Ketika PM Najib Razak mengadakan sesi penilaian ke atas rekod-rekod BN di Sarawak pada hujung minggu ini, kami ingin mencadangkan beliau juga perlu mengambilkira suatu maklumat yang mengejutkan yang kami dedahkan mengenai siasatan kami ke atas rampasan tanah terkini yang dilakukan oleh Taib. Sejak 3 tahun kebelakangan ini Ketua Menteri itu telah memberikan kepada anaknya yang tampan, Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, tanah-tanah NCR seluas kepulauan Singapura – semuanya diberikan secara PERCUMA!

Kebanyakan tanah-tanah tersebut telah menjadi milik syarikat yang ditubuhkan untuk Mahmud yang dikenali sebagai Titanium Management. Titanium Management pernah menjadi perhatian umum kerana terlibat dalam beberapa skandal mendapat kontrak-kontrak tanpa melalui proses tender yang dikeluarkan oleh kerajaan Taib. Titanium Management pada asal terletak di sebuah pejabat dalam bangunan syarikat CMS yang dimiliki oleh Taib sendiri, yang kerapkali terlibat dalam skandal-skandal mencuri kesemua jenis perniagaan yang paling menguntungkan. Sebenarnya Titanium kini telah berpindah pejabat ke blok bangunan pejabat yang dinamakan Titanium Tower, yang berdiri megah sebagai suatu lambing kejayaannya menyedut segala keuntungan dari kontrak-kontrak Negeri dan juga rampasan-rampasan tanah NCR sejak beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini, yang mana kami boleh mengesahkan keuntungannya mencecah beratus-juta ringgit. Walau bagaimanapun, selain dari Titanium Management, kami juga telah mengenalpasti berapa syarikat yang telah menerima tanah-tanah yang mana syarikat-syarikat itu dikawal oleh Taib Mahmud dan rakan kongsinya Chris Chung dan bekas Pengarah Kerjaraya, Michael Ting. Ke semua syarikat ini yang didaftarkan di bawah nama salah seorang atau ketiga-tiga mereka beroperasi dalam satu ruang pejabat dan berkongsi satu nombor telefon seperti yang digunakan oleh Titanium Management!

Dalam kes anak saya tanah harus diberikan secara PERCUMA!
Kami telah mendapati sebanyak 14 buah syarikat yang jelas dikawal oleh Titanium Management milik Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, yang telah diberikan tanah-tanah berjumlah 70,000 hektar. Jumlah ini jauh lebih luas dari kepulauan Singapura. Pada setiap satu kes pemberian tanah ini dilaksanakan di bawah kategori "Payment in Kind". Ini merupakan salah satu cara menyebut tanah-tanah itu diberikan kepada anak Taib secara percuma. Tanah-tanah lain pula turut ditawarkan secara percuma. Kebanyakan pemanfaat dari rampasan tanah yang dilakukan oleh Taib hanya akan diminta bayaran yang paling minima pada suatu tarikh di masa hadapan. Tetapi apabila tiba pada anak Taib, bayaran adalah dihapuskan!

Perdana Menteri Najib seharusnya menganggap kemewahan Taib hasil rampasan demi rampasan yang dilakukannya ke atas tanah-tanahnya sendiri terlalu kontra dengan kadar kemiskinan teruk yang dialami oleh rakyatnya, sedangkan rakyatnya itu hidup di sebuah negeri yang suatu ketika dahulu dikatakan negeri yang terkaya di Malaysia. Pada minggu-minggu yang akan datang Sarawak Report menjalankan siri-siri siasatan dan kajian terhadap akibat rampasan tanah yang dilakukan oleh Taib. Perbuatannya itu telah menyebabkan kesengsaraan kepada mereka di mana kayu-kayu hutan mereka ditebang, tanah-tanah mereka dijadikan ladang kelapa sawit dan sungai-sungai mereka menjadi cetek akibat lumpur dan pencemaran. Setiap kali musim piliharaya mereka dijanjikan bekalan air yang bersih, tenaga elektrik, jalanraya yang sempurna, pekerjaan yang baru dan elemen-elemen pembangunan yang lain. Tetapi setelah 30 tahun memimpin negeri ini, Taib masih gagal untuk melaksanakan tanggungjawabnya untuk keselesaan rakyatnya sendiri.

