Do Sarawakians of the Christian faith still want to vote for the BN?
All the work done by Najib to campaign for the state BN will probably end up in the ditch. This news is going to spread like wild fire to Sarawak. To hold protests one day before voting day, must be stupidity personified.
Muslim groups will protest tomorrow [April 15] against Putrajaya’s release of Malay-language bibles, after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak promised yesterday that his administration would never again impound bibles.
The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam (Pembela)’s protest here would occur a day before Sarawak, where half of its population is made up of Christians, goes to polls.
“We are organising the assembly to express our opinions and the voices of Muslim groups who represent the Muslim community to defend the sanctity of Islam as the country’s official religion,” said Pembela spokesman Dr Yusri Mohamad.
“The assembly is to protest the government’s action in allowing Bahasa Malaysia bibles, including the usage of the word ‘Allah’,” he added.
Yusri said Pembela also opposed the Najib administration’s decision to release 35,100 copies of the Alkitab that the Home Ministry had impounded at the Port Klang and Kuching ports.
“We see there are efforts and an inclination to dispute the position of Islam, so what we are doing is just to express our protest,” said Yusri.
“We want to defend the position of Islam in the country so that it is not disputed,” he added.
Pembela, a coalition of 20 Muslim bodies, will organise the protest after Friday prayers at the National Mosque tomorrow [April 15], said Yusri.
The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) picked up its cargo of 5,100 copies of the Alkitab from Port Klang last month, but said they would be preserved as museum pieces as a reminder of what it maintains was a deliberate government move to deface their holy book.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala said yesterday that the remaining 30,000 copies of the Alkitab have been collected by its importer, The Gideons.
Pembela said recently that the decision to allow the Alkitab to be freely distributed nationwide showed that the government was being manipulated by Christian groups.
The Muslim coalition also threatened to challenge Putrajaya’s 10-point solution on the bibles row in court.
Malay rights group Perkasa warned Christians last Sunday against asking that bibles be printed in Bahasa Malaysia, saying Malays have allowed non-Malays to make “excessive” demands.
http://malaysianfirstlast.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-sarawakians-of-christian-faith-still.html
