SARAWAK civil society groups that protested against the recently amended Sarawak Land Code in Bintulu last Saturday now want Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas and all Dayak Gabungan Parti Sarawak assemblymen who supported the amendments to resign.

They also want the amended Land Code to be repealed, saying its current form waters down their rights and ownership of native lands, and fear that government “cronies” could still seize their lands.

Dayak National Congress (DNC) president Paul Raja, in a statement on behalf of all the groups, said Uggah, an Iban, and the Dayak assemblymen had “proven themselves to be totally useless to native communities”.

“They failed miserably in their duty and are the very ones who killed our customs of pemakai menoa (territorial domain) and pulau galau (communal forest reserve) by tabling and passing the bill.”

The native civil groups are against four key features of the amendments:

Downgrading of the status of native land rights to “usufructuary right”; 

Limiting the size of the domain to 1,000ha; 

Requiring an application to the Land and Survey Department for the domain; and,

The absence of any provision for pulau galau, which they said “effectively kills the native custom of pemakai menoa and pulau galau”.

The amended Land Code now refers to them as “native territorial domain”.

“The term usufructuary right is a derogatory term used by the condescending colonial officers who detested the native customary land tenure that they regarded as destructive and uncivilised,” the groups said.

“Why does the bill use the term when our customs are a proprietary right?

“The term usufructuary  is deprecating to our native customary rights. It humiliates our honour and dignity as first-nation people.”

On limiting the size of the domain, the protestors asked Uggah and the state government, “who will get the balance of our pemakai menoa outside the 1,000ha?”

“Are our pemakai menoa going to be distributed to cronies and family members of GPS Ybs (assemblymen)? We know and we have evidence of our own Dayak YBs and even Uggah’s own family who own thousands of hectares of land.”

The protestors said by limiting the territorial domain size to 1,000ha, the government was “robbing the people of their pemakai menoa that is easily 20,000ha to 30,000ha and more”.

“That is outrageous daylight robbery on the part of the government.”

Besides the DNC, the other Dayak civil groups are the Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) and Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU).

The groups said they would continue to pursue their land rights and warned the state government to prepare to face the voters’ wrath at the Sarawak elections due in 2021. – July 16, 2018.