http://www.mysinchew.com/node/27002?tid=14

BN to blame for Kampung Buah Pala fiasco-Guan Eng
2009-07-09 17:34

LETTER TO EDITOR

The declassification of documents relating to the chronology o f BN Penang
Exco decisions prove beyond a shadow of doubt that Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon
and his UMNO, MCA, MIC And Gerakan cohorts had robbed Kampung Buah Pala
residents of their land without consulting them.

The Pakatan Rakyat Penang State Exco had in yesterdayâ?Ts meeting decided
after consulting and getting approval from the State Legal Adviser, to
declassify and reveal the decisions behind the BN State EXCO led by the
present Minister in the Prime Ministerâ?Ts Department Tan Sri Dr Koh
Tsu Koon in alienating Kampung Buah Pala to Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan
Pulau Pinang.

The state government land of Kampung Buah Pala was approved to Koperasi
Pegawai Kerajaan Pulau Pinang twice by the BN Penang state EXCO led by Tan
Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon on 18.8.2004 and 8.6.2005 with a premium of RM 6.42
million or RM 20 per square feet which was then subsequently reduced further
to only RM 3.21 million or RM 10 per square feet. So far Koh Tsu Koon has
not explained why he approved this project without consulting the residents
or selling it to Koperasi at such a low price.

Instead of training their guns and questions on the land robbers of Kampung
Buah Pala, collaborators of BN had orchestrated a smear campaign through the
control of the mass media against the new Penang State government as being
responsible when full assistance within the confines of the law had been
given. If BN was in power now and not PR, the residents would have been
evicted and Kampung Buah Pala would have been demolished since last year.

We will continue to try to get the Kampung Buah Pala residents to meet
without being manipulated by certain irresponsible (people) targetting the
state government to distract attention from those who robbed their land.

The refusal by some of the residents of Kampung Buah Pala to meet with me
and the Penang state government yesterday is regrettable and displays an
aggression, hostility and even arrogance that is puzzling. Questions are
raised why one or two of the so-called leaders of the residents are now so
defensive of BN and anti-PR, particularly anti-DAP.

Why is this aggression targeted against the PR government that is trying to
help them? In contrast not a single demonstration or action is taken against
the BN land robbers who deprived them of their rights.

The refusal to meet me appears deliberately staged by using the flimsy
ground of denying their lawyers to be present when their legal counsel,
Cecil Rajendra was also present. Sadly this was also not published in the BN
controlled media even though Cecil Rajendra was present with me at the press
conference yesterday.

I wish to appeal to the residents not to be manipulated by certain
irresponsible parties but to come and meet me for a heart to heart talks. By
refusing to meet, the residents are playing into the hands of the land
robbers who want to these talks to fail, the residents evicted, their houses
demolished and PR blamed. Unlike BN, the PR government has not cheated the
residents of a single inch of their land and will try out all legal avenues
suggested by their legal counsel, Cecil Rajendra.

Time is running out and the residents should distinguish between those who
are sincere in helping them against those who are distracting attention from
the real culprits who robbed them of their land.

LIM GUAN ENG
Chief Minister Penang
9 July 2009
____

http://anilnetto.com/accountability/high-chaparral-what-happened-to-the-trust-do\
cument/

High Chaparral: What happened to the trust document?
posted on Friday, 10 July 2009 at 12.42pm

The Kampung Buah Pala land in Gelugor was once owned by David Brown, a
wealthy spice plantation owner during the early British colonial era in
Penang who died in 1825.

Title to the land eventually reached one of his descendants, Helen Margaret
Brown. For more information on David Brown and his descendants, go here and
here.
http://teochiewkia.blogspot.com/2009/07/david-brown.html
http://ssquah.blogspot.com/2009/07/david-browns-legacy.html

Check out this copy of the Straits Settlement "Grant of Land" bestowing
title to Helen Margaret Brown in 1938:

http://anilnetto.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ss-deed1.jpg

A lot has been said about the High Chaparral residents being "squatters"
(setinggan). Many of them are actually descendants of workers brought in by
the Brown family, who allowed them to live on the land.

On the reverse side of the Grant of Land, we can see the "sub-divided Lot
691 acquired by Crown for housing Trust - vested in Crown on 12.4.(1954?)".

http://anilnetto.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/vested-crown-land.jpg

So where is the actual Housing Trust document? Isn't the Penang Land Office
supposed to have a copy? Why hasn't the actual trust document been made
public?

When the housing trust was dissolved in 1976, the land should have gone to
the Federal Government.

So how did the previous Penang government alienate the land to the Penang
State Government Officers Cooperative? How did they satisfy themselves that
they had title to the land? State government leaders then have a lot to
answer for.

Why didn't the present administration, knowing the controversial
circumstances surrounding the land following the promises made in the
general election campaign, keep a sharp look-out on this land deal and
double-check the actual land status before the transfer to the government
officers cooperative was effected in March 2008? Was it merely an
administrative matter that the present state government could do nothing
about?
____

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/108200

High Chaparral villagers filing new ownership writ
Athi Shankar | Jul 10, 09 9:58am

The 'High Chaparral' Kampung Buah Pala villagers will file a fresh writ at
the Penang High Court next week to stake claim of ownership over the
village, which they claim to have resided in for nearly 200 years.

Darshan Singh Khaira, their lawyer, said he will file the writ under common
law principles of adverse possession, equity and legitimate expectation.

When asked to explain the writ's contents, Darshan (right) said the
villagers would base their argument on the fact that they had stayed in the
village for years without giving recognition to any other ownership.

