Apologist Minister is ignoring the facts

Apang

The Sarawak BN government continues to deny that it takes land away from indigenous communities, when evidence of land grabs has been overwhelming. The latest comes from James Masing who accused critics of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land grabs of being “ignorant and arrogant”.

The land minister is obviously continuing the denial mode of the government. In addition to being an anthropologist, he has obviously added another title to himself by now: an apologist.

He keeps making lame excuses for the state government under Taib Mahmud, in which ample evidence is available for all to conclude that there continues to be land grabs, dispossessing and causing suffering among the rural communities, and enriching the politically well-connected.

As we have seen in many sources, including Hornbill Unleashed and Sarawak Report exposés, most of these land grabs have been for the benefit of the Chief Minister’s immediate family. There are over 200 land rights cases in courts, going through various stages of the judicial process – these are clear enough evidence of land grabs.

Furthermore, there have been several landmark judgments, including some with the nation’s highest Federal Court, that have already affirmed that Sarawak natives have rights over NCR lands. The fact that the state government continues to ignore the law demonstrates clearly who the ignorant and arrogant party really is.

The Ba Jawi filing of yet another case shows the hollowness of the denials of the Apologist Minister James Masing.

Issuing logging licenses and leases for plantations to private companies, many of which are crony companies, without the express consent of NCR landowners, is grabbing land. If the minister cannot follow this, he obviously needs a dictionary to help him understand this simplest of facts.

Landmark court judgments have recognised the indigenous peoples’ rights, not just to lands for settlements, but also for self-sustaining purposes that include food, building materials, water and other daily necessities.

These Sarawakians are being driven off their land, just because the BN government says indigenous peoples have no rights over lands without any written title not issued by the same government. This is ignorant, arrogant and most of all, legally wrong.

Masing’s apologist statements cannot be allowed to exist in any democratic country, and they must not be tolerated in Sarawak. Time is near, for Masing to be educated via the ballot boxes of his ignorance, arrogance and outright denial.

Ba Jawi Penans’ rich history must not be destroyed by the government and companies that only see RM signs when entering the native peoples’ lands. The rights of people to life are at stake. Hundreds if not thousands of years of histories must not be allowed to be cut off, within just one or two decades, by outsiders.

The Ba Jawi court case is not just about laws, but is more specifically about justice and the rights of all Sarawakians, particularly those most marginalised by the government and companies.

Hopefully, the new Pakatan Rakyat government will right all these wrongs of almost 50 years. A new NCR policy and Land Commission will ensure that rights are recognised by the government, and will never force the NCR land owners to have to slog their claims in courts.

The new government will hopefully amend and introduce legislation wherever necessary, to comply with the numerous court judgments. This will prove the new government’s respect for decisions by one of the three pillars of our parliamentary democracy, that is, the judiciary.