ONE VOICE: Residents of Kampung Iban Stampin taking turns to sign the petition letter on Thursday.
KUCHING: One hundred and thirty-seven residents of Kampung Iban Stampin here have signed a petition urging the state government to halt alienating their land, which houses a kindergarten, a community hall, a church and a football field for commercial development.
They also appealed to the government to instead alienate the said land to their Village Security and Development Committee (JKKK) for the benefit of the community in the area.
Its JKKK vice-chairman Dennis Sungkor said the signed petition letter would be forwarded to the government very soon.
“Thus far, neither the developer nor authority concerned has come forward to meet the residents regarding the land that will be alienated. In fact, there has been no black and white on the matter from either of them,” he told The Borneo Post after the residents had signed the petition at their village’s community hall on Thursday.
Dennis said all these amenities had served them well for more than 20 years, and they still needed them.
“The residents support this petition because they are disturbed that the private developer will demolish these amenities.”
Dennis added that they believed the land earmarked for alienation were in fact native customary rights (NCR) land, although the government had a different take on this.
“We have made the relevant searches with the Kuching Land Registry Office and were told that the alienation process is in progress.”
Dennis said his people supported the development, but the proper way should be for both sides to sit down and talk things over.
Meanwhile, Bandar Kuching MP and Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen, when contacted, revealed that he helped draft the petition letter.
He opined that the residents should defend their right to stop the private developer from moving in.
“These amenities are their basic public infrastructure. Without them, they will be deprived of their basic needs.”
He hoped that the matter would be resolved amicably so that the community, which had been there ever since the Brooke era, continued to live in harmony and not be dealt with hardships.