The kampong boy grew up

The kampong boy grew up, worked very hard and was successful in building a small fortune for himself. He is now big and financially able to further develop his business empire. He looked around his backyard and saw a large tract of waste land, neglected, undeveloped and overgrown with secondary forest. Then he remembered what his father told him. The land belonged to the family for several generations, dating back to his great, great, great grandfather. But their family fortune had waned and they were unable to do anything to that piece of land.

The boy, now an entrepreneur, started to redevelop the piece of land handed down by his forefathers. The secondary forest was leveled and several new estates rose from the piece of land. It was a big piece of land and still have potential for many developments.

In the neighbourhood, several young punks also grew up and formed gangs among themselves. Seeing the young man developing the land, these gangsters began to have ideas to have a piece of action, a piece of the land. They too started to build houses on the land nearest to their respective houses. They simply claimed the land belonged to them in view of proximity. The land next to their houses must be theirs since no one has claimed ownership of the land, ignoring whoever was the original owner.

Disputes soon broke up when the young man went on to claim rights to the land but was rebuffed. The gangsters simply asked for proof of ownership. But the young man had difficulties as during the time of his forefathers, it was a time when documentations were not the norm and also many evidence of ownership were lost over time. The only evidence could be the markers left on the land, like tombstones of family members and some rundown huts.

The gangsters set up a kangaroo court with the help of bigger gangsters, hired their own middle men as mediators to decide who have the rights to the land. The young man refused to participate in the kangaroo court. The gangsters were cunning enough not to take the case to the official courts of the land.

After paying the middle men/mediators, the latter ruled in favour of the gangsters, that since the young man could not produce any documents, the whole piece of land is now no longer his and all the gangsters have the right to claim the whole piece of land. The gangsters even accused the young man of encroaching into their land illegally. The gangsters bought advertising space in the local newspapers to claim that their kangaroo court’s ruling is legal and binding and arrogantly sat on the lands they took from the young man’s estate and now are claiming for the whole piece of land as theirs.

The young man would now have to stand up to the gangsters. But the local media kept reporting that the kangaroo court is legitimate and the young man is a bully, has no right to claim his inheritance from his forefathers. The gangsters are very successful in buying the local newspapers to play up on the issue and keep repeating that the kangaroo court is a legitimate court and not one is willing to talk about the official courts of the land that could rule otherwise.

The issue of ownership as far as the gangsters are concerned is settled by the kangaroo court. Now the young man would have to take matters into this own hand, to reclaim the land he lost to the gangsters and more to lose with the ruling of the kangaroo court. The gangsters won the first round with the local newspapers on their side, making farcical news and comments against the young man.

The ball is now in the court of the young man, to use his financial muscles and whatever to chase out the usurpers of his grandfathers’ land.