Quarry company: Orang Asli the ones encroaching, not us

Summary

• Quarry owner Siong Emas says the Orang Asli are the ones encroaching on the company's land.

• Company managing director Tan Ee Tiam provides Malaysiakini with a copy of the land title.

• This is after the Orang Asli in Kampung Chang Lama, Bidor protested the company's alleged encroachment.

A quarry company has refuted claims from an Orang Asli community in Bidor, Perak that it had encroached on their land.

Instead, it is the Orang Asli who have done so on the company's land, said quarry owner Siong Emas Sdn Bhd.

Siong Emas managing director Tan Ee Tiam provided a copy of the land title to Malaysiakini in response to the Orang Asli villagers’ accusations against it.

"The land is owned by Siong Emas. We have evidence, we have the land title.

"The Orang Asli community in Kampung Chang Lama are encroaching on the land," he said.

The land title provides for a 2.832ha plot called Lot 16225 in Batang Padang as a quarry site.

Last week, the Orang Asli villagers protested the alleged encroachment of a company on their ancestral land after finding signboards along the Jejog area.

Village head tok batin Dahil Yok Chopil said this violated the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the Orang Asli's consent was not obtained and he urged the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa) to revoke the company’s lease on the land in the area.

According to Dahil, Siong Emas had been granted a 30-year lease for the site on Feb 14, 2007, which expired on May 26, 2022.

A 44-year lease extension, expiring on May 25, 2066, was registered on Nov 29, 2021, he added.

The tok batin pointed out that the area is a sacred site to the community as it is where prayer ceremonies and rotational crop farming activities are held.

“The area and its surroundings also contain ancestral burial grounds, including the graves of Moyang Tangkut and Moyang Mawai, a highly respected traditional medicine practitioner who once resided there,” Dahil said.

Illegal palm oil trees

Commenting further on the matter, Tan said he lodged a police report on Dec 16, 2024, against the villagers’ encroachment.

In the copy of the police report he shared, he said that he found palm oil trees on the property and was unsure who had planted them.

He also found a signboard displaying another person's name and attributing ownership of the land to Jakoa.

"Seeing as my land is under the industrial (quarry) category and not agricultural, I came to the Bidor police station to file a report to refer to the Land Office and Malaysian Palm Oil Board," the Siong Emas managing director said.

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