MIRI : The State Land Code ought to be reviewed and amended to accord Dayaks a fair degree of recognition of their customary rights of Native Customary Right (NCR) lands in order to safeguard and protect the rights of the rural communities.
Recent events on NCR issues like the one which happened at an oil palm plantation believed to be owned by Tabung Haji at Ulu Sungai Arip, Balingian, had once again caught full attention of all Dayaks.
“Ever since before, when it comes to NCR issues, it is the rural Dayak community which has to bear the dreadful consequences from the plantation owner’s actions. We can always observe from these cases of land disputes involving our Dayak people that the companies always resort to hire gangsters who intimidate, harass, assault, bully rural Dayak people,” president of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) Baru Cobbold John Lusoi said in a statement issued yesterday.
He noted that recent trend showed the companies tended to hire Dayak e.g. Iban ‘gangsters’ so that in the event there was a fight, ‘it’s Dayak who shall kill fellow Dayak as of result’.
Pointing out that this phenomenon has to be stopped, Cobbold urged all Dayak and Dayak related non-governmental organisations (NGOs) including political parties to play a role in curtailing the problem.
“Why should Dayak kill or fight fellow Dayak? We should not be made the tool to fight our own fellow Dayak! Plantation owner should bear full responsibilities for their actions in using unemployed and financially desperate Dayak as their leverage and for their own benefit to settle land matters or dispute through ‘gangsterism’ towards rural Dayak communities by threatening to show who is in power.”
Cobbold also questioned why plantation owners were allowed to have their own auxiliary police permits when such permits were being used as cover up for ‘triad gangsterism’ or ‘ groups of goons’ to coerce the rural Dayak into submitting into their demands.
“By having guns and weapons to be legalised and leveraged for use against NCR land owners. Did the authorities learn nothing at all from Bill Kayong’s shooting incidents? The case has been dragged for months now whereas the ‘runaway Datuk’ is still running and hiding overseas,” he added.
“The government should be held responsible for all the permit lease (PL) which were issued to these so called agro-development tycoons and impose strict regulations to protect and safeguard the people in the area instead of allowing them to feel vulnerable and unsafe,” Cobbold suggested.
If need be, the current land code ought to be reviewed and amended to accord fair degree of recognition of NCR land rights in order to safeguard and protect the rights of the rural landowners,” Cobbord suggested.