A senior Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) supreme council member has suggested that the authorities recall all provisional leases on lands on which Sarawak natives have claimed native customary rights.

"Rectify them and issue new titles by excluding all lands subject to native customary rights," said Sidi Munan, who is also a former deputy chairperson of state agency, Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra).

"This will solve part of the problem over land," he added, referring to the Kuching High Court's recent decision affirming the native customary rights of four Ibans from longhouses in Bintulu Division following a dispute with Borneo Paper and Pulp Mill Sdn Bhd.

The company was issued by the Bintulu land office with a provisional title which included some 700 hectares of land that the Ibans say is theirs, exercised as their rights under native customary laws.

Munan said provisional leases have caused "a lot of financial problems to the contractors. What the developers want is a clean title. (That way) their money will be safe".

"It is a problem if they (the contractors) cannot enter the land happily without being stopped by the claimants of customary rights over the land leased to someone else."

On High Court Judge Ian Chin's decision, the PBDS supreme council member described it as timely, saying there are at least 20 more cases of similar nature pending in the court.

"The trend in many countries where the indigenous people have begun to assert their rights is for the courts in those countries to recognise the rights. In Sarawak we are going in the opposite direction, it seems."

He said: "Land is more than the literal face value of the earth or soil: It is part and parcel of the system of beliefs and culture. You deprive this, you deprive the natives of their very existence."

Clear all doubts

Munan said the High Court's landmark decision should clear all doubts which had apparently existed in the minds of some lawyers in this country on the existence of NCR land in Sarawak.

"Do you think the natives would ever accept the cession of Sarawak to the British Crown in 1946 if they were told that they would not have customary rights over the land they had occupied before even James Brooke (the First White Rajah)?

"Do you think the natives would have accepted Malaysia in 1963 if they were told by the Tunku that their rights over land would not be recognised?"

Asked if the defendants should appeal against the decision, he said, "Of course, they have the right to appeal," adding however that it would not be politically correct in the circumstances because the state elections is around the border.

"The opposition will lap the issue up. This single issue may influence voters who have been told so many times that the government does not take away people's land.

"The appeal may be misinterpreted by some quarters to prove that the government had indeed [supposedly] tried to take away people's land but the Court stopped it ... and (that) the government is not happy with the ruling. There will be no end to this controversy."

Munan whose party is Iban-based and a component of the ruling Sarawak Barisan Nasional, warned that at this time "we cannot afford a confrontation with the landowners affected".