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
白毛--真的是人渣
自我審查
雖然台灣曾戒嚴多年，但我成年時已解嚴許久，連警備總部都裁撤了。等我開始上網晃盪，網路世界玉石雜陳，精彩或者不精彩的論述隨處可見，不過沒聽說那個網友說了當權者不愛聽的話而被警察逮捕。我從未擔心在網路留下的訊息，會被公權力對付，只是讀者少，沒什麼反應罷了。當然，我永遠也不會瞭解，長年在白色恐怖、戒嚴下生活的台灣人民，驚弓之鳥的戰戰兢兢。自從馬英九上台，台灣的言論自由等等反而稍見倒退。
大馬目前仍有內安法令、煽動法令、藐視王室、出版法令等等很多惡法鉗制人民。內安法令是官方的尚方寶劍，官方認定某人危害國家安全即可逮人，不需證據、無須理由，更不必審判。最長關兩年，不過可無限期延長，意思是把人關到死都合法。雖然目前政府未大規模動用，但始終偷偷摸摸以內安法令抓人。這些惡法一日不廢止，大馬一日只是自認的民主國家。
官方向來修理不聽話之人，絕非專門對付華人，尤其早年的馬來左翼精英、回教黨領袖被整得最慘，以致馬來左翼勢力幾乎失語。如今甚至很多年輕人誤會馬共都是華人，其實馬共主席是馬來人，馬共成員也有不少馬來人，只是華人、馬來人由各自的系統領導。這倒不奇怪，伊斯蘭教是一種與生活密切結合的宗教，兵荒馬亂之際，穆斯林歸穆斯林管，非穆斯林歸非穆斯林管，確實比較方便。
政府曾於1987年關閉三家報社。目前報社的准證（執照）為期一年，至於官方私下干涉媒體，傳聞甚多，即使首相保證沒有都無人相信。兩年前某華文報記者因據實報導中了內安法令，儘管輿論的壓力逼迫官方很快放人，可是，我不相信沒有寒蟬效應。惟，我對某華文報阿諛權貴過頭非常反感，我瞭解不敢直指政府缺失的無奈，但需要諂媚到讓人臉紅嗎？每家華文報都拍馬屁，這是生存，我明白。可是就有一家馬屁拍的特別過頭，這是風骨的問題吧。
去年政府查禁了一位馬來漫畫家數本政治漫畫，漫畫家亦一堆官司纏身，聽起來很慘。不時有部落客因種種罪名，被政府控告，連拉惹伯特拉（沒錯，此人是雪州王室一員）都逃至英國避禍，大家還是安分一點。
之前曾打算寫柔佛蘇丹種種，想想還是算了，這篇文章不值得我冒險。不希望部落格引人注目，除了自認寫的不夠好，也擔心棒打出頭鳥，萬一不幸被某人告密，那就慘哉了，自言自語就好。
然而，西馬的政治氣氛相對還算寬鬆，東馬的砂拉越才叫肅殺，去年砂拉越某華文報刊登一則新聞，主題是討論砂拉越首席部長泰益瑪目（外號白毛）會不會退休，泰益瑪目當了快三十年首席部長，輿論關心他是否退休一點也不奇怪。沒幾天，報社編輯走路。白毛外號砂州拉惹（Raja，王子），可不是喊假的，他比大馬首相納吉更神氣。
http://blog.roodo.com/misspym/archives/15268615.html
雖然台灣曾戒嚴多年，但我成年時已解嚴許久，連警備總部都裁撤了。等我開始上網晃盪，網路世界玉石雜陳，精彩或者不精彩的論述隨處可見，不過沒聽說那個網友說了當權者不愛聽的話而被警察逮捕。我從未擔心在網路留下的訊息，會被公權力對付，只是讀者少，沒什麼反應罷了。當然，我永遠也不會瞭解，長年在白色恐怖、戒嚴下生活的台灣人民，驚弓之鳥的戰戰兢兢。自從馬英九上台，台灣的言論自由等等反而稍見倒退。
大馬目前仍有內安法令、煽動法令、藐視王室、出版法令等等很多惡法鉗制人民。內安法令是官方的尚方寶劍，官方認定某人危害國家安全即可逮人，不需證據、無須理由，更不必審判。最長關兩年，不過可無限期延長，意思是把人關到死都合法。雖然目前政府未大規模動用，但始終偷偷摸摸以內安法令抓人。這些惡法一日不廢止，大馬一日只是自認的民主國家。
官方向來修理不聽話之人，絕非專門對付華人，尤其早年的馬來左翼精英、回教黨領袖被整得最慘，以致馬來左翼勢力幾乎失語。如今甚至很多年輕人誤會馬共都是華人，其實馬共主席是馬來人，馬共成員也有不少馬來人，只是華人、馬來人由各自的系統領導。這倒不奇怪，伊斯蘭教是一種與生活密切結合的宗教，兵荒馬亂之際，穆斯林歸穆斯林管，非穆斯林歸非穆斯林管，確實比較方便。
政府曾於1987年關閉三家報社。目前報社的准證（執照）為期一年，至於官方私下干涉媒體，傳聞甚多，即使首相保證沒有都無人相信。兩年前某華文報記者因據實報導中了內安法令，儘管輿論的壓力逼迫官方很快放人，可是，我不相信沒有寒蟬效應。惟，我對某華文報阿諛權貴過頭非常反感，我瞭解不敢直指政府缺失的無奈，但需要諂媚到讓人臉紅嗎？每家華文報都拍馬屁，這是生存，我明白。可是就有一家馬屁拍的特別過頭，這是風骨的問題吧。
去年政府查禁了一位馬來漫畫家數本政治漫畫，漫畫家亦一堆官司纏身，聽起來很慘。不時有部落客因種種罪名，被政府控告，連拉惹伯特拉（沒錯，此人是雪州王室一員）都逃至英國避禍，大家還是安分一點。
之前曾打算寫柔佛蘇丹種種，想想還是算了，這篇文章不值得我冒險。不希望部落格引人注目，除了自認寫的不夠好，也擔心棒打出頭鳥，萬一不幸被某人告密，那就慘哉了，自言自語就好。
然而，西馬的政治氣氛相對還算寬鬆，東馬的砂拉越才叫肅殺，去年砂拉越某華文報刊登一則新聞，主題是討論砂拉越首席部長泰益瑪目（外號白毛）會不會退休，泰益瑪目當了快三十年首席部長，輿論關心他是否退休一點也不奇怪。沒幾天，報社編輯走路。白毛外號砂州拉惹（Raja，王子），可不是喊假的，他比大馬首相納吉更神氣。
http://blog.roodo.com/misspym/archives/15268615.html
Bakun Dam project threatened
Bakun Dam project threatened
By , on 11 October 2007
Digg Digg
Establishing plantations in the 1.5 million hectares Bakun Catchment is likely to threaten the viability of the Bakun Dam and the Bakun HEP, warns Philip Khoo. The Sarawak state government must provide some answers quickly.
