THEY have survived the British, Japanese and Communists. But four days before Merdeka, the Orang Asli of Gua Musang are seeing their livelihoods being taken away by their fellow Malaysians.

But despite losing the latest battle for their ancestral lands in Ulu Kelantan, activists and villagers of the Temiar tribe in this corner of Gua Musang are resolute.

They are ready to keep fighting the loggers and planters they accuse of destroying the jungles they have depended on for centuries for sustenance until their rights to those jungles are recognised.

The activists from the Kelantan Indigenous People’s Network (JKOAK) said this after state authorities tore down the blockades they have maintained for seven months against firms logging and building plantations in their communal lands.

JKOAK activists said they are taking their fight for land rights to the courts or they are willing to put up the blockades again.

Some activists have staged a sit-in on the site of their demolished barricades, blocking the roads with a human chain.

“They have destroyed the wooden poles and pillars, so now we are going to build a blockade with our bodies that we will maintain for 24 hours,” said Nur Mohd Syafiq Dendi Abdullah, the lead JKOAK activist at the Kaleg blockade.

The Kaleg blockade disrupted the operations of plantations the Temiar said encroached onto their customary land.

Tense confrontations have broken out between Temiar activists and workers of a firm planting latex timber clones, pineapples and musang king durians.

“We will maintain this human blockade until the state government recognises our customary land rights. Because in Pos Simpor, our forests have been destroyed and our water sources have been polluted.”

Kaleg together with the Cawas and Kegeg blockades were destroyed yesterday by the Forestry Department and the Gua Musang Land and Mines Office.

Officers from these agencies had told the activists that they were acting on behalf of the state government, which is ruled by PAS.

JKOAK chairman Mustafa Along said the network will hold a meeting soon to decide on the next course of action after the destruction of the blockades.

“One option could be to take our fight to the courts or to rebuild our blockades. I don’t discount the possibility that we might put up blockades again.”

Ready to fight again

At the Cawas blockade, spirits were still high among activists who said they were willing to rebuild their barricades.

“I am ready to put up another blockade,” said Adek Along, 54, of Pos Bihai, one of the settlements affected by logging in the Perias forest reserve in Ulu Kelantan.

His sentiment was seconded by fellow villager Kenek Along, 35, who said he was willing to go through the gruelling process of building and maintaining another blockade. 

JKOAK activists have to forage and hunt extra hard for food so that their families have enough supplies when they leave them for a week to man the blockade.

Kenek said he chose to support the blockade instead of earning a paltry sum in the plantations.

“Because the blockade stops the jungle from being destroyed in the first place. We depend on it for food and for our traditional rituals.

“If the jungle is not destroyed, then me and my children and grandchildren will always have enough to eat. So, I am willing to do the blockade again,” Kenek told The Malaysian Insight.

Kenek and Adek, are two activists who have taken turns manning the Cawas blockade.

At a make-shift meeting hall in Cawas about 30 Temiar villagers, all veterans of the blockade, listened intently to Kenek and Adek’s interview with The Malaysian Insight.

When asked if any of them were prepared to rebuild the blockades even if they could be torn down again, they replied with an unqualified “yes!”.

About half of the group of 30, most of whom men in their late 40s and 50s, were veterans of a 2016 blockade that was violently brought down with chainsaws.

In that incident, 43 activists were detained by the police but released two days later.

Putrajaya has said it will begin talks with the Kelantan government and the community to resolve competing land claims between the Temiar, the state and agri-businesses.

However, there has not been any progress on such talks apart from a meeting between the Orang Asli Affairs Department (JAKOA), JKOAK, State Forestry Department and village chiefs (JKKK) appointed by Kelantan.

The meeting ended with JAKOA asking for the activists to work together with the village chiefs to come up with a map on the communal lands they have claimed.

The problem is the village chiefs and activists rarely see eye-to-eye, said Nasir Dollah, a former activist with the national-level Malaysian Indigenous People’s Network (JOAS).   

Activists blame the chiefs for selling out the tribe while the latter claims JKOAK’s demands are unrealistic.

“Both the federal and state governments have to come up with a better way to appoint village chiefs who really command the respect of a majority of their residents.

“But at the end of the day, the Kelantan government should have waited until after the talks with the federal government before destroying the blockades.” – August 28, 2018.