150 stage rally to reject proposed S’wak Land Code amendment
MIRI: A group of some 150 from non-governmental organisations held a rally here yesterday to call for elected representatives, especially from the Dayak community, to reject the proposed Sarawak Land Code amendment, which will be tabled during the upcoming State Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting.
Baram Protection Action Committee chairman Philip Jau said the group found the proposed amendment ‘very disturbing’.
“All this while we have been demanding that the state government amend the Land Code to define pemakai menoa (territorial domain) and pulau galau (communal forest reserve) but it was not even mentioned in the proposed Bill.
“They use the term ‘usufructuary rights’, which mean you can only use the land but you do not own it. This is ‘genocide’, whatever you call it or daylight robbery,” Philip told reporters.
He said the people deserve rights over their lands, which they had acquired from their ancestors.
“Very simple message to the government – return back our land. All the provisional lease (PL) lands, which have been taken from us must also be returned back to the people. That land is ours,” he said.
In a press statement forwarded after the rally, Philip said the group also demanded the Sarawak government withdraw the proposed amendment and replace it with a new amendment, which specifically and explicitly recognises and protects pulau galau and pemakai menoa, as well as the rights to native customary land based on the communal land boundary.
“We would also demand the state government to immediately survey and gazette the communal land boundary of and between our longhouses and villages,” he said.
The group also demanded the revocation, cancellation or withdrawal of all logging licences, licenses for planted forests and leases issued, which overlapped with land within the communal land boundary of their longhouses and villages.
“We will take appropriate action to exercise our right of private defence of our native customary land, which is our constitutional and human right including, if necessary, to repossess all our native customary land which has been unlawfully and fraudulently alienated to or over which logging licenses and licenses for planted forest had been issued by the state government to the companies,” he said.