To counter criticisms against the Bakun Hydroelectric Project, several federal ministers had promised that the 1.5 million-hectare Bakun catchment would be gazetted to conserve the forest and protect the investment in the dam.
Indeed, the then deputy prime minister was quoted on 12 March 1996 as saying that “we should realise that we will be gazetting a catchment area covering 1.5 million hectares which may not have been created if the Bakun project is not implemented.”
Until now, however, the catchment continues to be intensively logged. Worse, large parts of it are either in the process of being clear-felled for plantation or have been licensed out for the same purpose. In short, not only has the catchment not been gazetted, it is being actively undermined — with the approval of the Sarawak state government.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) recently brought this to the attention of the public when they produced evidence that the Sarawak state government had approved at least three large plantation projects in the Bakun catchment between 1999 and 2002. None of the mainstream newspapers carried SAM’s press statement and conference.
The three plantation projects are:
• the Shin Yang Forest Plantation covering almost 156,000 hectares,
• the Bahau-Linau Forest Plantation covering over 108,000 hectares, and
• the Merirai-Balui Forest Plantation on almost 56,000 hectares.
The Bahau-Linau and Merirai-Balui Forest Plantations are under Rimbunan Hijau while the Shin Yang Forest Plantation is under Shin Yang Forestry. All three are so-called plantation forests, to be planted with mainly acacia mangium, widely considered to be an invasive exotic species and a potential fire hazard.
A proportion of the plantations can be and has been planted with oil palm for one cycle — the Sarawak state government’s way of helping the companies with their cash flow, as oil palm will produce a yield in four years, while the acacia is projected for harvesting in 12-15 years.
These three plantations alone mean that at least 10 per cent of the catchment is being converted to plantation. If, in fact, more plantations have been licensed, then the proportion of catchment to be converted to plantation will rise correspondingly.
Moreover, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the projects suggest that a large part of the catchment is badly degraded due to past and ongoing logging activities.
Thus, giving the lie to previous claims that logging was sustainable and selective, the EIAs give as justification for the projects the badly degraded condition of the logged-over forest, with little likelihood of regeneration.
The three areas in question have been subject to logging only since the late 1980s or early 1990s. The same is generally true of the overall Bakun catchment.
Thus, as the three areas in question were or are logged by the same operators as the rest of the Bakun catchment, it can be concluded that the bulk of the catchment is in similar degraded condition — with serious negative implications for the integrity of the catchment. The integrity of a catchment is the primary asset of a dam and has implications for its water quality and its water-regulating properties. In the case of a hydro-electric dam, this has implications for its power-generating capacity.
Viability threatened
In their press release, Sahabat Alam Malaysia cited the Bakun EIA reports prepared about ten years ago which noted that “the annual sediment load in the catchment area had jumped from 11 (million) to 29 million tonnes between 1983 and 1993 alone” and attributed this “to the advent of timber harvesting activities in the area”.
