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Guidebook on Reclaiming Sarawak NCR Lands in Courts

December 6, 2012 by Editor

Practical information for communities on resorting to the court process (Civil Litigation) to reclaim Native Customary Rights (NCR) Lands.

This guidebook is SACCESS’s first attempt to better inform and prepare Native Customary Rights (NCR) landowners in Sarawak who want to use the Malaysian civil courts to seek declaration of their lawful rights over their NCR Lands.

Over the past two decades, there is growing awareness among NCR Landowners of the need to file claims in the Malaysian High Courts to protect their NCR Land. There is also growing awareness that the recent Sarawak Government’s attempt to survey selected NCR Lands, purportedly to issue land titles and establish official recognition, is merely an attempt to subdue the rising disgruntlement and apprehension amongst the native landowners – as compare to doing the survey in order to recognise the people’s land rights fully. In fact, native landowners experience the continual violation of their rights to NCR Land, as the survey has left out more communal lands. Thus, many landowners have brought NCR Land cases to the attention of lawyers.

But resources are limited, in particular dedicated and experienced lawyers in Sarawak dealing with NCR Land cases on pro bono basis. Communities (as most are) often don’t fully understand how the courts work. So lawyers have to do much repeated explanation when communities come to them wanting to seek court redress in defending their land rights. With the help of this guidebook for communities, we hope it will reduce the time needed by lawyers and NGOs especially in the preliminary and preparatory stages. Furthermore, it is hoped that the communities will see their crucial roles in the court process, instead of thinking it is all in the lawyers’ hands.

This guide begins by providing the essential information to native landowners who plan to file their NCR Land in courts. It is expected that communities can be better prepared once they know the basics. This guide draws examples from cases won (and lost) earlier. The judgements recognising and declaring communities’ rights to land may be encouraging for other communities to know that they are entitled to the rights of access to the Courts to protect those rights. In the short and medium terms, without doubt, the Courts are a viable legal recourse to justice. In fact in the continuation of the current political atmosphere, the Courts remain one of the most significant channels to protect NCR Lands.

In order to ensure long term equity and equality, improvement of life and decision making powers, it is important for native landowners to recognise the power of their votes in solving problems affecting communities.

In foregone elections at state and federal levels, the Barisan Nasional (BN) in Sarawak are the ones who have always won, and continue to win, notwithstanding allegations of gerrymandering, fraud, manipulation, bribery and vote-buying. But has the BN government fully implemented what has been pledged and promised to the Sarawak people during the elections and beyond – example, that the governments do not take NCR Lands?

As only the Sarawak State Government can take lands and refuses to recognise the people’s rights completely, and with native landowners voting for the BN – and repeatedly in every election – then they must realise/accept the fact that it is the continuing BN government that is taking their NCR Lands, a trend over the past three decades in Sarawak.

So the role of native landowners, and all Sarawak people, is crucial to enable change to happen – the need to change to a government in Sarawak and Malaysia on the whole that will secure the people’s rights.

This is the first version and we acknowledge there will be limitations in its scope, coverage and details. Furthermore, policies and laws affecting NCR Lands can be frequently changed or amended by the Sarawak Government to reduce recognition of NCR Lands or non-recognition at all. That means information have to be updated from time to time.

We see the struggle for justice, equality and democracy as the responsibilities of all, as one.

In spite of our efforts to be mindful about the use of words and their meanings, essential pronouns to refer to person/persons or things (e.g. we, you, they, us, them, theirs) still cannot be avoided. We ask for these to be considered as English grammar and language, not as creating the “them vs us” situation. We see the struggle for justice, equality and democracy as the responsibilities of all, as one.

We welcome constructive feedback to help make this guidebook a work-in-progress. Ultimately, we hope to improve the guidebook in terms of contents, clarity, details and areas covered and produce a most updated, if not a final version Guidebook. More importantly, with this first English Electronic Version, we hope to have other versions in practical local languages for the ethnically diverse Sarawak NCR Landowners.

Thus, this Guidebook may be freely translated into other languages, provided that no part of the contents changed without our prior permission, SACCESS is acknowledged and a copy (preferably soft copy) of the translated material is sent to us. We welcome offers to work together with SACCESS on this initiative, if the intent is not related to profit making ventures.

