Some 500 Dayaks representing the Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia), Dayak National Congress (DNC) and Barisan Iban Sarawak (Bisa) today protested peacefully against the recruitment of 12,000 Bangladeshi workers to work in Sarawak’s oil palm estates.

Carrying banners and placards with wording such as ‘No Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers’ and ‘Bangladeshi workers rob locals of employment opportunities’, the protesters came from Serian and Simunjan districts where hundreds of thousands acres of land are under oil palm.

The protest was organised to coincide with the visit of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak this afternoon to Serian where he will officially open Serian’s new water treatment plant.

Peter John Jaban, chief organiser of the protest, told Malaysiakini that the protesters wanted the message to be delivered to the prime minister that the Dayaks wanted the state government to put a stop to the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers as these foreign workers were robbing them of job opportunities.

“We are appealing to  and pleading for the prime minister’s help to put pressure on the state government, as the state government’s recruitment drive is detrimental to the security and employment opportunities of the local people, especially the Dayaks,” he said, referring to the announcement made  by Human Resources Minister Richard Riot some time ago.

According to the minister, the state had recruited 12,000 Bangladeshi workers and the first batch of 5,000 would arrive in April this year.

“Since the announcement, there has been widespread concern amongst Dayak groups that such a large influx of workers is both unnecessary and a threat that will certainly cause significant social disruption for local people and as well as for the migrant workers themselves,” Peter John said.

He said a similar government-to-government agreement to supply workers for palm oil plantations in the peninsula in the past had not been successful largely due to the fact that the Bangladeshi workers were inexperienced and uncommitted as they had no palm oil industry of their own.

He said: “The Dayaks of Sarawak, who are already sidelined in many sectors of employment in their own home state including the civil service and teaching, now face further challenges to their own employment in the agricultural sector, traditionally their preserve.  

“These 12,000 workers - representing a significant half percent of the entire population of the state, let alone the rural workforce - can only unbalance the rural economy and force Dayaks into further poverty while the Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) benefit from a cheap and captive workforce,” he said.

In addition, flooding the rural areas with such a large group of people from a different religious and ethnic background could only serve to exacerbate social issues as it had done in peninsular Malaysia, he warned.

The three Dayak NGOs urged the federal government to reject this plan proposed by the state government as its cronies would largely benefit from this recruitment.

“Put the interests of the rural people above those of the ‘fat cat’ plantation owners for once,” he said.