Background issues affecting the Indigenous Dayak Peoples of Sarawak

The State of Sarawak lies in the north-west sector of Borneo Island, with a land area of 124,449 sq. km (48,612 sq. miles) or 38% of the total land mass in Malaysia.

Sarawak has a population of about 1.9 million (1997 estimates) people. Of this about 49% are Dayaks. The native peoples of Sarawak are collectively known as Dayak, a term for the diverse indigenous ethnic groups in Sarawak and Kalimantan (Indonesia). The Dayaks are the most rural communities in the state with 95% of their total population residing in the rural areas. They live in longhouses. They are subsistence farmers, inland fishermen, hunters and gatherers.

The indigenous communities in Sarawak, and the rainforest environment on which they depend, are continuously threatened by a multitude of issues and problems as a result of various development programmes implemented by the government and the private sector.

Despite continuous effort at the grassroots level and an international campaign in the late 1980s - early 1990s to stop or reduce the destruction of the Sarawak rainforest, and to address the lack of recognition and respect of the indigenous peoples' territorial and human rights, the situation of the natives in the Malaysian state of Sarawak has in fact deteriorated over the last few years.

Besides logging, which was the focus of the past campaigns, the development of large scale monoculture (both for oil palm and industrial tree plantations), the construction of the Bakun Dam, the development of tourist resorts and other activities are severely threatening the customary land rights and rights over resources which represent the lifeline for most of the indigenous groups in Sarawak.

Many longhouses and communities are strenuously opposing the destructive type of development very rapidly carried out by the private sector in cooperation with the state government. It has proved very difficult for Dayaks to change and reform this trend from inside the state, as the most vocal individuals are intimidated and their passports confiscated.

Several indigenous communities, grassroots organisations and local NGOs are therefore asking for international support in highlighting the plight of the indigenous peoples in Sarawak and to support them in their struggle towards recognition of their customary rights and towards developing sustainable forms of development as an alternative to the large-scale development projects being carried out by companies disrespectful of the environment and the cultural and political rights of the indigenous communities.

Underlying all the main problems facing the Dayaks is the lack of effective recognition of their land rights. Under the Sarawakian land code, the Dayaks do have certain rights to land but these rights are ambiguous and have never been adequately mapped or defined. There is disagreement between the Dayaks and the State agencies about the extent to which the natives' legal rights extend to old growth forests beyond those used in their shifting cultivation cycle. While the Dayaks have repeatedly called for their land rights to be clarified and secured, the State prefers to ignore their claims and treats all areas inhabited by natives as unencumbered, or minimally encumbered, State lands.

Recently, the State Legislative Assembly has amended the law to give the Chief Minister powers to extinguish native customary rights not only in the national interest but also in favour of private enterprises. The constitutionality and legality of this amendment has been disputed and it appears to be a clear example of racial discrimination, whereby the property rights of natives are treated as inferior to the property rights of other citizens. Although, under Sarawakian law, communities can ask for areas to be set aside as communal forests, since the 1970s the Government has adopted an explicit policy of denying these applications.

The following provides an overview of the major problems affecting the Dayak communities of Sarawak:

1. Logging

Logging activities continue and are widespread all over the state. About 70 percent of the land area in Sarawak has been licensed to logging companies. Most of the logging licences are issued over the customary land of the natives. In many cases, logging concessions are found to have overlapped or covered the native customary land within the boundary of the native communities without their knowledge or informed consent. Logging has been carried out indiscriminately by the timber companies which has led to extensive destruction of lands, crops, burial sites, forest resources and pollution of rivers. The natives have lodged many complaints to the authorities concerning these problems, but their complaints are continuously ignored.

Between 1987 and the early 1990s, the native communities put up a series of major blockades across logging roads in the state to prevent loggers from entering and destroying their customary land and forest. During this period, hundreds of natives were arrested, detained, charged and imprisoned for timber blockades. These blockades interrupted logging operations throughout the state. The two most timber productive regions, the Baram and Limbang districts, were badly affected.

In 1987, the State Government took a drastic action by amending the Forest Ordinance Section 90B which makes it a criminal offence for the natives to restraint the logging companies in any way or form from carrying out their logging activities even within the native customary land. In 1993, a further amendment was made to the said Section whereby any native found near any form of barricades set to block any logging roads is presumed to be guilty of putting up the barricade, and if found guilty an offender will be fined RM5000 and subjected to two years imprisonment.

