Saturday July 4, 2009
Berawans split over 80,000ha plantation deal
MIRI: The minority Berawans – one of the smallest ethnic groups in Sarawak – are caught up in a major internal conflict over the move by a private consortium and a government-linked agency to develop an 80,000ha oil palm and timber plantation project in Ulu Baram.
The Berawans from Long Terawan, Long Panai, Long Bemang and Long Bedian are at loggerheads with each other as they do not see eye to eye on the proposed project.
The ones who want it inked a deal with the company and the agency last month to develop the communal land.
The Berawans who are against the project are accusing those in favour of it of betraying their community, saying they had sold away their land rights.
“In Long Terawan alone, more than 1,000 people will be affected by the project.
“The land earmarked to be taken over by the company belonged to our ancestors,” said Willie Kajan, a co-ordinator of the group that is against the project.
“Some of it is communal land and some is native customary rights land.
“The longhouse chief who agreed to the project had signed deals with the company management without even consulting the rest of us,” he said in an interview yesterday.
However, The Star has learnt that those who signed the deal did so on the condition the community can partake in the project through joint development initiatives and that the Berawans be given priority in filling job vacancies.
Kajan said the Berawans who did not want the project may start court proceedings to stop it. There are some 10,000 Berawans in the state, living mostly in northern Sarawak.
The private consortium has more than 100,000ha of land development projects throughout Sarawak.
It is involved not only in the logging and oil palm industries, but also in housing construction and heavy industrial activities.
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