Orang Asli residents from a village in Perak are alleging that they have been given one week by a private company to certify their stake over Kampung Chang Sungai Gepai.

Failing that, the company owned by a former minister will continue with clearance works on the land for its projected oil palm plantation.

Situated five kilometers from the nearest town of Bidor, the 350-acre land had been occupied by several generations of the Semai community, eight hundred of whose residents presently derive basic sustenance and cash income from the land's forest resources.

One of the villagers, teacher Zuraini Ngah, told malaysiakini today that following the company's sudden encroachment and clearance works on their land, a police report was made on Nov 24 by the residents.

"Without our knowledge, they had started clearance works by entering from Kampung Poh, some distance away from our village. It must have been a week before we realised and made the police report at the Bidor police station," she said.

The police officers then advised the contractors, who were present at the station, to stop its operations.

As the stop-work order was merely verbal and since the villagers' claim over the land was undocumented, the company acted a week later by demanding proof that the residents had indeed a stake over the land.

Government backing

Showing documents proving that the land had been sold to the company and that the company had entered into an agreement with contractors to clear the land, company representatives on Dec 1 told the villagers to come up with "letters of protest" from the state's Department for Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA) or other relevant authorities, Zuraini said.

"They came to our village on that day and showed us the documents as well as maps. They then told us that if we don't come up with letters either from the land office or JHEOA to authoritatively stop their operations, they will continue with clearance work within one week."

Their letters to JHEOA and the office of Perak Mentri Besar Tajol Rosli Ghazali, however, has yet to see any response, she said.

The villagers have since solicited the assistance of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), the Legal Aid Centre in Ipoh, as well as the Malaysian Bar Council.

In their letter to the council, Zuraini and fellow villager Rizuan Tempek said that the villagers are vigorously trying to defend their ancestral land in spite of the company's "government backing" and financial clout.

In the event that they fail to obtain the letters demanded of them by the company within the next three days, Zuraini said legal redress will probably be their next course of action.

"We will try to take the matter to court and to the higher authorities, " she said.

Earlier last month, Suhakam commissioner Hamdan Adnan said the Perak government must conduct investigations into any claims of violation of the Semai community land rights.

"As an indigenous people, the Semai enjoy specific guarantees of their identity, including the right of access to ancestral lands and land relied upon for subsistence, and the right to decide their own patterns of development," he said.

"The possibility of dispossession is putting their way of life and culture under threat. It is a matter of concern that insensitivity to the needs of the Orang Asli may result in more native customary lands being transformed without their consent."