In 2013 police sergeant Abd Azis Sarikon gave his life defending Sabah from the infamous Royal Sulu Army intrusion.
He was among the six police personnel killed during a raid on Kampung Simunul in Semporna, where they were ambushed and shot in cold blood by terrorists armed with assault rifles.
Now, 11 years later, Azis’s widow and children also find themselves the victims of an intrusion – this time by the very state that the officer made the ultimate sacrifice for.
Their house in Kampung Alab – a water village in Pulau Bodgaya, Semporna – is one of the areas targeted by authorities for demolition.
According to a copy of Sabah Parks’ notice to villagers, their houses need to be demolished because they allegedly encroached into the Tun Sakaran Marine Park.
This was despite many of them having lived there for decades, like Sitti, who is now 51….
This morning, the officers returned to the village at about 7am, reinforced by a larger number, Siti said.
To her disappointment, among the raiding party were police personnel, including from the General Operations Force (GOF), the paramilitary wing that her late husband had served.
In Sabah it seems there is no hesitation in trampling the most vulnerable, poor and deserving members of the community when projects and profit are to be pursued. In this case the situation is all the more shocking given that a poor widow whose husband gave his life to protect the state is thus abused.
According to its own website, this marine park was gazetted in 2003 which appears to be long after the communities concerned had settled in the area.
Doubtless it is marketed as a great eco-project, however SR can guarantee that any tourists the park is hoping to attract would be more than dismayed to learn that native people have been chucked from their traditional homes and lifestyles to make way for it.
Indeed, it is not the traditional people who disrupt the landscape it is the hotel builders, timber raiders, polluters, sand and coral dredgers who cause chaos….. the sort of enterprises that the state government is most preoccupied with, along with their crony business pals.
So, as these ‘progressives’, headed by their notorious crook new governor, seek to march in armed police to throw a widow of a war hero and her community from their homes, there are obvious questions to be answered.
Why should existing settlements be dismantled to accommodate a huge new park? If a proper reason can be provided for doing so, then what compensation is being offered to these communities in terms of new housing and settlement provision?
Given that Sabah like Sarawak is blessed with huge natural wealth and a tiny population it beggars understanding that those who have grabbed power could be so mean in the distribution as to leave so many in the state in direst poverty whilst they plot in KK how next to strip out assets or develop cash businesses.
The only explanation is that they, as outsiders themselves, are fearful of raising and educating those native communities whom they are entrusted to represent for fear they will empower the very people they currently exploit and whose lands they plunder.
As the late Taib Mahmud (‘father of modern Sarawak’ as he was laughably dubbed) admitted, it is best to keep people too poor to complain.