KUCHING, April 29, 2013: Second Minister of Resource Planning and Environment Awang Tengah Ali Hassan has been accused of telling lies against Pakatan Rakyat (PR) on the issue of native customary rights land.
“His statement that PR will abolish the rights to NCR ownership fills me with disbelief and revulsion,” Sarawak PKR chairman Baru Bian told reporters today.
He said Awang Tengah, being a senior minister, would resort to telling lies to win over the people is extremely unbecoming and undignified and it certainly reflects poorly on him.
Baru also found Land Development Minister James Masing’s statement that the Dayaks would lose their NCR land if the people do not vote for the BN in the May 5 polls as baseless and another example of fearmongering by politicians bankrupt of better ideas to offer to the people.
He said that PR, when it comes to power at the Federal level after the general election, will not abolish rights of the natives over their customary lands as claimed by two State senior ministers.
“The special privileges of the natives in Sarawak are safeguarded in the Federal Constitution and PR has no intention of abolishing these rights,” he explained.
Baru, who is also the Ba’Kelalan State Assemblyman, said he finds the claims by the two ministers as lies and seditious.
He said that Sarawak PKR election director See Chee How and Sarawak DAP secretary Chong Cheing Jen have already lodged police against Awang Tengah last Friday for making seditious statements.
On Masing’s statement that the Dayaks would lose their NCR land if PR becomes the new government and implement the “Malaysian Malaysia” concept, Baru said that such statement is baseless and another example of fearmongering by politicians lacking of better ideas to offer to the people.
He assured that PR has no intention to abolish the rights of the natives over their customary rights.
“It is safe for me to just state that my record of defending the NCR landownership of downtrodden people speaks for itself.
“It has been and still is my life’s work and indeed my calling to ensure that the NCR lands of the natives are safeguarded,” he said, adding that his law firm has over 200 active files on cases of land grabs by logging, plantation and construction companies, almost all of them having connection with the BN politicians and their families.
He stressed that none of the Opposition leaders, be they from PKR or the DAP, or their family members, are the defendants in any NCR land cases.
He said that most of the NCR land cases which have been decided by the court are in favour of the natives.
“The courts have recognized NCR ownerships of the people in over 20 cases but the problem remains that the Sarawak state government is showing its contempt of court rulings by refusing to abide by the courts’ decisions, especially with regard to the definition of NCR land,” Baru, who is also a NCR land law expert, said.
“It is very well for the Sarawak ministers to make promises about resolving NCR land issues by carrying out perimeter surveys, what is the state government’s definion of NCR land? Up till today, they refuse to include the “pemakai menoa” (territorial domain) and “pulau galau” (communal reserve land), but restrict their definition to the temuda (cultivated or farmed land), in clear breach and disregard of the decision of the courts,” he said.
Baru also questioned the state government’s persistence in conducting surveys of NCR land under Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code which only grants a communal reserve status on the surveyed land, instead of Section 18 which grants title.
“Do the people know that the government can decide to degazette their communal reserve land, in which event it becomes state land and not NCR land? he asked.
Baru urged the NCR landowners to ask Awang Tengah on the use of Section 6, not Section 18 of the Sarawak, when undertaking perimeter survey on NCR land, the next time he visits them.
“They can also ask him about his personal wealth and his own family’s shares in big companies which are profiting from Sarawak’s wealth,” he said.
Baru also reiterated PR’s promises to set up a Land Commission to investigate NCR land claims and to right the wrongs done to the people by those in authority, including ministers and their families and cronies.
“The PR government will act in accordance with the law against those who are found to have obtained their wealth through illegal means,” he said.
“The people have hoodwinked for far too long. My social contract with the people of Sarawak is to protect what is their birthright, their life and their livelihood,” he said. The Sematong Express
