Village head in front of his demolished house |
Background: (From The Borneo Project)
On January 19, 2010 bulldozers backed by Sarawak state government agents demolished 39 houses in the Iban village of Rumah Nor in Sarawak, Malaysia. The demolition crew smashed the houses and all belongings in them, including stored food, leaving families without shelter in Malaysia’s rainy season. As dismayed residents confronted the demolition crew, state Land and Survey Department enforcement agents threatened to return and destroy remaining homes. The Borneo Project condemns this unwarranted and ruthless destruction by state authorities. Villagers had no warning of the demolition, which state agents ordered despite Rumah Nor’s pending legal appeal of a local judge’s ruling in favor of a company that wants the village’s land for development. Residents of nearby communities and NGO supporters joined the people of Rumah Nor to form a “human wall” blockade to confront state demolition crews. Malaysian civil society organizations decried the unannounced destruction of village homes as heartless, barbaric and illegal. On January 25, the community obtained a temporary injunction until February 9, 2010, blocking resumed demolition. On February 9 the village and its lawyers will present arguments in court to compel the state government to recognize their customary land rights, nullify the company’s provisional lease, and compensate villagers for destruction of their homes and property. The company, Tatau Land Sendirian Berhad, is a subsidiary of the ASSAR Group, a state-controlled investment holding corporation. Tatau Land holds a “provisional lease” for the village’s customary rights land at Sungai Sekabai. It intends to bulldoze existing homes, farms, forests and orchards to build a “new township”. Over the past decade, Rumah Nor has stood at the forefront of Borneo communities’ struggle to protect native forests and communal lands against reckless logging and plantation expansion, and the collusive politicians and companies who profit from it. The village’s lawyers intend to sue the state agencies that issued the provisional lease, as well as Tatau Land itself, to gain definitive legal recognition of their customary land rights.
In 2001, a landmark judgment by Sarawak’s High Court affirmed Rumah Nor’s Native Customary Rights over their inherited territory. In 2005, an appellate court overturned part of the 2001 state court ruling, but did not affect the basic principle of native communities’ customary land and forest rights. Village head Nor anak Nyawai, who initiated the village’s lawsuit, is among those whose homes were razed on January 19. Many believe the demolitions and state officials’ extreme action are a reprisal for the village’s persistent legal challenges to state efforts to evict them from their lands and forests. Fast-track development plans for the region around Rumah Nor’s land are linked to recently-unveiled schemes associated with the “Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy” (SCORE). SCORE is characterized by secretly developed plans for 12 major new hydro-electric dams financed by a state corporation of China, in addition to the Bakun and Murum megadams already under construction. Accelerated road building would “open” a 70,000 square kilometer swathe of Borneo to more logging and oil palm plantations, and heavy industries including aluminum smelting and palm oil refining. Some 600,000 people live in the SCORE region. Dams, plantations and industrial development associated with SCORE is likely to displace many thousands including indigenous Dayak communities (Iban, Kayan, Kenyah, and Penan) that occupy much of the rural area, which includes some of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests.
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This documentary was made in 2007 and gives a good background to the issue | 
