Simunjan flare-up: Five held, excavators torched

In another heated dispute over Native Customary Land Rights in Sarawak, police have arrested five Iban villagers in Simunjan for allegedly setting fire to 13 excavators of an oil palm company.

The company is a joint venture between two government heavyweights: federal investment arm Tabung Haji, and a statutory body, the Land Consolidation and Development Authority (LCDA).

According to Nicholas Mujah (left), secretary-general of Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA), an NGO defending native land rights, six Iban men had initially been arrested on March 13.

One man, said to be a government teacher, referred to only as Ismawi, was released by 6pm the same day.

The five remaining detainees appeared at the Simunjan magistrate's court at 9am yesterday . The magistrate granted the police four days' extension of remand.

The villagers are Kudie anak Jampong 52 and Brandon anak Kudie, 36, from Kampung Temiang/Mumong, Mang anak Maggat, 55, from Kampung Keniong, Sebi anak Daka, 51, from Kampung Sengkalan, and Kendawang anak Mina, 65.

The detainees were represented by Dominique Ng.

Simunjan: Exploding emotions’ flashpoint

Eyewitnesses say 200 local people turned up at the court, in a show of solidarity for the five detainees.

This latest spate of arrests recalls the detention of the 'Sebangan Seven' on Oct 22, 2010, for setting fire to machinery and buildings at a Loyal Billion timber camp, also in Simunjan.

Loyal Billion was the logging contractor operating on a timber concession belonging to Quality Concrete, a consortium notorious for having Roziah @ Raziah Mahmud, sister of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, as its director.

As minister for land and forests, Taib had, as it happens, awarded the land to his sister's outfit, despite the local Iban villagers claiming Native Customary Rights to the area.

The 'Sebangan Seven' were eventually set free without being charged. Nicholas Mujah was among the seven detainees in 2010, accused of sparking off the protest and fanning the flames - from 400km away.

Yesterday, Mujah drove to Simunjan as soon as he heard the news of the latest arrests. On this occasion, however, he was not arrested.

Mujah explained that there had been widespread dismay among local Ibans over the clearing of their ancestral forests, fruit trees and farms by the Tabung Haji/LCDA oil palm joint venture.

Desperately battling  conglomerates

In 2009, Mujah said, the same disputed land area had been leased to Rimbunan Hijau, a gigantic logging and plantation conglomerate owned by media tycoon Tiong Hiew King, for the planting oil palm, even though the development proposal had originally marked the land for forestry plantation.

The community challenged the lease at the Sarawak High Court and won an out-of-court settlement - a stirring moral victory - from Rimbunan Hijau in April 2010.

However, early this year, the same land was handed out by Taib to LCDA and Tabung Haji. Just as in Sebangan in 2010, Iban communities protested, and made several police reports, but their NCR claims were ignored.

Mujah said one interesting tactic adopted by the oil palm
company was that "Tabung Haji engaged other indigenous peoples from other communities, villagers who have no rights over that (pemakai menoa) territorial domain", to make separate NCR counter-claims on the same land - clouding the issue of local villagers' claim to the forests.

"Within the last few months, many engagements with all stakeholders and police were held, but the Tabung Haji insisted on ignoring the advice given by police and district officer (to accede to the villagers' requests)," Mujah said.

Frustrations at every turn

Mujah described the Ibans' frustrations at every turn, until on March 13, some "300 angry NCR landowners went to the field to chase away the workers."

"I was informed that the company security guards used shotguns to threaten the landowners and the situation became chaotic, and that may have led to the fires on the machinery," Mujah observed. No injuries were reported.

These local Simunjan Iban have fought and bested the mighty Rimbunan Hijau, one of the most powerful plantation companies in the region.

They must now fight the institutional strength of Tabung Haji and the state-owned LCDA.

These sporadic outbreaks of starting fires reflect the despair of native communities losing their land to greedy "developers" all over Sarawak: they are like seething bubbles of pain and anger breaking through the surface.

Taib and his family have grown wealthy beyond belief on land deals, but many Dayak landowners have lost everything they and their future generations own, to giant logging, plantation and construction companies.

Can the Dayaks unite against the domination of Taib's 30-year reign? It appears unlikely.

Networking remains virtually non-existent among communities fighting for NCR throughout the state, Facebook notwithstanding.

But if Pakatan Rakyat manages to spread the news of these (very local) NCR rebellions against corporate invaders, among all of Sarawak's 1.4 million Dayaks, the political balance in Sarawak - and therefore Malaysia - would shift perceptibly.