At present, the natives are still erecting blockades and protesting against the timber companies in the interior region of Sarawak. However, there is a total media blackout (both locally, nationally and even internationally ) on the matter.

2. Plantations

2.1 Oil Palm Plantation

The Sarawak State Government plans to develop 1.5 million hectares of native customary land (NCL) as oil palm plantations. Large tracts of land which include the customary land of the natives have been ear-marked and alienated by the government for plantations.

In implementing the land development programme, the government mainly grants provisional leases to the State statutory bodies/agencies or private companies for a period of 60-90 years. Once the land has been leased, the agencies or the private companies become the proprietors of the land. Without the knowledge or consent of the native communities, most of their NCL has been appropriated to private companies which are either state owned or owned by the same people who were granted the logging licences or permits to develop these land areas into oil palm plantations.

The native communities are opposing and resisting the implementation of oil palm plantations within their NCL and the acquisition of their customary lands for that purpose. In those areas which are currently affected, the natives are actively protesting to stop the operation of the oil palm plantation developers. As a result, they have been constantly intimidated, harassed, assaulted and suppressed by the police. Many of the natives have been arrested and detained for resisting the take-over of their lands by plantations.

In a recent incident, on 19 December 1997, about 50 Police Field Force personnel armed with batons, pistols and M16 rifles opened fire on the unarmed Dayak Ibans at a peaceful protest within their compound in front of their longhouse at Rumah Bangga, Sungai Sebukut, Bakong, in Baram district of Miri Division. Three Ibans were shot. Enyang Ak Gendang, 40, was shot on his forehead and died after five days in the intensive care unit at Miri General Hospital. Eight were injured. About 30 Ibans were arrested and detained.

As an immediate action, some of the native longhouse communities who came to be aware that their native customary lands have been designated for oil palm plantations have filed legal suits against the companies in the High Court in Miri. These cases are still pending for hearing.

2.2 Industrial Tree Plantations

The Sarawak government has targeted one million hectares of land for industrial tree plantations. To-date, some 10 timber companies have met with the Sarawak Timber Association and the Forest Department to carry out a scoping exercise to identify the concerns of potential investors in this venture.

In Tatau in Bintulu Division, the Borneo Pulp & Paper Sdn. Bhd. has been alienated 373,700 hectare of land for planting of Acacia, Eucalyptus and other fast growing tree species. The site for the pulp and paper mill is affecting 12 Iban longhouses in Upper Tatau. The government has acquired and extinguished their native customary rights (NCR), using provisions of the new amendments to the Sarawak land code, over a 6,200 ha area for the establishment of the mill. The Ibans are challenging the extinguishment of their NCR and also filed an arbitration in the high court.

3. Bakun Hydroelectric Project

The Bakun Hydroelectric Project (BHEP) is to be constructed across the Balui River in Belaga District of Kapit Division. The project was awarded without tender to Ekran Berhad, a Sarawak-based public listed company. Ekran, as the main stakeholder in the Bakun Hydro- Electric Corporation Bhd., subcontracted the project tod ABB (Asea Brown Boveri), a Swiss-Swedish consortium, which was set responsible for the completion of the project by 2002. It's estimated cost is RM13.6 billion and it will have a capacity to generate 2400 MW of electricity which will be mostly supplied to Peninsular Malaysia via a 640 Km high voltage undersea transmission cable. BHEP will be the largest dam in South East Asia and Malaysia's biggest and most controversial privatised infrastructure project.

If BHEP goes ahead it will submerge a land area of 69,000 ha and displace 9,000 indigenous peoples belonging to the Kayan, Kenyah, Lahanan, Ukit and Penan ethnic groups. 80% of the land due to be flooded by the dam is native customary rights land. Ever since the government's plan to build the Bakun dam was mooted, the affected natives in Belaga have been vehemently opposed to it as they are intimately aware of the bitter experiences of the Ibans who were displaced by the construction of Batang Ai Hydroelectric Project.

The Bakun dam project's preparatory construction work has been carried out during 1997 and the river diversion tunnels are near completion. The native customary rights to land within the Bakun flooded area were deemed as extinguished in February 1997. In late 1997, some of the local people who had hoped for fair compensation were disillusioned by receiving very low compensation rates, varying from RM0.25 (US$0.063) to RM60,000 (US$15,000). The affected natives will be displaced from their ancestral lands and resettled in regimented oil palm plantation schemes in Sungai Asap, Koyan and Penyuan in the Upper Belaga River area. However, despite the serious consequences which might result from relocation, the 9000 affected natives in the Bakun region remain uninformed and most of them oppose the proposed resettlement schemes.

