By Yip Ai Tsin | Feb 14, 10 2:56pm | Malaysiakini

A new land policy purported to be a boon for the 150,000-strong Orang Asli community has all but been received as good news, given the many questions surrounding the announcement, said activists.

Unless further details are forthcoming from the government, the policy announced by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin last December may even undermine the rights and interests of the Orang Asli, they alleged.

On Dec 4 last year, Muhyiddin announced that some 20,000 Orang Asli families will be given by state governments freehold land titles for residential use and for oil palm, rubber and other crop cultivation under an agreement between the government and developers.

The number made up 72 per cent of the total of 27,841 Orang Asli families and involve 50,563.51 hectares of land in Peninsular Malaysia, said Muhyiddin according to reports.

The size of the land for each family would range between two to six hectares for farming and 5,000 sq feet to one tenth of a hectare for housing, depending on what the state governments can afford, Muhyiddin said further.

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur organised by the Bar Council recently, Orang Asli activists said the policy raised more questions than answers.

For one thing, asked the council’s Orang Asli Affairs Committee head Augustine Anthony, how is the plan expected to improve the lot of Orang Aslis when it envisages them to be paying for the costs – such as surveying costs, premiums, registration, and “other payments advanced by the developers” – of the land ‘granted’ to them?

The reception of the freehold land titles, said Anthony, may result in the Orang Asli families concerned incurring debts of up to thousands of ringgit as a result of the developers’ initial outlays on the land.

“The methods of financing have not been discussed and revealed in depth,” said Anthony, and these must be ironed out and explained to the Orang Asli in detail before any deals are cut.

Another question raised by Muhyiddin’s announcement is the effect of the policy on the Orang Aslis’ communal traditions of land ownership, given the plan to give individual titles to the heads of Orang Asli families.

Social activist Tijah Yok Chopil, meanwhile, expressed concern that the varying availability of land in the different states may lead to confusion as to which families qualified for how much land, or what is to be done when the size of the land grants differ from one family to another.

Compounding the problem even further is Muhyiddin’s statement that the land policy plan bars those awarded the land grants from filing any claims in court.

“This is a restriction that is against the Federal Constitution,” said Tijah, citing the right of every citizen to access to legal justice.

Former Bar Council president Ambiga Sreenevasan, similarly, lamented the restriction recourse to the court, and described the land policy as a “terrible bargain to the Orang Asli”.