Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 7. April, 17 1974

Peasants will have to fight

page 11

Peasants will have to fight

Armed policeman search for "illegal" tapioca planter near Sungai Siput (Ipoh). Circle shows newly harvested tapioca left by the planters.

Armed policeman search for "illegal" tapioca planter near Sungai Siput (Ipoh). Circle shows newly harvested tapioca left by the planters.

Resettlement of landless peasant families under the "Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) is seen by "foreign experts" as the most successful attempt to remove the problems of landlessness in Malaya. Felda schemes ore the most publicised projects in the country However, this optimistic view is at once exposed by the revelation of the facts.

According to the Government's census in 1955, there were then 750,000 peasant families who were landless. By 1968, according to a radio broadcast by Tun Razak (then the deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Rural Development) the government had succeeded in settling 14,000 peasant families which means that in the 14 years after "independence", only 1000 families were resettled each year. Thus a mere 2% of the total number of landless families benefit from this very expensive scheme At this rate, it will take the government at least 320 years to resettle the landless peasants. This is not taking into account the number of the peasant families who are made landless each year though rural landlordism and exorbitant land taxes resulting in accumulation of lands into fewer hands in the rural areas.

Thus, not only is the Felda scheme a failure, but also a sham—it is used to cover up the peed for total land reform in the countryside. People with liberal attitudes tend to be happy at the ahievement of the government in the sense that at least 14,000 families enjoy the benefits of the scheme. However, even this view is deflated when facts and figures are revealed.

Indebtedness

Each settler family on acceptance of resettlement in the scheme was given an imaginary loan of $15,000 to $25,000. A certain acreage of land was allotted to each of the families, usually about seven acres. This allotment is more or less on a temporary basis in the sense that if the land is neglected that family will be asked to leave the scheme to make way for another peasant family, without any form of compensation for the work already done on the land. Usually, none of the plots are neglected because after being landless for generations, each peasant family is determined to take the land for keeps. Being landless and poor all their life, they accepted the imaginary loan without much complaint. According to this imaginary loan system, each family will be given a monthly allowance of $70.00, land measured by any standard, this is far below the poverty line). Out of the $70, they have to contribute 50 cents to "seedlings", and $1 to "co-operative society" in the scheme. Still the settlers remained and worked on the land without fuss because they were promised that when the land became successful, they could earn at least $300 to $400 per month. With these earnings, if realised, they can afford to give a decent life to their family, and there will be surplus for them to pay the imaginary loan. In time, they were promised, the land would be theirs.

Permanent Debt

Bilut Valley Felda Scheme is the oldest scheme in Malaya No doubt, one of the most successful. A primary jungle has been transformed into a 'virgin' rubber plantation. The virgin trees grown from good seedlings produce latex in good quantity and quality. Ordinarily, with that amount of latex produced, they could have easily earned $400 per month. But strangely enough their income did not increase.

Although their productivity could give them an ample earning of about $400 per month, the government has limited their income to the amount of $70. Any income surpassing the $70 limit is automatically expropriated by 'Felda' under the pretext that the excess sum is used for the payment of the imaginary loan.

This imaginary loan has become a bogey, it has been exposed as a manoeuvre by the government as a smoke-screen to deny the settlers title to the land. As a test case, a settler In Bilut Valley with the cooperation of others, raised enough money to pay off the imaginary loan. But 'Felda' replied with the bold answer that it was not prepared to accept the payment. Neither would it give the title of land to the settler concerned. Secondly, a settler in Kampong Awah Felda Scheme paid his debt "religiously" for three years in succession only to be told by the Felda that his debt has increased to $18,000 i.e. an increase of $4,000 from the original imaginary loan.

The active life expectancy of rubber trees is between 15—20 years. Beyond that period replanting is necessary, and for that, the settlers will be burdened with a new imaginary loan to the tune of $15,000 to $25,000. Taking the above into consideration, the settlers will be reduced into the status of cheap labour or rubber estate workers without any labour benefits (like pensions, paid holidays, injury benefits, sickness or hospital benefits).

Expulsion from the Scheme

Recently, settlers in certain schemes (Bilut Valley) were given expulsion orders. They were asked to leave the schemes before a certain date, and if they failed, they would either be sentenced to imprisonment, ordered to pay exorbitant fines, or be physically removed from the schemes. The reason for the expulsion was that they were found selling rubber scraps (not the latex proper) to an outside dealer, and not the Felda. From time to time, the settlers do sell the scraps to outside dealers not because the money derived from the outside dealer is a better price, but the money derived from the sale is theirs. If they sell to the Felda, the money is Felda's, the settlers' income has been limited by Felda to $70 per month, per family (a sum not even sufficient to maintain one person, never mind a family, especially those having young children).

