MIRI: Indigenous landowners in Sibuti, Sarawak, will take the Miri police chief to the state’s native court for allegedly disrespecting their Iban adat (custom) when dismantling a barricade over a road to a piece of disputed land last December.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Gan Tian Kee was alleged to have destroyed the piring or offerings placed by the landowners to their deities at the barricade on Christmas eve last year.

“I have received instructions from the landowners to file the matter in the native court first,” their legal counsel Abun Sui Anyit said on Saturday. “If the native court finds him guilty, we could proceed to file a case against him in the civil court,” Abun said.

Gan, who led a force of 80 police personnel reportedly consisting of light strike force, general operations force and ordinary police personnel, was alleged to have trespassed into their temuda (farmed land) at Sungai Bekelit to dismantle the barricade.

“There is nothing wrong in mounting a barricade on private land,” Abun said.

The road passes through the landowners’ native customary rights (NCR) land and is the only road an oil palm plantation company can take to reach its plantation. The landowners who mounted the barricade are from five longhouses in Sungai Bekelit, Sungai Serunggut and Sungai Kelitang.

“They are furious with the conduct of Gan who showed total disregard for Iban custom. They want the native court to punish Gan for his disrespect,” said Abun, who is also a PKR grassroots leader.

Nicholas Bawin, a former president of the state’s Majlis Adat Istiadat, the council that oversees native customary practices and ceremonies, said disrespect for Iban customs is a serious offence and that it was wrong to destroy the piring.

The barricade was erected to stop the oil palm company accessing the land on which the company had been given a provisional lease by the state government. It effectively blockaded the plantation. The native landowners are disputing the government action as they claim the area is still their NCR land. They took their dispute to the Miri High Court last year.

Although the High Court did not recognise all the land claimed by the five longhouses as NCR land, neither did it recognise all the land with the provisional lease as belonging to the company. With the status quo in place, both landowners and the company have filed appeals against the decision. The case is still pending.

“He did not know there are several important landmarks within the provisional leased land given to the company that he defended.”

Gan last Thursday denied using excessive force or having disrespected the Iban by destroying their piring. He told Bernama the accusations were untrue as police “had met them and given them two days to sort out the matter, apart from advising them not to take the law into their own hands”. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 9, 2015.