Vote Loser! – Raziah’s Land Grab in Taib’s own Constituency
Sarawak Report
With breath-taking arrogance Taib has handed a huge area of land to a company controlled by his sister in his own constituency!
Saradu Plantations was given 8,000 hectares in Balingian over the period 2004 – 2009. Most of the land was grabbed from a precious remaining forest reserve, Setuan Besar Forest Reserve, in the area near Bintulu. The rest of the land was taken from local communities in violation of their Native Customary Rights!
Managing the deal, according to the Land Registry, was none other than Taib’s own sister Raziah Mahmud /Geneid. She was controlling the matter from the offices of the company in which both she and Taib himself hold shares, Kumpulan Parabena Sdn Bhd.
The tell-tale telephone number listed in the registry is the same number that has been used to handle dealings with a string of other related companies, which have taken lands totalling a greater area than the whole of Singapore in just the past few years. It it the number of the Kumpulan Parabena office in Jalan Sungai, Kuching. The number is Kuching 082-423 877.
Raziah in charge – and working from the offices of Kumpulan Parabena!
Communities kicked out as usual
Bejewelled – Raziah (centre) with Taib’s daughter Jamilah and sister Zaleha
The recent copy of the register (above) makes plain that officials are still in the process of producing a provisional lease, yet this clearly did not stop Saradu from invading NCR lands in 2007 to cut through their roads into the forest.
4 Iban villages and a number of Melanau communities were affected. Matek Anak Geram told Sarawak Report that his sago plantation in Kuala Balingian, on which his community based their livelihoods, has been destroyed. Clearly, this was of no consequence to the high-living millionairess Raziah or her business partners, who were soon to demonstrate that they had the forces of law and order, if not the actual law, on their side.
According to NGOs the Melanau villagers, who belong to the Mahmud’s own ethnic community, were discouraged from complaining by outrageous claims on the part of their Pengulu and headmen, all controlled by BN. The villagers were apparently told that any complaint about Raziah’s land snatch would amount to ‘going against the government’ and therefore be dangerous rebellion. Worse, they were told that, because Pelitia is a state body, to complain about it would somehow be ‘going against Islam’. Pelita is the Land Custody and Development Agency, chaired by Taib, which handed the land to his sister’s company. Is this the way the ‘religious’ Taibs seek to exploit their own people?