Batang Ai sebagai contoh
Mari kita lihat keadaan di Batang Ai yang dihadapi oleh masyarakat Iban rumah panjang. Mereka telah dijanjikan RM70 juta dalam bentuk baikpulih prasarana dan perbelanjaan-perbelanjaan lain semasa pilihanraya kecil tahun 2009 oleh Taib dan BN. Sememangnya Taib mengumumkan perkara ini di depan para pengundi dan mencetaknya di akhbar-akhbar arus perdana sehari menjelang pilihanraya itu! Ini adalah suatu kesalahan dan cubaan merasuah pengundi, yang boleh mengakibatkan Taib dimasukkan ke penjara jika dia dihadapkan ke mahkamah. Namun para pengundi telah memilih BN tetapi tetap tidak mempercayai janji-janji ini, kerana dua tahun kemudian hingga sekarang janji-janji itu belum ditunaikan sepenuhnya! Jurucakap PKR Nicholas Bawin menjelaskan kepada Sarawak Report bahawa orang-orang di Batang Ai belum melihat RM2, apa lagi RM70 juta yang dijanjikan itu! Kami telah menghubungi beberapa penduduk rumah panjang yang telah dipaksa oleh Taib dalam tahun 1983 untuk meninggalkan kawasan asal mereka kerana memberi laluan kepada pembinaan empangan hidroelektrik (Taib dan BN kini merancang untuk memindahkan 600,000 orang asal untuk membolehkan 12 buah lagi empangan dibina jika mereka memenangi pilihanraya kali ini). Orang-orang Batang Ai telah digalakkan berpindah ke penempatan yang baru dan dijanjikan bekalan air dan elektrik percuma, termasuk dijanjikan peluang-peluang mendapat pekerjaan yang sempurna dan pembangunan. Kami telah bertanya sudahkah janji-janji itu ditunaikan sepenuhnya? Kami terkejut kerana mendapati setelah hampir 30 tahun mengharapkan janji-janji tertunai, kebanyakan rumah panjang masih TIADA BEKALAN AIR! Malah di rumah panjang Wong Pandak dan Wong Panjai, para penghuninya masih menggunakan air hujan yang ditadah. Begitu juga kanak-kanak sekolah di asmara sekolah Nanga Kesit tiada bekalan air bersih untuk diminum, mana kala rumah-rumah panjang di Scheme 1 dan Scheme 2 di kawasan Sebeliau tiada air bersih untuk mandi kerana sungainya berlumpur dan berkelodak akibat hakisan dari ladang-ladang kelapa sawit yang telah kian lama memenuhi sungai di situ.

Tiada bekalan elektrik
Seperti di kebanyakan kawasan di Sarawak, keluarga-keluarga miskin di Batang Ai kerap kali dipotong bekalan elektrik mereka kerana gagal menjelaskan bil-bil elektrik. Ini tidak menepati janji-janji BN semasa penduduk-penduduk itu ditempatkan di kawasan yang baru yang seharusnya menikmati bekalan elektrik percuma! Janji-janji Taib dan BN rupa-rupanya bohong-bohong belaka! Tambahan lagi, orang-orang tempatan pernah dijanjikan keuntungan hasil dari tanah-tanah mereka yang diambil dan diusahakan oleh syarikat-syarikat perladangan. Namun keuntungan walau kecil mana pun belum lagi mereka terima, dan kawasan yang kecil untuk mereka bercucuk tanam pula berada terlalu jauh dari tempat mereka.
Seperti mana yang dihadapi oleh kebanyakan komuniti tempatan di seluruh Sarawak, hutan yang pernah menjadi tempat mencari makanan dan tempat berteduh dahulu, telah pun dirampas dari mereka, tetapi keuntungan dan kemewahan yang terjana dari hutan-hutan itu telah disalurkan ke lain tempat. Sebaliknya Taib mempunyai rekod yang baik memenuhi janji-janji terhadap golongan orang-orang tertentu sahaja. Golongan ini terdiri dari ahli-ahli keluarganya sendiri dan juga kroni-kroninya dan rakan-rakanniaga yang kaya raya. Kemewahan hidup Ketua Menteri dan keluarganya amat jauh berbeza dengan kemiskinan dan kesengsaraan hidup yang membelengu rakyatnya yang telah dirampasnya tanah-tanah. Inilah merupakan rekod-rekod yang perlu dinilai oleh PM Najib Razak semasa dia mengatur strategi-strategi menjelang pilihanraya negeri nanti. Rekod-rekod sebeginilah yang perlu dibandingkan dengan rekod-rekod pemimpin-pemimpin luar negara seperti Robert Mugabe dari Zimbabwe … atau Hosni Mubarak dari Mesir, atau Zine El Abdine Ben Ali dari Tunisia, atau Ali Abdullah Salleh dari Yemen, yang pernah dipetik sebagai berjanji tidak akan menggugat kesabaran rakyatnya dengan minta dipilih semula untuk penggal seterusnya setelah 30 tahun berkuasa.

