Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Holding IOI accountable





A trip from Miri town to Long Teran Kanan takes around four hours.
Longhouse in Long Teran Kanan. At the end of the road is the entrance to a kindergarten and primary school.
SK Long Teran primary school. To continue with secondary school, village children usually move to a boarding school in Bakong.


Kindergarten and primary schoolchildren hanging out before school in the morning.
Villagers attending a community meeting on 22 Aug 2010 to discuss the 13-year legal battle with IOI Pelita Plantation.
Acting Tuai Rumah (village chief) Lah Anyie speaking at the community meeting.


Adults listening attentively during the meeting.
Lawyer Harrison Ngau Laing (standing) represents the villagers in the court case against IOI Pelita Plantation. A mix of Kayan, Kenyah and Malay is used throughout the meeting.
A map of the disputed land. A land survey was conducted by the community and the Borneo Resources Institute using Global Positioning System (GPS) from 2002 to 2004.


Parts of the disputed land.
Lawai Anyi, a 53-year-old Kayan, is one of four plaintiffs representing 92 families from Long Teran Kanan in the court case.
Another plaintiff, Emang Anyi, who is also in his 50s. The remaining two plaintiffs are acting Tuai Rumah Lah Anyie and Emang Jau.


Payajok, 50. Two thirds of her land and crops were destroyed by Rinwood Pelita Plantation in 1996. Later, she and her husband planted oil palm on their remaining land.
Harrison says the community was compensated accordingly when Petronas wanted to build a pipeline (seen behind him) across the disputed land. The indigenous lawyer questions the reason native customary land rights were recognised in that case, yet not in the situation with IOI Pelita Plantation.
IOI Pelita Plantation lorries and workers continue to trespass on the community's native customary land.


IOI Group's environmental policy. Point number six reads: “We are committed to … avoid unnecessary use of hazardous materials … and take all reasonable steps to protect human health and the environment when such materials must be used, stored and disposed of.”
Weedkiller was mixed right beside the river without proper safety measures. Estate assistant manager Ellevenson William Dueed, who rode past on a motorbike, said the bottles only contained water. A check by the community revealed otherwise.
Acting Tuai Rumah Lah Anyie gestures towards grass that he claimed was dying because of weedkiller sprayed right up to the river. Right behind him is the river, Sungai Tegai. Villagers deem its water no longer safe for drinking after they found dead fishes in it.


The living quarters of IOI Pelita Plantation's Indonesian workers.
Indonesian workers' children.
Villagers claim three Indonesian workers were buried on the community's native customary land without their knowledge.


Baby's grave. An Indonesian baby died during delivery this year because the mother could not be sent to a clinic near the village in time. The mother survived. Unlike other graves, this one has no cement marker, but is instead sprinkled with small pink flower petals. The indigenous peoples have their own separate ancestral burial site.
Villagers and civil society groups visited IOI Pelita Plantation's Tegai estate office on 23 Aug 2010 to make an appointment to meet the estate management the following day.
Palm Oil Monitoring Initiative project coordinator Shafinaz Suhaimi (left) speaking to estate assistant manager Ellevenson.


Ellevenson was clearly uncomfortable with the surprise visit by the villagers and civil society groups.
Estate manager Tan Kim Har could not make it for the meeting on 24 Aug 2010. A brief meeting was held with Ellevenson instead, for the civil society groups to seek a response from IOI on the villagers' grouses.

THE indigenous peoples in Long Teran Kanan, Sarawak have been engaged in a legal battle with an oil palm plantation over their native customary land for more than a decade.

In 1996, Rinwood Pelita Plantation, a joint venture between Rinwood and Sarawak’s Land Custody and Development Authority, bulldozed everything on the community’s land. Outraged, the Kayan and Kenyah villagers sued the company in 1997. They won the court case earlier this year in March. But until today, the villagers have yet to receive the appropriate compensation for their lost land, destroyed crops and properties.
IOI Group inherited the court case in 2006 when they took over Rinwood Pelita Plantation. Renamed IOI Pelita Plantation, the company promised villagers in a November 2009 meeting that they would not appeal if the company lost the court case. This was revealed in the minutes of the meeting.
However, the company filed an appeal in April 2010 after the Miri High Court declared that the provisional land leases issued by the state to the company were “null and void”. Despite the High Court’s ruling, IOI Pelita Plantation continues to trespass on the community’s native customary lands. Already deprived of their right to livelihood, plantation activities are now threatening to pollute the villagers’ last water catchment area as well, The Nut Graph found on a trip into the village in August 2010.
Through the years, the community has tried to negotiate with the company, and sought help from their elected representatives and other government agencies but to no avail. Frustrated, the embattled community invited representatives from the Palm Oil Monitoring Initiative, the Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia), and the Sarawak Indigenous Lawyers Alliance to their village in August 2010. In investigating the villagers’ claims, these groups found evidence that IOI Pelita Plantation has violated the standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), of which IOI Group is a member.
The Nut Graph found, for example, that oil palms were planted near the river without any space for a buffer zone. Chemicals were also mixed and sprayed close to the river, risking the contamination of the villagers’ water source.
RSPO principles also require oil palm companies to maintain open communications with all stakeholders, including affected communities.
“As a founding member of RSPO, IOI’s behaviour on the ground is appalling,” says Palm Oil Monitoring Initiative project coordinator Shafinaz Suhaimi. She adds that nothing much has changed for the community since the court ruling in March, and that every moment of delay is costing the community.


By Gan Pei Ling | 27 September 2010
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