Stop the violations of native land rights, Najib told
By Queville To, Free Malaysia Today
KOTA KINABALU: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was told to ensure that native customary rights of the people of Sabah and Sarawak are upheld by the BN government.
The oil palm rush has spurred a grab for land in the two states at the expense of naive villagers who are being driven out because they can no longer sustain themselves.
Rampant land grabs has pushed the issue to the forefront and the government is now confronted with the problem of native rights versus a free-wheeling business world.
PKR Sabah deputy chairperson Christina Liew said in the most recent case, a group of villagers in Nabawan in the interior of Sabah found that they had lost their lands to a Peninsular Malaysia-based plantation company.
The villagers applied for the 615-acre land 23 years ago. They filed six official complaints with the District Land Office when they discovered that the land had been given to the company.
Liew, a lawyer who has taken on several cases on behalf of the villagers, urged Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok to stop such land grabs.
Dompok who is also the president of the United Pasokmomogun Kadazan Dusun Murut Organisation (UPKO), a BN component party, said last week that the government was looking into ways to deal with land issue that has roiled the two states.
Liew, however, charged Dompok with being theatrical given that his statement came just days prior to the Sibu by-election where a series of land grab cases against plantation and timber companies have been taken to court.
The courts have ruled in favour of the villagers in several of these cases but the state government has appealed and the cases are on-going.
In light of this, Liew said she could not help “take Dompok’s words with a pinch of salt, especially going by his past track record.”
She was referring Dompok resigning as the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSCI) after being snubbed by the National Registration Department over the issuance of identity cards in Sabah.
“I sincerely hope he (Dompok) would not let the people down this time,” she said, adding that land grabs were rampant in the state and had impacted the livelihoods of many.
