BFM: The Business Radio Station

On January 28th, 13 Temiar Orang Asli villagers and their lawyer were arrested for an attempted blockade to safeguard their ancestral land from loggers in Gua Musang, Kelantan.

According to Lim Teck Wyn,  technical director of Resource Stewardship Consultants and council member of the Malaysian Nature Society, Orang Asli villagers from the surrounding 32 villages from Ulu Gua Musang area had gathered in their traditional headdress around the blockade site when it was disrupted.

Following the arrests, there was a strong police presence in the village, with police burning down the blockade and Federal Reserve Unit members threatening villagers. "Some of the villagers were terrified, and ran off into the forest and spent the night there," says Lim, who was in the village to lend his support to the cause. 

He explains that villagers had resorted to the blockade, after promises of a meeting with the district officer were unmet. "Their main concern is that they claim they have never been consulted, and if they ever assert any of their complaints, they are told they have no right to this land, that the land is only the immediate vicintiy of their kampung, only 1 acre per household. And all of the surrounding land, which includes ancestral graces, fruit trees, and water catchment areas are, according to state government, state land and the OA have no rights there," he says.

"The issue has been going on for several years now... they don't feel that they have been listened to, that's why they took matters into their own hands," he says.