SAM also cited he Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for Bakun (attached to the EIA Reports), which observed that “future logging should be controlled to reduce siltation and the sediment reaching the reservoir”.
The EMP also stated that these concerns applied to “land clearing in the catchment above the reservoir inundation limit” and that “prudent land use management for the catchment must be introduced” based on the principle that the highest and best use of the catchment is the “uninterrupted supply of quality water to the reservoir”.
Based on these findings from the EIA and EMP reports, SAM warned that “the establishment of plantations in the upstream reaches of Bakun will surely spell disaster for the dam since such plantations will entail clear-cutting and periodic harvesting and an increase in erosion and siltation rates”.
The tree plantations will be operating on a 15-year cycle while the oil palm will operate on a 20-year cycle.
Additionally, the areas where the plantations are being established include sites which were cleared of their original residents. One of the reasons given for the resettlement was that if the local native inhabitants were allowed to continue to reside within the catchment area, their activities would compromise the integrity of the catchment. Why, then, did the state government approve these plantation projects and was the federal government informed of them?
SAM believes that these approvals are due to a lack of transparency in land and forest governance matters in Sarawak: the law in Sarawak excludes public participation in the EIA process, unless the project proponent so desires. In other words, the public does not have the opportunity to give feedback prior to EIA approvals. Instead, the EIA approvals for the three plantation projects above were decided by the Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB), a division of the Ministry of Planning and Resource Management, headed by the Sarawak Chief Minister himself.
But these projects should never have even gone to the EIA stage. In the first place, the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC), which approves licences for plantations in forest areas should have flagged these projects as “highly sensitive” for a number of reasons, including:
• these forests have not been through even one logging cycle, and
• they are within the Bakun catchment.
Indeed, the conversion from forest to plantation in at least one of the three areas occurred while the area is still being actively logged by another timber company.
Requests for conversion, however, are routed through the Ministry of Resource Planning, under the Chief Minister. Such requests are then forwarded to the SFC for approval. At the SFC, such requests are taken, rightly or wrongly, as expressive of the desire of the Ministry, specifically the Minister. The authoritarian culture and atmosphere in the state means that it would be a brave person indeed who would dare go against such a perceived desire.
The economics
Apart from the reversal of a promise to gazette the catchment area and the need to amend the law to ensure greater transparency, the large amounts of public funds that have been invested in the Bakun HEP are at risk.
About RM9 billion will be spent on the dam when completed, if there are no major cost overruns. Possibly another RM9 billion will be invested to lay 700km of submarine cables – making it the world’s longest undersea electricity transmission link – and 900 km of overland cables to carry the electricity generated from Sarawak to the peninsula.
By allowing these plantations to be established and by not controlling or stopping the on-going logging in the catchment, the Sarawak government is placing the interests of private companies over the interests of the public, in whose name these massive amounts of money have and will be expended.
Moreover, the employment to be created as a result of plantation development will cater largely for foreign rather than Sarawakian natives, who have avoided employment in the plantations due to the poor working conditions and the very low wages of around RM8-12 a day. As it is, there are already parts of Sarawak with significant plantation development where foreign workers make up 20 per cent or more of the population.
Ironically, these foreign plantation workers will now reside within a catchment which was cleared of its original bumiputera inhabitants to make way for the Bakun Dam on the grounds that their activities might impact negatively on the catchment and the dam. Nothing that the original bumiputera inhabitants habitually do would have had anything near the negative impact of these plantation developments and the on-going logging.
The degradation of the catchment also raises questions about the dam’s actual power=generating capacity and its maintenance costs.
Under such circumstances, peninsula-based industries and consumers hoping to rely on cheap electric power transmitted from Bakun should think again. Aside from security and environmental concerns, the Federal Government will need to seriously re-assess the decision to invest in the submarine cables and its belief that there is all this hydro-power capacity in Sarawak: the state of the Bakun catchment is not peculiar to Bakun, but is similar to the state of the catchment of proposed hydro-electric dams in the Balleh, the Murum and so on.