This Guidebook is compiled and written by Wee Aik Pang. The information herein is based on past experiences and careful inquiries into this topic. This guidebook has been prepared in close consultation with the land-rights lawyers from the firm of Messrs Baru Bian Advocates and Solicitors. We thank Carol Yong for her support in reviewing and editing this Guidebook. However, the author and reviewer/editor are fully responsible for errors of fact or interpretation in this Guidebook.

Unless otherwise stated, this manual is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Malaysia License (For details, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/my/). For permission to do anything beyond the scope of this license, please contact SACCESS.

Download and Print from GUIDEBOOK ON RECLAIMING SARAWAK NCR LANDS IN COURTS

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The Headman – Kelesau Naan and the Penan of Long Kerong

October 18, 2010 by admin

ULU BARAM, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA. On the 23 October 2007 Kelesau Naan, the Headman of the Penan village, Long Kerong, left his wife at a rest area in the forest to check on his traps. He never returned. Two months later his remains were found scattered across the Segita River, deep in the Ulu Baram, Sarawak.

Presented by his son, Nick Kelesau, The Headman explores the events leading up to his disappearance. Kelesau Naan sought only to protect his people and their native customary right to the land they have lived in for centuries. His struggles may well had been his peril, but as Nick and his fellow Penan explain, his legacy endures.

By: Rengah Sarawak
Publisher: Rengah Sarawak

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Leaked Samling document acknowledges timber group’s role in Penan rape cases

September 14, 2010 by admin

Leaked Samling document acknowledges timber group’s role in sexual exploitation of Penan women. Logging giant is prohibiting all employees from entering Penan villages or providing transport to Penan without permission.

Leaked Samling Document

“All staff are forbidden to visit Penan villages.” Samling directive over Penan rape allegations (Picture: BMF)

MIRI, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA. An internal document from Sarawak’s logging giant, Samling Global (HKEX 3938), leaked to the Bruno Manser Fund, acknowledges for the first time that the timber group is concerned about the involvement of its staff in the alleged rape of native Penan girls and women in Sarawak, East Malaysia.

On 9 July 2010, Chin That Thong, General Manager of Samling’s Forest Operations in Malaysia, sent a directive, entitled “Kes Rogol Wanita Penan” (Rape Case of Penan Women)”, to all Samling timber camp managers, drivers and employees in the Baram river region. The letter informs the logging group’s staff that they are “forbidden to visit any Penan villages or transport any Penan except with the permission of the Camp Managers concerned.” Chin threatens employees who are found to have disobeyed his orders with expulsion from their jobs without compensation.

The letter was sent three days after the Malaysian Penan Support Group published a study that unearthed systematic patterns of sexual violence by loggers against native women in Sarawak’s interior. While Samling had previously denied the involvement of its staff in the sexual abuse cases, this letter indirectly acknowledges that Samling staff are indeed involved and that the group management is concerned over their insufficient control of their employees’ conduct. Ten days ago, Penan from the Upper Baram region complained that Samling officials had threatened to suspend all the transport services provided for them unless they retracted the sexual abuse allegations.

The leaked document provides strong evidence of the fact that the presence of Samling staff in the Penan areas constitutes a continuous threat to the native communities, and particularly to girls and women. The Bruno Manser Fund is asking the Sarawak state government to halt all logging operations in areas where Samling and other companies operate without the consent of the local communities. The Sarawak government is also being asked to provide free public transport services for the rural communities and, in particular, for schoolchildren.

Samling is a globally operating Malaysian timber conglomerate with an annual turnover of US$ 480 million. In August 2010, the Norwegian Government Pension fund excluded Samling from its portfolio because of the company’s responsibility for illegal logging and severe environmental damage.

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Samling threatens Penan with retaliations over rape allegations

August 30, 2010 by admin

Jawa_Nyipa_Headman_Long_Ajeng

LONG AJENG, MALAYSIA. Malaysian logging giant Samling has threatened the indigenous Penan communities of Sarawak’s Upper Baram region with the suspension of all transport services provided for locals unless they retract sexual abuse and rape allegations against the timber companies active in the region. The new dispute between Samling and the Penan arose after the release of a report by an international fact- finding mission in July 2010. The report had uncovered seven new cases of sexual exploitation of Penan girls and women in the Upper Baram region by timber workers and had asked the Malaysian government to address the grievances of the Penan communities.