Darshan said the villagers had occupied the land uninterupted for more than
12 years after it was given to them by their colonial estate master Helen
Margaret Brown.

According to him, there were many case law precedents to back the villagers'
claim of ownership.

He said the villagers would also apply for a stay of execution of the writ
of possession dated June 2 issued to them by the proposed developer Nusmetro
Venture (P) Sdn Bhd.

Declassified documents handed over

The developer issued the writ after the villagers lost their appeal at the
Federal Court last month.

Kampung Buah Pala villagers had sought to set aside an earlier Court of
Appeal decision favouring the land owner, Koperasi Pegawai Pegawai Kanan
Kerajaan Pulau Pinang, and Nusmetro.

The villagers face eviction from Kampung Buah Pala after Aug 2.

Kampung Buah Pala is famously known as 'Tamil High Chaparral' by locals due
to its cowherds, cattles, goats and Tamil traditional way of life.

Today, the state government handed over several declassified documents
pertaining to the land deal to the village committee assistant secretary C
Tharmaraj.

Darshan praised Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng for releasing the documents.

Lim was notified of transaction

According the documents, the cooperative society had paid RM2.247 million on
March 14, 2008 - a week after Lim had become the chief minister.

The land was transferred by the state government to the cooperative society
on March 27, 19 days after Pakatan Rakyat captured the Penang government in
the March 8 general election.

Tharmaraj alleged that on March 16, the villagers were informed by their
then lawyer Cecil Rajendra that Lim had been notified about the land
transaction.

He said Cecil Rajendra had ask Lim to scrutinise the transaction and that
there was a pending court case on the village land.

"Lim now claims that he didn't know anything about the transaction. Lim
should stop blaming the previous administration on the issue. He is partly
to be blamed for allowing the transaction," he said.

The declassified documents contained the chronology of the previous BN
executive council decisions made on the Kampung Buah Pala land deals.

We'll meet Lim if he's sincere

Lim has said that the document proved that former Chief Minister Koh Tsu
Koon and his Umno, MCA, MIC and Gerakan cohorts had robbed the villagers of
their land without consulting them.

Tharmaraj said that the Kampung Buah Pala Residents Association would be the
villagers' sole voice and Darshan their legal representative.

On Wednesday, the villagers did not attend a proposed meeting with Lim
(left) when they were not allowed to be accompanied by Darshan.

Tharmaraj said the villagers would welcome Lim wholeheartedly to the village
if he sincerely wanted to have a 'heart to heart talk' with them.

Darshan called on Lim's government to testify during the court hearing on
the villagers' impending writ of ownership claim.

"If the state government can admit in court that the deals were fraudulent,
then it need not pay a single cent to reacquire the land since the deal
would be nullified.

"It will end the villagers' predicament once for all if the state government
can do that," he said.
____

http://khookaypeng.blogspot.com/2009/07/ridiculous-koh-tsu-koon-should-keep-his.\
html

Friday, July 10, 2009

Ridiculous Koh Tsu Koon Should Keep His Own Promises First
Posted by Khoo Kay Peng at 1:09 PM

On the declassification of Kampung Buah Pala files related to the land
transaction, Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon wants the DAP to do the same to
their promises during the last general elections.

"I would also like to ask him (Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng) to
announce and make public a chronology of the promises that DAP leaders had
made before and during the last general election on this issue and quote
what they have said themselves (to the residents) just as he had quoted from
the 'presumably' exco minutes," he said yesterday.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/13ngg/Article/index_html

Based on his current statement, there is little hope for Koh to repent,
admit and own up his past mistakes. He still missed the main point. His
party ideology has promised to protect and champion the rights of the
underprivileged. Gerakan has a deep socialist past. It was a party of the
masses, the deprived and the marginalised. Why didn't he keep this promise?

Koh should answer why he chose to take away this land, which has been
inhibited for over 200 years by the descendants of the current dwellers and
was on a verge of being listed as a heritage enclave, and sold it at a huge
discount premium to a cooperative so that this cooperative can stand to
pocket hundreds of millions from a commercial project?

Political parties make a lot of promises during general elections. UMNO,
Gerakan and BN did the same - to treat all Malaysians equally and to protect
the rights of the minorities. What happened after each election? The goons
in your coalition would start the racial blame game again. Remember the
'keris' waving antics at the UMNO general assembly? Remember Ahmad Ismail?

You, Koh Tsu Koon, made promises you cannot keep too. You told the voters
that you will not accept a 'backdoor' entry into the cabinet. Remember? But
you are now sitting pretty in Putrajaya as a 'backdoor' minister.

The easiest and less painful way for Koh to move forward is to admit his
mistake and try to assist to work out a win-win situation for everybody.

Another thing, you should stop going around and telling lies about me. You
told a senior executive in the KL and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall that I
used the party's resources and information to publish a book about Gerakan.
If you cannot tell the truth about me, can we expect you to tell the truth
about Kampung Buah Pala?

You should tell the executive that my team and I had completed two books
commissioned by the party - an autobiography of Lim Keng Yaik and another on
the party's history - but your CC had decided against publishing the two
books so that you can continue to lie about me and my credentials. These two
books praised the ex-leader and your party sky high.

The only book I co-wrote was written after I left the think tank in April
2008. It was published in July 2008.

I would still insist that there is nothing wrong with Gerakan's ideology but
there is something very wrong with the leadership of Koh Tsu Koon.
____

Koh: DAP should also publish promises to residents
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/10/nation/4295193
&sec=nation

Lim Denies Promising Return Of Land To Kampung Buah Pala Residents
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newspolitic.php?id=424466
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