Will Sarawak tribal land anger trump need in 2011?
By Sheridan Mahavera, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 — The issue of land disputes will feature prominently in the Sarawak election but it is unlikely to threaten Barisan Nasional’s (BN) grip over the state.
Indigenous rights activists claim that many communities, including the Malays and Melanaus, will blame the BN administration for the encroachment of their ancestral land by oil palm companies.
But the votes that will be fuelled by this anger will come in areas that are likely see multi-candidate fights. This will dilute the impact of those votes as anti-BN candidates compete against each other to tap into this wellspring.
This is since Pakatan Rakyat (PR) parties, the Sarawak National Party (SNAP), Parti Cinta Malaysia and several independents have failed to reach an electoral pact for one-to-one contests in more than 25 Dayak-majority seats.
Logging and oil palm companies are regularly accused of encroaching on native land. — file pic
Signalling how important the disputes are, the BN recently gave out 437 titles for tribal land for Bidayuh landowners under the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation authority.
Nicholas Mujah of the Sarawak Dayak-Iban Association (SADIA) believes though land disputes are a readily-available hot-button issue for non-BN parties, it is not a silver bullet.
“It gives the opposition parties something to campaign on,” he said, but was doubtful the anger over land disputes was enough to unseat BN’s representatives in Dayak areas.
“In Dayak areas, the votes will be split,” said the SADIA secretary-general.
Cases of encroachment into ancestral or native customary rights (NCR) land, rarely get any attention from Peninsula-based media outlets. This is even when it happens to indigenous communities in the Peninsula.
But they routinely make the headlines in Sabah and Sarawak, where hundreds of suits are being fought at the state’s High Court.
The nature of the disputes varies but usually involves a longhouse or village contesting against a private company over who rightfully owns a piece of land.
What makes these cases especially controversial is that these villages and longhouses have also accused the companies of hiring thugs to harass them. Some communities have mounted blockades against company workers who they claim are entering land which is being disputed.
The companies counter by claiming that they had rightfully gained ownership by getting leases from the state government.
SADIA said 307 cases have been filed this year at the Sarawak High Court. Mujah believes there are hundreds more that are undocumented where the communities involved have neither the will nor the resources to bring their cases to court.
NCR issues are expected to be even more fractious this year given the increase in cases and the fact that disputes now involve almost all of Sarawak’s ethnic groups.
“Now we are seeing cases even from Melanaus and Malays, and their cases are even worse than the Dayaks,” Mujah said, referring to the two ethnic groups which have historically been Sarawak BN’s staunchest supporters.
The Bidayuh heartland of Serian is another case in point where PR partner Parti Keadilan Rakyat has been vigorously drumming up suspicion about land grabs that it blames on the BN state administration, said residents.
A resident, William Jebron, said one of the targets is the Land Survey Department’s work in demarcating the boundaries between private NCR land and state government land,
“PKR tells residents that the department is measuring the land so that one day it will be taken. Residents believe this because they are not properly informed. But I believe this issue is not going to sway residents,” said the 56-year-old farmer.
