'Victims unaware they lived in forest reserve'

DAILY EXPRESS NEWS

19 September, 2007
Kota Kinabalu: Most of those whose homes were burnt for occupying forest reserves claimed they presumed it to be State land but later gazetted as forest reserve. In this respect, Suhakam (human rights commission) would want to determine whether the complainants had entered the land before the land was gazetted as a forest reserve.

"They claimed that they were only told they had violated the law recently," said Suhakam Deputy Chairman, Tan Sri Simon Sipaun Sipaun. Commissioner Datuk Siva Subramaniam Nagaratnam who accompanied a Suhakam team statewide from Sept 14-18 to hear the complaints described the action as inhumane and uncivilised. He said it never happened in the peninsula.

"Like in the squatter areas, the people are given notices and the enforcement even help them to pack their belongings before the houses are demolished. This is the civilised way.

"We must stop this (the burning of houses)," he said in a Press conference at Pacific Sutera, Tuesday, after winding up their visit in Keningau.

Siva said Suhakam would be looking at the issue from the Native Customary Rights perspective and would be filing an initial report based on facts gathered after personally meeting the people on the ground. Sipaun said the fact finding mission was prompted by many complaints and memoranda received by Suhakam on land matters. The Suhakam delegations accompanied by Public Complaints Bureau in the Prime Minister's Department Board Director, Datuk Patrick Sindu, visited Kampung Sinar Baru, Gum-Gum in Sandakan, Kampung Undrashy and Ulu Kalumpang in Tawau, Tanjung Nagus and Mt Pock in Semporna as well as Kampung Bonor in Keningau.

During the visit, he said they held dialogue with the complainants where they collected feedback which would be compiled by Suhakam before being referred to the relevant authorities. Sipaun said the reaction of these people on land matters was understandable since the relationship between them especially in the rural areas and their land was something special.

Anything that is seen as an attempt to disrupt the relationship would be met with emotional and sentimental feelings, he said. On whether the complainants mentioned who burned their houses, Sipaun said they alleged seeing the vehicles of the State Forestry Department at the scene. On whether the burnt houses were just huts as mentioned by the Forestry Department in its previous statement on the matter, Sipaun said:

"I saw one of the complainants forced to build a hut on top of the burnt houses site using the zinc sheet and when we asked why he is still there. He retorted that he had nowhere else to go because his house has been destroyed.

"So if this is the case is it not their house".

Sipaun said complainants in Tanjung Nagus and Mt Pock alleged only they were forced to leave because the area gazetted as a Class I Forest Reserve but also saw their oil palm plantations being harvested by outsiders who were given ownership of the land.

"What they could not comprehend was why other people are allowed to enter since the area had been gazetted as a Forest Reserve while they were asked to leave," he said. Sipaun stressed that Suhakam is not pro-government, opposition or NGO but is pro-human rights. Nonetheless, Suhakam would be preparing the initial reports to be given to the respondents, in this case the Chief Minister's Department and Land and Survey Department, which oversees land matters as well as the Forestry Department being the enforcement agency.

"We want the response from the Government as perhaps what we hear (from the complainants) are not true because we are not one-sided. "Then we will look into it again before making our recommendation on how to address it," he said.

Meanwhile, Sindu appealed to the Government to allow the people in Tanjung Nagas and Mt Pock to harvest their oil palm plantations.

"Most of them are Muslims and people living in hardship. We are appealing that they are allowed to harvest and gain some income especially with Hari Raya coming," he said.