Failure to do so may commit the peninsula to higher costs of electricity. For instance, judging by the prices being cited some years back, should the generating capacity of Bakun drop by, say, 20 per cent, then it is probable the consumer price of power from Bakun will rise above the current domestic rates of 21 sen per kWh enjoyed by consumers in the peninsula.
In view of these threats to the sustainability and economics of the dam and keeping in mind the huge investment of public funds involved, the Sarawak government must be accountable and transparent about the status of the Bakun Dam and its catchment area. How much of the catchment area has been licensed for conversion to plantation use? How much of the catchment area has been licensed for re-entry logging which will only further degrade the remaining forest? What assessments, if any, have been made as to what such conversion and re-entry logging will do to the hydrological regime and to the rate of siltation? What happened to promises of gazetting the catchment area? And not least, why continue to deny the people the right to scrutinise and provide feedback on the EIA reports?
Finally, as Suhakam has conducted a study of the plight of the natives in the Bakun area, we call upon the Commissioners to make public the results of their investigation and to assume a more pro-active role.
NEP = No Equity for Penan?
The EIA for the Shin Yang Forest Plantation is fatally flawed. It states that there are no native communities within the proposed plantation, hence there is no need to make any provisions for them.
This is just plain false.
Not only are there native communities within the proposed – or rather, existing – plantation, but they have been there for at least hundreds of years. All these native communities are Penan. The company should have known the EIA claim to be false since one of the Penan communities lives beyond a gate set up by the company and another of the communities had its longhouse constructed by a subsidiary of the company, also a timber operator in the area, around 1992.
Despite this falsehood, the EIA was approved without conditions.
The net result is that the Penan who, as recently as 20 years ago – in some cases, as recently as a dozen years ago — were living unmolested in largely primary forest now find themselves marooned in a sterile laterite landscape, without forest, without land, with all their rights dismissed, and being told to depend upon the largesse of the company.
Indeed, these Penan, amongst the most marginalised groups in the country, have been denied repeated attempts to obtain identity cards. Thus, some 90 per cent of the Penan in this area are without ICs. Thus, even if they could survive on employment in the plantation, they cannot get legal employment.
In view of what is stated in the Ninth Malaysian Plan, it is long overdue for the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department to come down hard on the Sarawak state government for their contempt of the rights of the Penan.
At the very least, given that the forest has been cleared, the Penan in the area should be given their 30 per cent equity in the plantation.
Failure to do so would constitute ample proof of the suspicion that the NEP – despite its initial honourable objectives — has become the Never Ending Plunder for the rich and politically well connected, and No Equity for Penan and all those bumiputera who are poor and powerless.
By , on 11 October 2007
Digg Digg
Establishing plantations in the 1.5 million hectares Bakun Catchment is likely to threaten the viability of the Bakun Dam and the Bakun HEP, warns Philip Khoo. The Sarawak state government must provide some answers quickly.
To counter criticisms against the Bakun Hydroelectric Project, several federal ministers had promised that the 1.5 million-hectare Bakun catchment would be gazetted to conserve the forest and protect the investment in the dam.
Indeed, the then deputy prime minister was quoted on 12 March 1996 as saying that “we should realise that we will be gazetting a catchment area covering 1.5 million hectares which may not have been created if the Bakun project is not implemented.”
Until now, however, the catchment continues to be intensively logged. Worse, large parts of it are either in the process of being clear-felled for plantation or have been licensed out for the same purpose. In short, not only has the catchment not been gazetted, it is being actively undermined — with the approval of the Sarawak state government.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) recently brought this to the attention of the public when they produced evidence that the Sarawak state government had approved at least three large plantation projects in the Bakun catchment between 1999 and 2002. None of the mainstream newspapers carried SAM’s press statement and conference.
The three plantation projects are:
• the Shin Yang Forest Plantation covering almost 156,000 hectares,
• the Bahau-Linau Forest Plantation covering over 108,000 hectares, and
• the Merirai-Balui Forest Plantation on almost 56,000 hectares.