According to Penan sources, Jawa Nyipa, headman of Long Ajeng, was asked by Samling officials to sign a statement that the women in the region had retracted their allegations of sexual abuse by timber company staff. Jawa Nyipa was told that, unless he signed the document, all transport services for the locals would be suspended. The headman refused to sign the statement but the Penan are concerned about the implications of Samling’s threat to suspend transport for the impoverished villagers in the Upper Baram region.

The Penan, who live in remote jungle villages in Borneo, rely on logging companies for transport to rural centres in order to reach the local markets, obtain medical treatment and send their children to secondary school. Samling’s refusal to provide transport is likely to put them in a very difficult situation as they are unable to afford other means of transport. Last year, logging companies operating in the Middle Baram region ceased to provide transport for a number of communities who had voiced concerns over sexual abuse and rape by timber workers.

Samling (HKEX 3938) is a globally operating Malaysian timber conglomerate with an annual turnover of US$ 480 million. Last week, the Norwegian Government Pension fund excluded Samling from its portfolio because of the company’s involvement in illegal logging and the fact that it had caused and is still causing severe environmental damage.

Link to Report: A Wider Context of Sexual Exploitation of Penan Women and Girls in Middle an Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia www.bmf.ch/en/news/?show=212 .

By: Rengah Sarawak
Publisher: Rengah Sarawak

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From Samling to the Taibs – $1 Mansion?

August 26, 2010 by admin

Sarawak Report links Taib family to Samling Timber Company empire.

Sarawak Report would like to enquire of Abdul Taib Mahmud how much he paid for the mansion that Samling passed on to his family in Seattle, USA ?

The residence forms an enormous property, standing in its own grounds in one of the most prestigious area of Seattle on Boylston Avenue East. It was passed from a Samling-owned company to a company now owned by Abdul Taib Mahmud and his family for just one US dollar in 1991.

1117 Boylston Avenue, Seattle, USA

Read the full report at http://sarawakreport.org/2010/08/1-dollar-mansion/ .

By: Rengah Sarawak
Publisher: Rengah Sarawak

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Norwegian government declares timber giant an unethical company

August 24, 2010 by admin

Ministry of Finance excludes Samling Global from the Norwegian Government Pension Fund.

OSLO, NORWAY. One of the world’s largest institutional investors, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, has sold all its 16 million shares of Malaysian timber giant Samling Global, worth 1.2 million US $, as a consequence of a groundbreaking decision announced today by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance.

The decision to exclude Samling Global from the Norwegian Government Pension Fund was made after a probe on Samling’s logging operations found the corporation responsible for systematic illegal logging in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo.

The probe was conducted by the Government Pension Fund’s Council on Ethics and documented “extensive and repeated breaches of the licence requirements, regulations and other directives in all of the six concession areas that have been examined. Some of the violations constitute very serious transgessions, such as logging outside the concession area, logging in a protected area that was excluded from the concession by the authorities in order to be integrated into an existing national park, and re-entry logging without Environmental Impact Assessments.”

The Norwegian Minister of Finance, Sigbjorn Johnsen, said that Samling’s forest operations in the rainforests of Sarawak and Guyana contribute to illegal logging and severe environmental damage and he had therefore chosen to exclude the company from the government’s investment portfolio. The Norwegian decision is a further blow for Sarawak’s controversial Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud. Taib is suspected to accept kickbacks from Samling in return for closing an eye on their illegal logging operations. It has recently become known that Taib secretly controls properties worth several hundred million US dollars in countries such as Canada, Australia, the UK and the US.

The Bruno Manser Fund welcomes the decision by the Norwegian Government and calls on investors, finance institutions and timber traders worldwide to follow the Norwegian example and cut their business ties with Samling Global. We also express our gratitude to the Rainforest Foundation Norway for having brought up this issue with the Norwegian authorities.

Samling is one of the companies that are responsible for the large-scale logging of Sarawak’s primary rainforests and for the destruction of the livelihood of the Penan and other indigenous communities. In 2007, it had been listed at the Hong Kong stock exchange with aid from Credit Suisse, HSBC and Macquarie Securities Ltd.

