Thursday, July 17, 2008

400 families near Bakun served eviction notices

BAKUN: Some 2,000 people from 400 families living downstream of the RM6bil Bakun hydro-electric dam project site in Belaga district in central Sarawak had been served eviction notices by the State Land and Survey Department. Over the past 48 hours, numerous houses and longhouse blocks in four different locations not far from the Bakun dam site had already been demolished. The Star visited the affected areas and found many more houses and longhouse blocks painted with red numbers on their doors, a sign that they too have been marked for demolition.

Bintulu Land and Survey Department superintendent Azmaen Saperi said the department had issued eviction notices to those houses and longhouse blocks that are deemed to have been built illegally on state land. The headmen of the various settlements affected by the eviction notices, however, claimed that they have ancestral rights over the land and that they have native customary land rights to live in the region. The Star visited the Bakun region over the past two days and saw natives whose houses and farmhuts had been demolished demonstrating and others holding blockades to prevent enforcement officers from entering. Rumah Apan deputy headman Merang Jok said some 400 families had received eviction notices.

"We have hired a Bintulu-based lawyer Paul Raja to take the state government and the State Land and Survey to court. Our ancestors have been living here since 130 years ago. In fact, the Sarawak Museum has a copy of a gazette dated August 1, 1882, describing a visit by a government leader to our settlement here in Bakun. After living here for so long, we are shocked to receive these eviction notices. Now, they (Land and Survey enforcement units) have already started tearing down our premises," he said when interviewed at the ruins of a longhouse block that was torn down on Wednesday.

Lawyer Raja, when contacted, said he is preparing to file court action to try to help the affected families. Catholic priest turned social activist Father Michael Jok visited the affected residents, many of whom are his friends.

"We are trying various channels to resolve the issue. I am trying to negotiate a peaceful solution with the land development companies. The affected residents are trying to seek help from the court to halt the demolition. Hopefully, there will be an amicable solution. The affected folks are farmers. Where will they go if they are evicted from the Bakun region? This downstream area is not affected by the dam construction.

"The 15,000 Bakun folks upstream of the dam had already been moved out because their areas would be flooded. Now, even the downstream folks are being forced out even though they are not affected by the flooding. I was informed that these downstream areas are to be cleared for opening of oil palm plantations," he said. Another lawyer Ali Basah, who handles cases in northern Sarawak, had forwarded appeal letters to the Home Minister, the Prime Minister's Department, the Attorney-General Chambers and the state politicians asking for urgent intervention to stop the demolition.

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