KUCHING: State PKR chairman Baru Bian hopes that Tan Sri Adenan Satem the chief minister in waiting will be ‘brave enough’ to recognise ‘pemakai menua’ (communal land) and ‘pulau galau’ (reserved land/forest) as native customary rights (NCR) land.
Baru, who is also Ba Kelalan assemblyman, recalled that during the last State Legislative Assembly sitting in November last year, Adenan had stated that the government only recognised ‘temuda’ land.
“One thing you probably don’t know is that we submitted all the written judgements of all the NCR land cases from the High Court, to the Court of Appeal to the Federal Court to Adenan during the last sitting.
“We were hoping that he would make an official recognition of pemakai menua and pulau galau, but unfortunately he did not – an official stand of the state government,” he told a press conference here Thursday.
Baru hoped that with all the authorities in Adenan’s hand as the chief minister, the latter would be brave enough to reserve or change the position of the state government and recognise pemakai menua and pulau galau as NCR land.
He said the Court of Appeal, in the case of Director of Forests Sarawak & 2 Ors v. Nicholas Mujah ak Ason & 2 Ors recently, had once again confirmed that NCR exists, this time in an area claimed by the residents of Rumah Ensika, Rumah Entanggor and Rumah Tingkah Dayak, Sebangan, Simunjan, as their pemakai menua and pulau galau.
“The government has been arguing against us all this while that pulau galau and pemakai menua are not recognised by the government even before 1958 but this case is related to that rights being admitted officially by the predecessor of the state government, meaning to say during the British Colonial time.”
Baru said with the recent Court of Appeal case, there were at least seven cases at the Court of Appeal where NCR over pemakai menua and pulau galau had been affirmed and upheld.
“While the right to appeal is the right provided by the court of law in Malaysia, the government should stop arguing that only ‘temuda’ is recognised, not pemakai menua and pulau galau because that have been decided by the courts up to the Federal Court.
“So don’t come back to the court and argue these things all over again. That is why we are calling on the government to recognise the decisions of the highest court in the land – that pemakai menua, pulau galau and temuda are all NCR land.”
While congratulating Adenan on his appointment, Baru hoped that the new chief minister would receive and consider whatever things that the opposition would like to raise and issues pertaining to the rights of Sarawakians.“These include land issue and problems faced in rural Sarawak, particularly in terms of infrastructure, education, medical services and utilities. We do hope that under his leadership, he will be receptive and be active in responding to what we raise.”