the joint venture company. Valuable crops and several burial sites at the NCR land were also destroyed.
Some 6 years after commencing the oil palm plantation, and 3 years after the oil palm fruits were harvested, no dividends were distributed to the enthusiastic participants. The undreamed-of wealth did not come. The erstwhile landowners do not have any rights whatsoever.

Linton Albert the Judge in that Suit, himself a Sarawak native, aptly put it in this way: “These are cries for justice and the court must respond even if no one else does because one cannot simply throw one’s hands in the air and say that is how life is.”

The New Concept of NCR land development has the noble object to eradicate rural poverty. What happened was a far cry from nobility. The Judge said in succinct language thus: “It is sad that the lofty aims set out in the Handbook had been lost in implementation perhaps by the overzealousness of the various state functionaries involved in the implementation who no doubt have concealed the miseries that the oil palm plantation has brought about and the benefits a far cry from those flaunted in the Handbook.”
The landowners won, because the Court held the agreement illegal, because the subsidiaries of LCDA who implemented the project were non-natives, and under s.8 of the Land Code, no benefits over native land can be enjoyed by non-natives.

The judgment was delivered on 18^th February, 2011, 57 days before the Sarawak state election. Despite its rhetoric of being a caring Government the BN made sure that the fruits of victory by the natives would not be enjoyed as yet. They appealed to the Court of Appeal, which has yet to hear the case. Then, 2 months after the BN was returned to power (by the natives), on 22^nd June 2011 at the state legislature the BN amended the law to plug the loophole against any chance that such joint venture agreement would be illegal. Under the new law, the natives who had entered into the venture cannot even go to the court to ventilate their just claims.


Such is the fate of the natives who have stood by the BN through thick and thin. Not a single native ADUN from the BN dared whisper a simple “No” to the amendment. For the Pakatan Rakyat, myself, Ting Tze Fui, Chong Chieng Jen and Baru Bian spoke against the amendment. And, the BN law-makers turned the table on us, saying that we are against development.

I have reiterated umpteenth times in the legislative chambers that DAP is never against development, so long as they are meaningful to the people. In his first speech in the Dewan Undangan Negeri delivered to object to the amendment, Baru Bian (PKR) said the same thing.

DAP is steadfast to speak the plights of the natives in the Dewan Undangan Negeri when their own representatives dare not. We are not deterred by the many lies of the Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu uttered in and outside the legislative chambers that DAP has oppressed and suppressed the natives in their opportunities on NCR land development. The story of the fate of the natives in the Pantu case provides a complete picture that those who oppressed and suppressed are those in power, the BN. The natives in Sarawak should put an end to this BN’s charade soon.