Cukuplah sudah untuk Taib
Namun Taib fikir dia masih boleh memimpin dan baginya orang-orang Sarawak masih memerlukannya sebagai pemimpin mereka lebih dari 30 tahun. Bagi dirinya juga beristeri muda akan menambahkan tenaganya untuk terus bekerja merampas hak-hak rakyatnya untuk diri nya dan keluarganya. Sedangkan Sarawak kini sudah dihangatkan dengan lebih 200 kes-kes mahkamah berkaitan dengan rampasan-rampasan yang dilakukannya. PM Najib harus memikirkan apakah sejauh manakah dan seberat manakah tahap kesabaran rakyat Sarawak sanggup bertahan dan berhadapan dengan semua ini?

As Much As You Want For Free, My Son!
Saturday, February 5th, 2011 GMT This post is also available in: Malay

As PM Najib Razak conducts his evaluation of BN’s record in Sarawak over this weekend, we recommend that he considers the shocking information revealed by our latest investigation into Taib’s Land Grabs. Over the past 3 years alone the Chief Minister has handed his own son, the fashion-dandy Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, Native Customary Rights Lands totalling the area of Singapore – and all for FREE! Much of the land has gone to the company set up for Mahmud called Titanium Management. Titanium Management has been the subject of numerous recent scandals because of the enormous number of public contracts that it has been handed without any tendering process by Taib’s government. Titanium Management was even originally located in the office buildings of Taib’s own company CMS, which has itself scandalously stolen all Sarawak’s most profitable businesses. The fact that Titanium has now moved into its own fancy new office block called ‘Titanium Tower’, demonstrates the huge wealth it has absorbed in recent years owing to profits from these state contracts and also the Land Grabs which we have now identified, which are all worth hundreds of millions of ringgit.

However, besides Titanium Management, we have also identified numerous other companies that have received vast tracks of land which are also clearly controlled by Mahmud and his business partners Chris Chung and the former Director of Public Works Michael Ting. These are companies that are registered under the names of one or other of the three men and which, even more tellingly, are operated out of the same offices and use the same telephone number as Titanium Management!

We have identified a raft of at least 14 companies which are clearly controlled by Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib’s Titanium Management, which have been secretly handed lands totalling more than 70,000 hectares. This is greater than the entire land mass of Singapore and much of the land is also in higly valuable urban development areas.
Even more scandalously in each and every case these lands have been handed to the companies under the category of so-called "Payment in Kind". This is a polite way of saying that it has been given to Taib’s son for free!
Very few other hand outs of land have been quite so blatantly offered for free. Most beneficiaries of the Chief Minister’s Land Grab hand-outs are at least required to make a nominal payment at some future date. But when it comes to Taib’s son in every case the payment is waived!

"PAYMENT IN KIND" - ie FREE!!

