If you were a respected leader of your Dayak community and a cheat came and asked you to betray your people in return for becoming a millionaire several times over, would you do it?

Think about it.

Put yourself in their shoes.

Maybe you don’t blame the Linggi family or the Jabu family, because maybe you would have sold out your Dayak people to Taib’s loggers and plantation tycoons as well?

On the other hand, these families did it to you and they are now fabulously rich and most of Sarawak is shockingly poor, wrecked and destroyed.

They are now standing once more to be your MPs, so that they can move on to grab what is left from you and your people, including Sarawak’s oil, coal, hydro-electric power, remaining native lands and what timber is left.

Maybe you would have done it in their place, but how do you like being their victims?

Are you still willing to give Alexander Linggi, Douglas Uggah (Jabu’s side-kick) and their kind your precious mandate to carry on in power and to allow Taib to complete his rape of your rainforest lands?

Do you not have a duty to your children and grand children, or is the RM1,000 being promised in bribes for each vote a fair price for their future inheritance?

For just RM1,000 are you really prepared to sell your children to be “Coolies in their own lands”, which is what Malaysia’s own Suhakam Commission has reported that Taib’s land grab policies are doing to the natives of Sarawak?

If you are really happy to be bought into slavery for just RM1,000, then go ahead and vote for Messrs Linggi and Jabu.

If not, take their money (after all they owe you a million times more out of what they cheated you) and vote for REFORMASI!

How come Linggi is so rich?

Leonard Linggi went from respected Dayak leader with no cash to speak of, to a widely loathed man with fantastic amounts of cash, occupying the grandiose role of Chairman of Asian Plantations.

Asian Plantations, which is run by Linggi’s New Zealand*son in law, a fellow named Graeme Brown, has acquired 51,000 acres of prime plantation lands, originally leased** from the State of Sarawak.

At the price demanded of RM4,000 an acre by Taib’s cousins recently, this is worth over 200 million ringgit.  Not bad.

The Linggi’s good fortune comes from the amazingly cheap prices for which they originally received concessions kindly handed to them by Taib*** without any tiresome tendering process to contend with ****.

In return Linggi is expected to be loyal.  He is expected to make sure that his Dayak underlings deliver their mandate to Taib, in return for however much he has to pay them for their votes.

Linggi’s adopted son Alexander Linggi is of course the BN candidate for Kapit, a place destroyed by logging, much of it carried out by the Linggis.

Plantations that were given for peanuts were of course largely placed on lands rich in timber that the likes of Linggi could get his hands on first for an initial windfall profit.

Taib, who likes to call himself Sarawak’s CEO, has admitted that he messed up selling off the plantation lands around Bintulu, because he could have made so much more money out of them than he did.

The Linggis made their fortune out of this destruction and Taib has been known to complain bitterly about Leonard Linggi that “he is always wanting more”!

Sustainable?

Linggi’s Asian Plantations laughably describes itself as ‘sustainable’.

In fact the Linggis are one of the worst culprits responsible for Sarawak’s destruction, through not only its oil palm plantation concerns but also the earlier logging permits that Taib*** was prepared to hand out to crony Dayaks like themselves in return for absolute political loyalty.

Linggi has been given huge areas of rainforest to destroy through his holdings in the Taib logging concerns of Keresa Timber and Rajang Wood.

The excellent dissertation on Taib’s early timber hand outs, written by Dr David Brown [Why Governments Fail to Capture Economic Rent – The Unofficial Appropriation Of Rain Forest By Rulers In Insular South East Asia 1970-1999] details just how much Linggi got his hands on in terms of timber concessions.

The information makes it plain why Taib decided to buy up Leonard Linggi:

“Linggi holds no elected position, but is second in command of the “Christian Wing” off the PBB party.  The importance of Linggi’s position is that all Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu or Christian who wish to run as state or federal candidates representing the PBB Leonard Linggi “decides whether you can run or not”….. Linggi is also General Secretary of PBB….. PBB comes to him for funds at campaign time.”[David Brown]

So, Linggi was the son of a respected Dayak leader and could bring the Dayak Christian voters to Abdul Taib Mahmud’s PBB.

Company documents show that he is still a major shareholder of these companies and of course his son Alexander is promising the ‘projects’ for votes as he runs to stay the MP of Kapit at the weekend.

As Taib prepares to swamp half Sarawak with dams are the Dayak still prepared to take peanuts to keep the Linggis so rich?

Douglas Uggah Embas – another ‘Honourable Member”?

Hand in glove with Linggi when it comes to betraying the Dayaks is another veteran BN candidate running once more in this election, Douglas Uggah Embas running in Betong as DCM Alfred Jabu’s key place man.

Uggah, ironically, has held the position of Minister of Natural Resources in the Federal Government, while his country has been sucked dry of its timber and oil by the leaders of BN.

Uggah has put BN first in return for office, like the Jabus his neighbours in Betong. Both these characters are key to nailing down Taib’s control over these Iban areas, where native loyalty is strong and trusting.

Look at just some of the concessions handed out to these families as listed by David Brown’s widely praised research:

Our research into the owners of Rajang Wood’s vast concession shows just how much Linggi controls the concession.

Rajang Wood Sdn Bhd is owned by two companies Rajang Resources And Bdn and Limar Management Services Sdn Bhd:

And Rajang Resources is owned largely by Linggi’s  – what a surprise!

And of course Limar Management Services is owned by…..

The Linggi families fortunes are clearly laid out in their 2012 Annual Report for Asian Plantations also:

So, while the Linggis have done so well what has happened to the natives they were supposed to look out for?

As our leaked copy of Malaysia’s Suhakam Human Rights Commission’s report clearly states, they have been “forced to become Coolies in their own lands”.

Linggi and Uggat clearly hope that the poverty of their Dayak people will once again encourage them to take money in return for voting them back into office.

That is their strategy.  It is up to the people to choose and then to make sure their choice is not cheated through vote rigging.

Some stories on Alfred Jabu:  Alfred Jabu and his contracts; Alfred Jabu and SALCRA; Alfred Jabu and Plantation handouts; Alfred Jabu’s construction contracts

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS:

* Amended since the original posting – Graeme Brown has stated he is a New Zealander not British.

** Amended – Asian Plantations gained its concessions indirectly, not directly from the Land & Survey Dept.

*** The majority of the Linggi timber concessions were in fact granted before Taib became chief minister by his uncle, the former chief minister, Abdul Rahman Ya’kub.

**** This reference is not to the Asian Plantation concessions, who confirm that all their plantations rights were acquired on the open market, but rather to the family’s earlier concessions, mainly timber (see above).