THE report "20,000ha gazetted for Orang Asli reserve" (New Sunday Times, Sept 21) and the accompanying stories suggest that the Department of Orang Asli Affairs is going on a campaign to promote itself as the godfather of the Orang Asli.
I can understand why it has to. The department has come under fire not just from the Orang Asli themselves but also from some government agencies whose attempts to help the Orang Asli have been frustrated by the department.
But it is one thing to blow your own trumpet and quite another if in doing so you mislead the public. For example, the department proclaims that "almost 20,000ha of land -- twice the size of Kuala Lumpur International Airport and the vast land surrounding it -- had been gazetted as Orang Asli reserve in Peninsular Malaysia".
The truth is that a decade ago, there was an additional 1,062 hectares of Orang Asli reserve which today has been lost. In fact, KLIA was the homeland of two Temuan settlements that were unwillingly resettled in swampland 40km away.
The department also boasts that 31,000 hectares of land had been approved for gazetting but have yet to be formally gazetted by the states. In fact much of these approvals were done in the 1960s and 1970s, but the paperwork for putting out a gazette notice has not been completed in all these cases.
As a result, due to the insecurity placed on their lands, the Orang Asli have lost 6,932ha of their traditional lands to others, often without them knowing it, let alone being consulted.
This prompted one Court of Appeal judge in the landmark Sagong Tasi land rights case to chastise the department for making the Orang Asli victims of the department's negligence in not adequately gazetting or under-gazetting Orang Asli lands.
The department admits that poverty and hardcore poverty remain a big problem for the Orang Asli. That a people making up only 0.6 per cent of the population should account for 20 per cent of the nation's hardcore poor (and 46 per cent of the nation's poor) should be a cause for concern, especially for a department responsible for the "protection, well-being and advancement" of the Orang Asli.
Yet, the basic structures that keep Orang Asli families in poverty are still in place.
A case in point is the agricultural development programmes that the department claims are a success.
RM30 million in dividends for 2008 may sound like a lot of money. But when divided by 10,000 households, and into monthly payments, it works out to only RM500 per month -- not enough to keep the household above the official poverty line.
But should it be so? Orang Asli who manage and sell their oil palm or rubber on their own smallholdings have been earning between RM2,000 and RM3,000 per month during the same period.
It is no wonder then that several Orang Asli communities have asked for these department-supervised "agricultural development projects" to be given back to them to manage on their own.
But they face resistance from the so-called management agencies who work on "we-do-everything-for-you-for-a-fat-fee" concept.
The Jakun community in Bekok have been forced to go to court to assert their right to work their own fields, after the former management refused to honour the end of the agreement period. Others, as in Betau and Buluh Nipis in Pahang, have been detained for wanting to assert their agricultural independence.
It is clear that the department is unable to see this fundamental flaw in the development programme of the Orang Asli and unable to see why many Orang Asli still live in poverty when they should not.
It is no wonder then that many Orang Asli have begun to assert their right to land and economic justice.
To accuse them of being easily influenced by outsiders working on private agendas or by non-governmental organisations only reflects the department's ignorance of the Orang Asli situation today. The Orang Asli and natives of Sabah and Sarawak (collectively referred to as the Orang Asal) are no longer timid people roaming the forest, waiting for official handouts.
They have participated actively in national and international forums and have made their demands clear. Orang Asal leaders have also been active in deliberations such as the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as in several regional initiatives on issues involving indigenous peoples.
In fact, Jannie Lasimbang, an Orang Asal from Sabah, is one of the five experts sitting on the Geneva-based Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Peoples Rights established under the UN Human Rights Council.
If the department would open its eyes and ears, it would know that after 24 years of debate among indigenous peoples in the world, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was finally adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 13, 2007. Malaysia is a signatory to this convention.
The articles of the Declaration -- which speak of self-determination, recognition of land rights, and the need to get free, prior and informed consent before any activity involving indigenous peoples is conducted -- is now international customary law, which the government is obliged to follow.
International customary law also recognises native title, i.e. the right of the Orang Asli to own their traditional lands which they hold by custom. Our courts have also recognised native title based on common law.
Thus, for the director-general to brush aside native customary rights as being the prerogative of the Borneo states only, frightens me into thinking that more and more Orang Asli lands are going to be lost.
It is time for the Department of Orang Asli Affairs to raise its awareness to the level of the Orang Asli and to work towards justice.
Colin Nichoas, Coordinator Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, Subang Jaya
New Straits Times
24/09/08
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