Meanwhile, during the last few months of 1997, due to the severe financial crisis that hit Malaysia, the federal government announced that the dam project be temporarily stopped. Uncertainty and secrecy also surrounds the name of the dam's constructors as the contract between Ekran and ABB was nullified in October 1997 and the government announced that it was taking over the project from Ekran through the Minister Of Finance Incorporated, a government investment holding. The government is at present expecting a due diligence exercise report on the state of affairs of Bakun Hydro- Electric Corporation and Bakun hydroelectric project by international audit firm, Price Waterhouse, in order to decide on how to implement the take-over.

4. Tourism and Resort development projects

In recent years, the government has aggressively promoted the development of the tourism industry in the State. The government as well as private companies have built a lot of tourism related infrastructure projects such as hotels, resorts and golf courses to attract tourists and provide for their comfort and leisure. Many of these projects have adversely affected the natives and local communities.

The customary land rights of the Dayaks have again been affected by several schemes whereby ands were appropriated by the State and then allocated to private firms to develop hotels and resorts with golf courses without the consent of the affected native communities. The highland regions in the state are now designated for resorts which are likely to cause further exploitation of forest resources and environmental degradation.

Dayak lifestyles are being treated merely as tourist attractions and their longhouses are targeted as tourist destinations. The Dayks feel that their culture is being systematically violated and abused. The Dayaks in most of these targeted destinations feel that they are being treated as "zoological objects" for the tourists. There are also cases of prostitution arising among the Dayak women.

5. Mining

The exploration and extraction of mineral resources such as gold and coal pose a major treat to the natives' customary lands, forest and environment in Sarawak. The gold mining operation in Bau caused displacement of the natives, extinguishment of their customary rights to land and unprecedented environmental problems in the area.

The proposed open-pit coal mine in Pila-Merit, near Kapit, threatens hundreds of hectares of forest and will affect the native customary lands of the native Ibans and Bukitans.

6. Human Rights Violation

Over the years, hundreds of indigenous peoples in Sarawak defending and protesting against logging, plantations and other destructive development activities within their customary land and infringement of their rights have been brutally harassed, assaulted, intimidated, suppressed and arrested.

Under Malaysian laws, the rights of the natives to their land and forest and the defence of private property is recognised. Section 97 of the Penal Code states that every person has a right to defend his property against theft, robbery, mischief or criminal trespass or attempts of the above nature. But in practise, these rights are simply ignored by the private companies. The authorities on the other hand are not only very indifferent to their plight, but the police and forest department officials have also arbitrarily arrested and detained the natives who put up any form of protest even though such protest was done within the confine of their own land and they have legitimate rights under the law to such forms of protest.

In a number of cases natives who were arrested and brought to court were subsequently found to be not guilty. The court decided that the natives were blockading / protesting on their own customary land, and the defence of one's property was recognised by the law. In the case of fortytwo Kayans of Uma Bawang longhouse community in Baram arrested and detained by the police in 1987 for putting up a blockade against a logging company, the Miri Sessions Court found that the Kayans had been wrongfully arrested, falsely imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted by the police. The Court also ordered the police to pay damages and costs of the suit to the Kayans.

A situation of injustice persists today, where indigenous communities continue to face various threats from unsustainable development projects and arbitrary and high-handed aggression from the authorities.

The most vocal indigenous activists in the state are continuously intimidated and their privileges as citizen are denied. Thomas Jalong, Jok Jau Evong, Garah Jalong and Raymond Abin are banned from travelling abroad as their passports have been confiscated. A number of Dayak activists are black-listed by the authorities. Some lawyers and representatives of Malaysian NGOs from Peninsular Malaysia have been deported from Sarawak and are denied access to the state. If left on their own, the indigenous communities of Sarawak will be effectively and continously isolated and brutally suppressed by the authorities.

Background prepared by: 

Forest Peoples Programme,
1c Fosseway Business Centre,
Stratford Road, Moreton-in-Marsh, GL56 9NQ, England.
Tel: + 44 1608 652893 Fax: + 44 1608 652878 Email: wrm@gn.apc.org

The Forest Peoples Programme is an affiliate of the World Rainforest Movement.

back to index