Desperation creeping into Sabah villages

Natives frustrated at the government disinterest in resolving long standing NCR issues may be taking their own style of action.

LAHAD DATU: The Sabah government has been urged to view the recent torching of a timber company’s properties in Kampong Alab in Sook, Keningau by frustrated natives, with urgency as it was indicative that NCR landowners were taking the law into the own hands

PKR Land and Natural Resources Bureau chief, Kong Hon Min said the fact that the incident happened is a “clear indication of accumulative effect due to continuous neglect and failure of the state BN government to address native’s problem, particularly regarding their property rights”.

Kong believes the villagers’ desperate action was driven by the feeling of insecurity because of the present government continuous neglect to protect their rights, especially communal land they occupied since time in memorial.

Kong, who is also Sabah PKR Election Director, was here to attend the launching of PKR Silam election machinery.

“We are going into a transition whereby the people out of desperation may feel forced to take the law into their own hand to protect their land and their rights, which at the end may lead to violent and undesirable consequences.

“To me this is a manifestation of the inability by the present government … the BN must address and resolve the long standing land issue, especially Native Customary Right land in Sabah,” Kong said.

Last  Wednesday, fed-up that their 10-year-old problem has yet to resolved, about 50 villagers of Kampong Alab in Sook took matters into their own hands by burning down two timber camps belonging to Bornion Timber Company.

The company claimed its losses amounted to RM35,000.

According to some villagers, tensions arose after the logging company entered the customary land of the village and destroyed their crops despite clear demarcation of the area.