The Wrongs Of The Kg Buah Pala Issue

By Walla

If they are illegal squatters on state land, then Kg Buah Pala's recourse to generational settlement has no legal ground. Giving in will only encourage other illegal squatters to park in every open spot and claim right against eviction later. How does that differ from blackmail?

The second wrong was for the civil service cooperative to buy up that state land at special price and then sell it to the developer at grossly inflated price. Was it the right of the cooperative to buy it at special untendered price in the first place?

What's happening now is that all the worms are coming out of the woodwork to show how past BN component parties have been abusing their state powers. The opposition has to pick up the pieces, face the indifference of the BN culprits and try to solve something which requires funds that BN as federal is withholding from them just because they are the opposition. In the political crossfire, the rakyat suffer.

Out of this particular case, the squatters seem to have received two gifts they are not entitled to. One, free stay on state land over five generations; that's already not a bad deal. Two, unearned duress money upon leaving, and that's not a small sum. Additionally, no one seems to notice that the developer may be incorporating the sympathy money paid out into the price of the property that it will be selling soon.

Which means legal buyers of the new property are the ones who will be subsidizing the squatters relocation to their new and more hygienic homes.

Taken from any perspective, this seems downright wrong.

Yet there is another third wrong. It is that the government, federal and state, have not put their heads together to figure out proper and legal solutions to squatters. Knowing full well that urbanization is a given, they should have factored the need for housing for the urban poor.

Parallel to that, they should have controlled better the illegal use of state land. As can be seen, closing one eye today will only push the problem to someone else tomorrow whose only resolution will be a clash between the common heart and the federal rule book in a political arena no one can afford to view.

Admittedly, there's something sentimental about the notion of growing one's roots and identifying one's familial lines with a particular place. It grows onto one, an old saying. But the world as we all know tends to overturn all comfort zones. What one desires to attach to the most will be detached the very next minute as though to deliver a biting lesson about life.