Sabah land chief's pledge stokes 'hornet's nest'

The Sabah Land and Surveys Department (LSD), its director Osman Jamal in particular, has come under heavy fire from all sides for a statement yesterday which painted the state government as " whiter than white " in native land matters.

Leading the charge is native land rights activist and lawyer, Kong Hong Ming ( below ), who has fought numerous native land custody battles in court, all of them, he assured, without taking a single sen in legal fees or taking even an inch of land from anyone in return.

"Anyone who has gone to court will dispute Osman's statement if they have not died laughing by now," said Kong. "He's trying to paint a rosy picture through a pack of lies that native land owners are in fact in heaven now thanks to a caring government."

More than 100 representatives from 18 districts led by social activist Galus Atoi of Pacos (Partners of Community Organisations) likewise beg to differ with the LSD director's statement.

"We submitted a memorandum to the governor last year in February and before that in 2006," said Galus. "We represent 32,352 natives who are appealing to the state government to respect, defend and protect their collective area of 339,984 acres against encroachment."

Copies of the memorandum were also sent to the chief minister, Suhakam (Malaysian Human Rights Commission), state secretary, state attorney-general and the LSD director.

"Despite their memorandum, nothing was done by the state government," said Kong, the legal advisor to Pacos.

"On the contrary, 20,000 to 60,000 hectares per land title were alienated to powerful corporations without due consideration to the existing rights of the natives ancestral land and NCR (native customary rights) land, occupied by them and farmed for generations."

Brickbats also came from Kota Kinabalu MP Hiew King Cheu who points out, like Kong, that the LSD had admitted that it's incapable of resolving land application cases within a reasonable time frame.

"Osman claims that the LSD receives 40,000 applications yearly and has only solved 12,500 cases so far this year although the target is 16,000 cases for the year," noted Hiew.

"His excuse that he's short of staff is unacceptable. The LSD is a revenue-generating department. It should employ more staff and not be bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape."

Native landowners face eviction

Kong notes that by its own admission the LSD can only clear an application after 19 years, on a first come, first served basis, and given the backlog of 265, 000 land applications dating back to 1975.

"Given the current situation at the LSD, Osman's public relations statement doesn't mean a thing," said Kong. "It doesn't exactly offer a ray of hope for land applicants especially native landowners who face the prospects of eviction by the courts in the meantime."

Kong alleged that matters have been compounded at the LSD by the fact that it doesn't operate on a first come first, served basis.

He cited a statement yesterday by Tuaran PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) Chief Ansari Abdullah that a big company had its application to change the status of a land from NT (Native Title) to CL (Country Lease) approved within five days.

"Many natives have been waiting for more than 30 years for their land to be recognised by the government under Native Titles and Communal Titles," said Kong.

One case he's familiar with is that of 12 villages in Tongod, Kinabatangan. Here, the families concerned applied for five to 15 acres per family in 1975.

Along comes a big company in 1997 and applies for 24,000 acres which includes the land the families had applied for. The company had its application approved within a year.

The affected kampung folks, according to Kong, have been on the land for seven generations, even before the coming of the British North Borneo Chartered Company.

In particular, Kong singled out Osman's pledge that "no one will suddenly lose the land outside his kitchen window to someone else" as the height of ignorance, if not arrogance.

"At the back of my mind, I somehow have the sinking feeling that it may already be too late for far too many people," said Kong. "Many people in the rural areas have lost much more than the land outside their kitchen window or otherwise are fighting a losing battle against the army of lawyers employed by land theft companies."

He likened the situation to Malaysia's loss of Pulau Batu Putih to Singapore because the latter had a lighthouse there, although the island clearly belongs to Malaysia, and Indonesia's loss of Sipadan and Ligitan "where Malaysia's claim to ownership was upheld on the basis of the collection of turtle eggs and construction of diving sites".

The loss of sovereignty in both cases by inadvertent transfer, and not challenging unlawful activities, is clear and sanctioned by international law.

Rural may end up working for a pittance

Native land rights, according to Kong, are in fact enshrined in Adat for which there's space in the Federal Constitution and common law.

Unfortunately, the LSD bases its interpretation of native land rights solely on the Land Ordinance, which can extinguish native rights through narrow clauses, rather than see the picture in its totality.

Kong cites the Rambilin case (2000) in Sabah and the Nor case (2009) in Sarawak as "significant blows against big corporations seizing native land in cahoots with crooked politicians and the LSD".

"This (seizure of native land) happens because the authorities know that the poor kampung folks don't know their rights and are too poor to seek legal counsel," said Kong.

"That's why I feel that if someone doesn't help them, the rural folks will become landless and will end up working for a pittance in the big plantations."

Alternatively, they will be driven to the shanty towns and find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance and disease of the kind that seen in the teeming cities in Latin America, Bangladesh, Kolkata, Mumbai, Manila, Jakarta and Bangkok.

"Landless people are in the same category as stateless people, both Sabahans and illegal immigrants, i.e. in a twilight zone," said Sepanggar MP Eric Majimbun ( left ) who wants the LSD to impose a limit on the amount of land which can be owned by non-Sabahan Malaysians and foreigners.

"The LSD should reveal how many NT land has been converted to plantation land in Sabah." The LSD has already rejected demands for a cap on land not owned by Sabahans.

Like everyone else plagued with land cases, Majimbun has many before him. One particular case is a complaint against an individual who managed to get CL Title to ancestral burial grounds in Inanam, in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu.

"How can this happen without the knowledge of the village head?" asks Majimbun.

In general, the consensus among critics is that the LSD director should check with the state AG's chambers and the dstrict offices on the large number of land cases in court and land disputes outstanding and accumulating by the day.