Uggah ‘ill-advised’ on statement govt will never take people’s land – Baru

KUCHING: State Parti Keadilan Rakyat ( PKR) chairman Baru Bian says Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, who he claims to be new to native customary rights ( NCR) land issue, may have been ill-advised when he recently said “the government will never take the people’s lands from them”.

From the natives’ perspective, thousands of acres of NCR lands acquired or created in accordance with their customs had already been taken or continued to be taken by the government, said the opposition leader.

He cited the landmark case of Nor Nyawai as an example where the customary concept of ‘ pemakai menoa’ and ‘ pulau galau’ had been affirmed as having ‘the force of law’.

“Meaning this customary concept is lawfully accepted as a basis for NCR claim over land in Sarawak. The decision in Nor Nyawai was eventually affirmed in the case of Madeli Salleh at the Federal Court.

“With the greatest respect to the deputy chief minister, I am aware that the facts in Madeli Salleh are not about ‘ pemakai menoa’ or ‘ pulau galau’, which was the crux of the matter in Nor Nyawai’s case,” he said in a press statement yesterday.

The Ba Kelalan assemblyman also said the customary concept of ‘ pemakai menoa’ and ‘ pulau galau’ had been followed in more than 15 cases after the decision on Madeli Salleh’s case in Oct 2007, affirming the decision on Nor Nyawai’s case.

“Surely it cannot be said that all the judges who heard these cases did not understand the law or misinterpreted Nor Nyawai and the Federal Court’s decision in Madeli Salleh’s case.

“Unfortunately, all these cases that were won on the authority of Nor Nyawai and Madeli Salleh were appealed against by the very government who kept repeating publicly that ‘ they respect and recognise NCR lands of the natives of Sarawak’.

“If indeed the government respects and recognises NCR lands of the natives of Sarawak, then they should show their sincerity by withdrawing all the appeals made by the state government after the decision on Madeli Salleh’s case at the Federal Court,” he pointed out.

He said the state government through the State Attorney General’s (SAG’s) Chambers kept appealing in all the cases they lost and finally they successfully got leave to appeal to the Federal Court in TR Sandah’s case.

The Federal Court’s decision in TR Sandah’s case was handed down in Sept last year, he added.

“The only issue eventually to be decided was whether the customary concept of pemakai menoa and pulau galau ‘ has the force of law’. This stemmed again from the definition of NCR under Section 2(a) of the Sarawak Land Code to mean amongst other things ‘ land in which NCR, whether communal or otherwise, have lawfully been created prior to Jan 1, 1958, and still subsist as such;...’

“Therefore we need to understand the meaning of ‘lawfully been created’ which then takes us back to the definition of ‘ law’ under Article 160( 2) of the Federal Constitution,” he said.

Baru opined that there is no necessity to legislate on the extent of claims of ‘ pemakai menoa’ because this has to be in accordance with the custom of the natives.

“Different communities may have different custom on the matter and therefore claims must be proven by the native claimants in accordance with their custom,” he said.

He said NCR had already become a political issue because the government is the authority that issued all provisional leases, quarry licences and licences to replant forests, which areas encroached onto the NCR lands or ‘pemakai menoa’ of the natives.

“Now it has reached its boiling point, the government cannot be heard to say that we have politicised this issue when it is plain and obvious that it is grossly due to the government’s own action,” asserted Baru.

He said he was left with no choice but to wait patiently for the Bill to be tabled in the State Legislative Assembly sitting in May next year.