With respect, and in all humility, it might be useful to address the claim that Felda Plantations is illegal .
While it seems clear that this question of legality itself is a matter for the courts to determine, at the same time, there are some related issues and questions that need to be mentioned, to help put the matter of ownership and control of Felda within this perspective.
However it would appear that to attempt to explain these matters comprehensively, some reference needs to be made by way of background experiences to the comments and assertions I will be making that may otherwise seem, to put it mildly, ‘extraordinary'.
Briefly, these were being a member of Tun Razak's select 11 men national committee for "Gerakan Maju", Felda foundation advisory committee and research director on settler development, EPU Consultant/Social Development Director (Johor/Pahang Regional Master Plans) and UNDP Social Impact Assessment Consultant on Felda.
As a starting point it is appropriate to adopt the frame of reference of the UNDP report, because the terms of reference themselves set the stage for an examination of matters pertaining to whether the plantations can be said to be "illegal".
The theoretical framework for the UNDP study was that Felda had become a ‘victim of its own success' meaning unequivocally that the economic success of the corporation was (and is) being achieved as a consequence of the negative social impact of its policies, involving settler ownership, and participation in the management and governance of the plantations.
In the interests of brevity, the arguments will be presented in point form.
1. Origins
The origins for the formation of Felda were political. There were contributory and precipitating reasons. The former, because it was well known that Malay poverty, particularly in the rural areas was chronic and endemic being entrenched largely due to colonial neglect. now needed to be addressed through the allocation of ‘land for the landless'.
And the latter, because the ruling political party lost two parliamentary seats in the Malay heartland soon after the first general elections after independence, and the economic plight of the rakyat had to be lifted through the provision of new land for the landless as a matter of priority.
The decision to directly open up new ‘land for the landless' was further compounded by other precipitating factors as well.
One was the reluctance to institute land reform measures for fear that this might negatively affect the stability of the status quo since most agricultural landowners were Malays.
Also, this was the time the government was providing massive resettlement and rehabilitation facilities involving allocation of land and access to the main social services to ex-communists, while Malays who gave their lives in the defence of the country were denied such similar facilities.
Not surprisingly, the political dimension was reinforced by overarching ethnic considerations given that the vast majority of ex-communists were Chinese while former members of the security forces were mainly Malay.
2 Ideologies, concept and reality
The ideology of Felda was the brainchild of PM Abdul Razak. He envisaged landless settlers as "Yeomanry"-type groups owning land on homesteads as independent producers, involved in participating democracies in bottom-top social institutions across the board.
His vision was essentially to enable the poverty stricken, especially rural Malays to empower themselves and participate in modernisation and technological change that would, through upward social mobility, elevate their politico-socio-economic status to that of participating with the other multiethnic groups in a competitive level playing field.
But unfortunately there was no model to be used as a guideline. The entire program therefore had to start entirely from scratch literally on a trial and error basis.
The beginnings understandably were particularly harsh when settlers even had to build their own houses. With very limited transport accessibility it was not uncommon for settlers to find themselves stranded in some isolated areas, sometimes frequented by elephants (e.g. in Pahang), when their transport broke down.
These early years however showed an independence of spirit among settlers with the accompanying reluctance to depend on the ever increasing Felda bureaucracy to manage the settlements on their behalf.
The problematic reality of the situation was soon seen in the area of the lack of adequate human resources.
The Felda bureaucracy was untrained and ill-equipped to deal with settlers' problems and resorted to private estate type top-bottom management policies, despite the settlers themselves being technically the ‘owners' of 10 acre land holdings.
Managers did not even realise that settlers, though almost entirely Malays, were often unable to communicate with each other because they spoke different dialects!
In our research study we came across instances where managers, accused of favouring those of their own ‘suku-bangsa' were ‘barricaded' in their offices and subsequently, for security reasons, were authorised to arm themselves with revolvers while at work!
But the status of settlers land ownership and control was a microcosm of the basic uncertainties of settlers.
Conflicting and changing ad hoc policies ranging from eldest child inheritance, shared ownership, sale of land, and the almost total lack of involvement in management policies and decision making relegated settlers to the status of wage earners rather than land owners.
This situation created a social environment where settlers were isolated from involvement and participation in relevant and meaningful knowledge based training programs in basic management skills as well as opportunities for discussions and debate.
A lack of sense of belonging, and minimal interpersonal interaction and relationships, were among the reasons also for the relatively high incidence of drug abuse particularly among the 18-25 age groups in many settlements.
3 Social impact assessment
The UNDP report (2002) clearly attributed the paradoxical situation where, on the one hand, Felda had successfully met the targets for economic growth and development, on he other hand, had failed to met the aspirations of settlers in social development.
The main reason was because Felda was directly involved in the production process itself to the exclusion of the settlers, who to all intents and purposes, merely received a monthly "wage" and annual dividend payments.
There is no reason to suggest that the uncertainties in settler ownership and control with Felda have been resolved since 2002.
On the contrary, judging from the many press media statements as well as online, including those from Prime Minister Najib himself, there is strong reason to believe that the situation has worsened with the different groups and the interests they espouse becoming more polarised than previously
This is not the place to enter into a full scale analysis on this question because it will necessarily involve matters revolving around de-constructing and re-constructing Felda.
Suffice it to say that with the decision of the Federal Government to cease starting new settlements in 1990, the bureaucracy took control of Felda and consolidated its hold with the amendment of the Group Settlement Act (1960) in 1996.
With the latter amendment Felda in effect "corporatised" itself opening new land schemes and entering into a vast network of areas of economic activity such as hotel building and a variety of subsidiaries not connected to cash crop production.
4. Conclusion
This article is being written at a time when there is a heated political debate as to the future of Felda.
Admittedly, as can be seen from the above this is a complex question in terms of attempting to reconcile the main groups whose interests are diametrically opposed.
But what seems crucial is that in studying the situation in detail every attempt should be made to keep in mind the original plan and policy of Tun Razak to maintain viable agro-based homesteads for the landless poor.