While the Taibs plunder the people suffer
While the Prime Minister considers this mass plunder of Malaysia’s land mass by such a corrupt local politician and contemplates the fantastic wealth of Abdul Taib Mahmud, which so blatantly outstrips his own, he should contrast it with the poverty of the people living under Taib’s BN government in what should be the country’s richest state. Each and every land grab we have identified by the companies owned and controlled by Mahmud Taib represents poverty and misery for the native peoples, who once lived off these areas and who are the rightful owners through their established Native Customary Rights. Over the next few weeks Sarawak Report will be investigating the consequences of all of these Land Grabs for the individual longhouse communities, who have been deprived of their territories, watched their trees torn down, their lands ploughed into oil palm and their rivers clogged by mud and pollution. All of these inhabitants were fobbed off at the time with BN promises about water, electricity, roads and new jobs and development. Yet, after 30 years of Taib’s rule virtually none of these promises have been fufilled for the native owners of the land.

Take Batang Ai
Progress and development under BN? - Longhouse life after 30 years of Taib

Let us as an example look at the situation facing the Iban longhouse people of Batang Ai. They were promised RM 70 million worth of improvements and expenditure by Taib and BN just before the by-election in 2009. In fact Taib made these promises publicly and printed them in the newspapers just the day before the voting! This was a highly illegal thing to do and a blatant attempt to bribe the voters, for which Taib should face a jail sentence should he be brought to court. Nevertheless the voters would have done well not to have believed such offerings, since of course two years later none of these promises have been fulfilled! The local PKR spokesperson, Nicholas Bawin, told Sarawak Report that the people had not seen 2 ringgit let alone 70 million!

We contacted some of the longhouse communities who were forced from their homes by Taib Mahmud way back in 1983 to make way for the Hydro-electric dam (Taib and BN are now proposing to move a further 600,000 native people to build 12 more dams if they win the next election). The people of Batang Ai were encouraged into their new homes with promises of free running water and electricity, as well as jobs and development. We asked how well those promises have been carried out?

To our astonishment Sarawak Report has learnt that nearly 30 years after those promises were made many of the resettlement longhouses still have NO WATER! at Wong Pandak and Wong Panjai the people are still forced to gather their water from the rain off their roofs. Likewise, children at the boarding school of Naga Kesit have no running water to drink and at the Scheme 1 and Scheme 2 longhouses at Sebelaiu there is no water to bath in because the erosion from the palm plantations have clogged up their streams. Currently, even the clinic at the main town of Lubok Antu is without water! The people of the area say that as often as not they are forced to wash themselves in ditches.

Cut off from electricity
Also, like so many places in Sarawak, the poor families of Batang Ai are frequently cut off from their electricity, because they cannot pay the bills. This is despite the original promises that because they were going to forced from their homes for the hydro-electric dam they would be entitled to electricity for free! Such promises from Taib and BN and such lies!

Again the local people were promised profits from their lands which were taken into oil palm plantations. However, the profits have not come and the small areas they have been given to farm are often to far from their longhouses. Like communities all over Sarawak, the people have found that their forests which provided them with food and shelter have been taken, but that all the wealth has gone elsewhere. Taib on the other hand has a very good record of fulfilling his promises and bringing vast wealth and development to a very small number of people. These are the members of his own family and his tiny circle of rich business partners.
The Chief Minister’s wealth and that of his family therefore contrast shockingly with the poverty of the people whose lands he has taken. This is the record that Prime Minister Najib should be contemplating as he considers BN’s Sarawak strategy towards the coming election. It is a record comparable to Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe…. or Mr Mubarak’s in Egypt, or Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or indeed Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has just declared that he will not attempt to try his people’s patience further by seeking another term after 30 years in power.
Compare and contrast. No water in the Kampong, but Mahmud business partner Chris Chung and his two brothers have three large houses all in a row in Kuching. No guesses where the money went!

However, Taib seems to think he can do otherwise and that the people of Sarawak will welcome him to stay longer than 30 years and vote him in for another term of BN’s Land Grabbing Government. He thinks a new young wife can brush up his image and help him finish off the job of taking the whole of Sarawak for himself and his family (for free).
Yet, Sarawak is already aflame with Land Grab conflicts that have led to some 200 cases now fighting their way through the courts. How much more does Prime Minister Najib really think the people of Sarawak can take?