In some schemes, notably the Bilut Valley and the Babu Jaya, strike actions were taken against the expulsion order, and so far, they have been successful in resisting the high-handed action of the government.

In retaliation to the "outside dealings" the government has blocked the road leading to the schemes with gates, and security guards are stationed there. Thus, not only are the settlers reduced to cheap labour status, their freedom of movement is strictly checked. Is this not similar to New Villages Schemes set up by the British in 1948 to combat so-called "terrorists"? Felda scheme has been turned from an economic development into a political concentration camp.

Paradise for big contractors

From year to year, the development expenditure per family and per acre in the schemes have increased, but without a corresponding increase in the benefits to the settlers. Those benefiting from the increase in the expenditure are big contractors who are invariably patrons of the Alliance Party.

Increase in the
Development expenditure per family Development expenditure per acre
1956—60 $ 4,235 1956—60 $ 423
1961—65 $12,731 1961—65 $ 852
1966—70 $20,874 1966—70 $1,388

(Figures supplied by ex-chairman of 'Felda')

Land taxes in rural Malaya

Malaya is a paradise for foreign investors Not only can they reap cheap labour, but they also enjoy tax-holidays for a period from five to eight years. A further extension is allowed if the government agrees. (In a report in The Guardian, last month, Mr Adam Raphael—reporter—found that South Africa has the highest rate of return for foreign investment in the world after Malaysia). They also enjoy a lower rate of taxation.

In plantation industries, foreign capitalists pay land taxes of a mere 30 to 60 cents per acre each year, while a villager in a rural areas has to pay between SB to $12 per year for the same amount of acreage.

According to a new land tax law, the government can expropriate any land belonging to a peasant if he is unable to pay his land taxes, without the option of giving the peasnat the chance to buy the land by auction as formerly done, or putting his case for his failure to pay the taxes. The 'Utusan Melayu' (Malay Mail) reported on August 8, 1972 that the District Officer of Temerloh issued a warning to villagers in the District that their lands would be grabbed by the government unless they paid their taxes. The warning came at a time when a great number of villagers in the district were unable to pay land taxes due to their falling income because of the tailing rubber prices.

Income in rural Malaya has fallen to a level lower than any other period since 1957. Thus more and more underprivileged peasants will be rendered landless due to this new land-grabbing policy of the government.

Only when the peasants unite in struggle will the land-grabbers be crushed.

(The above article is from Berita Socialist. Vol. 2, No. 4)

Footnote

As the Felda Scheme does not solve the problem of landlessness, the peasants are forced to open up some rural areas by group efforts despite the warnings and barbarous treatment of the government. According to incomplete statistics, 200,000 acres of land in Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, and Kedah were opened up by the landless peasants themselves. In Pahang alone, about 50,000 acres of land were involved. In Temerloh (Pahang), 5,000 peasants were 'illegally' involved in the cultivation of about 30,000 acres of rural sites.

In 1971, the State Governor of Kedah revealed 101 cases of 'illegal seizers' of land and 120 were reported in the following year. Ironically the just struggle of the landless peasants is recklessly suppressed by the authority. These peasants were forced out of their newly cultivated land by armed policemen and put into jail.

On September 3, 1969. Hamid Tuah, the leader of a group of landless peasants in Telok Gong (Selangor) was arrested for 'illegally' opening up 80 acres of virgin jungle and he was put in the Batu Gajah detention Camp.

In January 1973 about 200 acres of padifields in Kampong Java of Penang were destroyed by bulldozers and 100 lorries, under the supervision of the Panghulu (District Officer). News reports revealed that these lands were claimed by the state government to construct foreign enterprisad industrial sites such as electronic and textile factories. Their padi fields were ruthlessly destroyed without prior notice, leaving the peasants in a state of desperate helplessness.

On January 26, 1973. Nanyang Siang Pau (a local Newspaper) reported that a team of armed policemen led by the district officer of Sungai Siput (lpoh) went on a wild search for a group of "illegal" tapioca planters in the "claimed government lands". Fortunately all planters escaped in time even though their crops, tools and belongings were confiscated. These planters had been applying for some land for years but their requests had never been met.

The crucial point of interest is that why do the government authorities deny the landless peasants the right to open up some rural jungle land for cultivation purposes? Firstly, the landless peasants are to be used as cheap labour sources in the Felda Scheme as shown in the above article and secondly, those rural jungle lands (which are claimed to be the properties of the Sultan and the state) are either reserved by the comprador-bureaucrats for foreign capitalists as industrial sites or sold through bribery and corruption with large profits.

—Tongin