The Rakyat Post
More than 200 Felda settlers marched to the Parliament building this morning to demand their rights.
The settlers who had come from all over the country had gathered at the National Mosque before marching to the Parliament.
Many of them were carrying banners and they stopped just about 1,500m from the Parliament entrance to display their demands to members of parliament who were driving to the building.
Written on their main banners were demands for Malaysian Palm Oil Board licence to sell their oil palm on the open market.
Other smaller banners carried calls such as “don’t rob Felda settlers of their rights” and “the MPOB licence is our right.”
The crowd started to cheer as Pakatan Rakyat MPs started to join them to help them bring up the issue in the Dewan Rakyat.
All settlers cheered and marched into Parliament after opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim arrived at about10:30am but only 20 of them were allowed into the Dewan Rakayat.
One of the settlers, who only wanted to be known as Yaakob, 62, said when they first settled on the land they were given rules and regulations which were in English to sign.
“We did not know what was stated in the books we were given, we just signed because we trusted Felda.”
He said he had worked on the land all his life and once his children had grown up only then did he realise that he was being treated unfairly by Felda.
He said this came about because his children could read English and they had helped him to understand his rights.
He urged Felda not to treat the settlers as “stupid people”.
Another settler Nasir, 59, said they were being forced to sell their oil palm to Felda at a low price.
He said they wanted the MPOB licence so that they could sell their oil palm on the open market and get a fair price for it.
“I cannot understand why we the land owners, who are paying the state government taxes all our lives are being denied the right to have the MPOB licence.
“We are the land owners, Felda does not own any land but they have been given the MPOB licence, not us.”
Nasir said they had settled and developed the land in the 1960s and that they only learnt about their rights after their children, who are professionals, helped them to understand what were their rights.
He said every settler at the protest owned at least 10 acres of land.
He said they turned to Pakatan Rakyat to fight for their rights and many of them had put aside their political differences to get what is rightly theirs.
Wangsa Maju MP Datuk Dr Tan Kee Kwong said Felda should put the rights of the settlers ahead of their own interest.
He said he could not understand the reasoning behind Felda’s decision to buy a £98 million (RM497 million) London serviced apartment complex.
“Not only have they spent close to RM500 million, they have also borrowed RM6 billion from EPF.
“The money in the EPF is not theirs to simply spend, it belongs to hardworking Malaysians.”
Tan said Felda should return to its core objective, that is looking after the interest of the settlers.
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