Source: BRUNO MANSER FUND, BASEL / SWITZERLAND

By: Rengah Sarawak
Publisher: Rengah Sarawak

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Mission reveals more sexual abuse cases

July 8, 2010 by admin

NGO FACT FINDING MISSION REVEALS MORE SEXUAL ABUSE CASES AMONG PENAN COMMUNITIES

Following the findings of the National Taskforce Report of September 2009 (Laporan Jawatankuasa Bertindak Peringkat Kebangsaan Bagi Menyiasat Dakwaan Penderaan Seksual Terhadap Wanita Kaum Penan Di Sarawak), which confirmed cases of sexual violence and exploitation of Penan women and girls, a group of non-government organisations set out to investigate further the situation in Sarawak when informed that there were other Penan women and their families who wanted to share their stories of sexual violence and exploitation.

Furthermore the NGOs were motivated to document new evidence in light of Sarawak state government leaders’ repeated refusals to acknowledge that Penan girls were sexually abused by timber workers and their apparent rejection of the National Taskforce Report findings.

The report entitled A Wider Context of Sexual Exploitation of Penan Women and Girls in Middle and Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia is the result of a fact-finding mission by the Penan Support Group, FORUM-ASIA and Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN).

The fact-finding mission visited three (3) Penan communities and one (1) Kenyah community and listened to evidence from a further thirteen (13) Penan communities.

The mission found that women were willing to share their stories, but they did not want to go to the authorities owing to the police’s lackadaisical responses in the past and further obstacles including the lack of identity cards, language barriers and the prohibitive cost of travel.

Seven (7) previously undocumented cases are described in the report. The cases all point to systematic patterns of violence. Themes include harassment, abduction, rape, physical assault, emotional abuse, coercion into marriage and desertion upon pregnancy.

The documentation of these cases refutes those who in the past rejected the veracity of the Penan women’s claims.

The purpose of the report is not only to record instances of sexual violence and rape, it is also to contextualise these crimes in the political situation in Middle and Ulu Baram, Sarawak. This report further confirms that the treatment of the Penan people is intrinsically tied to the wider political situation and demands a political solution.

This wider context within which the sexual violence has taken place includes the systemic undermining of the autonomy and sustainability of the Penan people, which is caused by:

  • the denial of their land rights;
  • the denial of basic citizenship rights for many through a failure to register and issue ID cards;
  • state neglect of their welfare including a failure to guarantee adequate access to basic services such as education and health care; and
  • state failure to provide a supporting environment of the right to redress.

The situation facing Penan communities has been documented previously in various reports over the years. The impact of logging and ‘land development’ on the Penan communities, their land and their rights was detailed in the NGO report “Not Development, but Theft” in 2000. The SUHAKAM Report (2007) on Penan in Ulu Belaga highlights the abject poverty in which many Penan communities live and states clearly that the Sarawak state government, as the primary duty bearer, is chiefly responsible to ensure the Penan people’s right to life and standard of living. The National Taskforce Report (2009), while confirming the allegations of sexual abuse, also makes reference to the poverty the community faces, as well as the lack of access to health care and education among other issues.

The lack of respect and protection afforded to Penan women and girls, as can be seen by their various experiences of sexual violence and exploitation, is tied to the lack of respect and protection shown to the Penan community as a whole.

The report provides recommendations for all sectors of the Malaysian community, including the federal and Sarawak governments, the federal parliament and the Sarawak state assembly, intergovernmental bodies, SUHAKAM, non-government organisations and Bursa Malaysia. These recommendations aim to support changes resulting in a future where Penan communities have the power to determine the direction and pace of their development, secure in their land and communities and respected for their culture, and above all, enjoy their human rights without discrimination.

For further inquiries, please contact John Liu of SUARAM at +60377843525.

Download Penan Report_web - PDF 4MB

By: Penan Support Group
Publisher: Penan Support Group

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The Dam completed!

June 2, 2010 by admin

The first series, The Dam, has been completed. The last episode, You Can’t Eat The Road, went online late April.

Bidayuh travel to the Bakun Dam resettlement scheme and hear from the resettled Kenyah at Sungai Asap and see first hand the results of relocation. They also meet with Iban at Rumah Agi who fought to retain customary right to their own land in the face of palm oil exploitation.

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