by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang,in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, January 22, 1995:
I am prepared to visit Gua Musang in the next two weeks once the MCA national leadership or the Gua Musang Branch of the National Smallholders Association furnish me with a full list of the Tanah Putih smallholders who had been farming the state land from 10 to 25 years
It must now be clear to the Malaysian public why the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik could not produce any documentary proof to substantiate the MCA allegation that the Kelantan State Government had acquired 1,000 acres of 500 Chinese smallholders at Tanah Putih, Gua Musang under the Land Acquisition Act without compensation although I had repeatedly extended my deadline for him.
If it is true that the Kelantan State Government had acquired 1,000 acres of 500 Chinese smallholders at Tanah Putih, Gua Musang under the Land Acquisition Act without compensation, then this will be the simplest case of unconstitutional action by the Kelantan State Government and any legal and constitutional challenge taking it to court will be an ‘open-and-shut’ case.
If the MCA leadership could allow the Kelantan State Government to acquire 1,000 acres of 500 Chinese smallholders at Tanah Putih, Gua Musang under the Land Acquisition Act without compensation without daring to institute legal and constitutional challenge against the Kelantan State Government, then the MCA leadership is so utterly incompetent that it is clearly ‘beyond redemption’!
This is why, just before the National Conference Against Land Acquisition Abuses and Injustices, when the MCA national leadership made the allegation that the Kelantan State Government had acquired 1,000 acres of 500 Chinese smallholders at Tanah Putih, Gua Musang under the Land Acquisition Act without compensation, I had no hesitation in declaring that if this was true and the MCA leadership could furnish the documentary proof, the DAP would have no hesitation in immediately instituting legal suit against the Kelantan State Government to protect the property, legal and constitutional rights of the smallholders.
But the MCA national leadership could not produce such documentary evidence because the Tanah Putih, Gua Musang land issue is not a Land Acquisition Act case, but a case of squatters illegally occupying state land for cultivation.
I congratulate the MCA for being so successful in its campaign of lies that it could even mislead newspapers and their sharp-eyed editorial writers that Gua Musang land issue is a Land Acquisition Act case and that the Nine Principles formulated at the National Conference Against Land Acquisition Abuses and Injustices in Kuala Lumpur on January 8 to strike a fairer balance between development needs and the property rights of Malaysians should also apply to landless farmers.
This is not the case, as the Nine Principles adopted at the January 8 conference could only apply to land owners who are victims of unfair, inequitable and arbitrary land acquisition cases under the Land Acquisition Act, and not to cases like in Tanah Putih, Gua Musang where the land farmers had illegally occupied state land.
This does not mean that farmers illegally occupying state land for ten to twenty years are not entitled to just and fair solution of their livelihood problems, but a new set of principles to secure justice and fair play would have to be formulated.
Any government which is fair and just must also treat farmers who had illegally occupied and cultivated on state land for a considerable period with justice and equity, and should not evict the farmers or take over their cultivation without proper notice or alternative resettlement arrangements, as happened in Kuala Kabong, Johor in the early 1980s to 1,500 squatters families, who had opened up and cultivated 20,000 acres for over 20 years or currently to the 60 families on 200 acres in Sungai Baru, Hulu Langat.
It is time the MCA leadership stop its campaign of lies about the Tanah Putih, Gua Musang land issue being a Land Acquisition Act case and the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik should apologise publicly for the lies told by the MCA leadership about the real nature of the Tanah Putih, Gua Musang land case.
I regret that I have not received any reply from Cheong Tai Onn, the Secretary to the Gua Musang Branch of the National Smallholders Association furnish me with a full list of the Tanah Putih smallholders who had been farming the state land from 10 to 25 years.