FMT : How to make Musa Aman nervous

KOTA KINABALU: Nerves are jangling in the Sabah Barisan Nasional camp as opposition parties keep bringing up issues that the Musa Aman regime would rather not talk about.
One such issue is the relocation to Kampung Maang of people whom the locals saw as "outsiders." It provoked protests (picture) several years ago.

Kampung Maang was one of several kampongs affected when the BN administration pushed through a decision to relocate squatters at Sri Tanjung to the KadazanDusun heartland of Penampang.
Residents objected to the move, saying that it would destroy their way of life. They feared that it would set a precedent to allowing the government to resettle hundreds of squatters anywhere it chose, without caring whether it would upset the social fabric of an area.
The incensed residents lashed out at their political representatives, accusing them of collusion with the government.
The general feeling was that the move was two parts political and one part social. Many of the new residents and former squatters were believed to be former illegal immigrants from the Philippines who had acquired Malaysian identity cards though political patronage.
Moving them to places like Kampung Maang and Kampung Matabian, where low-cost houses were built to accommodate them, would change the electoral pattern and demography of the area, they said.
"I think that this is to ensure that all kadazanDusun strongholds will eventually crumble to Umno since most of the inhabitants were supporters or phantom voters for BN and Umno," said a resident in blog posting.
The KadazanDusuns’s one time hero, former chief minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, came under intense criticism for failing to address the fears of his people.
He and several other KadazanDusun leaders were perceived as being reticent on the issue, if not supportive of the decision.
Such is the BN’s fear of losing votes in the area that a local community leader aligned to the state government has pleaded with the opposition not to bring up the matter.
SAPP president Yong Teck Lee has been using the issue to buttress support for the opposition for the next general election.
Kampung Maang village development and security committee chairman Charles Jimis Yong is worried the issue still rankles and will remain a reason for the villagers’ distrust of  the government.
The "use-past-issues-in-here as bait when fishing for votes is wrong," he said.
Charles said this in response to Teck Lee’s statement that if SAPP was given the mandate to form the government in the next election, it would not allow the squatters from Sri Tanjung to be relocated to Kampung Maang.
The SAPP chief has claimed that Kampung Maang was now being administered by the Putatan Sub-district Council and the villagers’ protest to the Sabah Barisan Nasional government against the change of administration of the area had fallen on deaf ears.
Charles claimed that the issue of relocation of squatters to Kampung Maang was settled about two years ago.
“The State Government two years ago agreed not to go ahead with the proposal to relocate the Sri Tanjung squatters to Kampung Maang," he said. "So it is wrong for Yong to bring up that issue again.”
He said the government had assured the villagers that Kampung Maang and its land reserves were protected.
“I would like to invite Datuk Yong to come to Kampung Maang and see for himself that there is no squatter resettlement here as the land reserve is specifically for landless villagers in the district,” he said.