The Bahau-Linau and Merirai-Balui Forest Plantations are under Rimbunan Hijau while the Shin Yang Forest Plantation is under Shin Yang Forestry. All three are so-called plantation forests, to be planted with mainly acacia mangium, widely considered to be an invasive exotic species and a potential fire hazard.
A proportion of the plantations can be and has been planted with oil palm for one cycle — the Sarawak state government’s way of helping the companies with their cash flow, as oil palm will produce a yield in four years, while the acacia is projected for harvesting in 12-15 years.
These three plantations alone mean that at least 10 per cent of the catchment is being converted to plantation. If, in fact, more plantations have been licensed, then the proportion of catchment to be converted to plantation will rise correspondingly.
Moreover, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the projects suggest that a large part of the catchment is badly degraded due to past and ongoing logging activities.
Thus, giving the lie to previous claims that logging was sustainable and selective, the EIAs give as justification for the projects the badly degraded condition of the logged-over forest, with little likelihood of regeneration.
The three areas in question have been subject to logging only since the late 1980s or early 1990s. The same is generally true of the overall Bakun catchment.
Thus, as the three areas in question were or are logged by the same operators as the rest of the Bakun catchment, it can be concluded that the bulk of the catchment is in similar degraded condition — with serious negative implications for the integrity of the catchment. The integrity of a catchment is the primary asset of a dam and has implications for its water quality and its water-regulating properties. In the case of a hydro-electric dam, this has implications for its power-generating capacity.
Viability threatened
In their press release, Sahabat Alam Malaysia cited the Bakun EIA reports prepared about ten years ago which noted that “the annual sediment load in the catchment area had jumped from 11 (million) to 29 million tonnes between 1983 and 1993 alone” and attributed this “to the advent of timber harvesting activities in the area”.
SAM also cited he Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for Bakun (attached to the EIA Reports), which observed that “future logging should be controlled to reduce siltation and the sediment reaching the reservoir”.
The EMP also stated that these concerns applied to “land clearing in the catchment above the reservoir inundation limit” and that “prudent land use management for the catchment must be introduced” based on the principle that the highest and best use of the catchment is the “uninterrupted supply of quality water to the reservoir”.
Based on these findings from the EIA and EMP reports, SAM warned that “the establishment of plantations in the upstream reaches of Bakun will surely spell disaster for the dam since such plantations will entail clear-cutting and periodic harvesting and an increase in erosion and siltation rates”.
The tree plantations will be operating on a 15-year cycle while the oil palm will operate on a 20-year cycle.
Additionally, the areas where the plantations are being established include sites which were cleared of their original residents. One of the reasons given for the resettlement was that if the local native inhabitants were allowed to continue to reside within the catchment area, their activities would compromise the integrity of the catchment. Why, then, did the state government approve these plantation projects and was the federal government informed of them?
SAM believes that these approvals are due to a lack of transparency in land and forest governance matters in Sarawak: the law in Sarawak excludes public participation in the EIA process, unless the project proponent so desires. In other words, the public does not have the opportunity to give feedback prior to EIA approvals. Instead, the EIA approvals for the three plantation projects above were decided by the Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB), a division of the Ministry of Planning and Resource Management, headed by the Sarawak Chief Minister himself.
But these projects should never have even gone to the EIA stage. In the first place, the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC), which approves licences for plantations in forest areas should have flagged these projects as “highly sensitive” for a number of reasons, including:
• these forests have not been through even one logging cycle, and
• they are within the Bakun catchment.
Indeed, the conversion from forest to plantation in at least one of the three areas occurred while the area is still being actively logged by another timber company.
Requests for conversion, however, are routed through the Ministry of Resource Planning, under the Chief Minister. Such requests are then forwarded to the SFC for approval. At the SFC, such requests are taken, rightly or wrongly, as expressive of the desire of the Ministry, specifically the Minister. The authoritarian culture and atmosphere in the state means that it would be a brave person indeed who would dare go against such a perceived desire.
The economics
Apart from the reversal of a promise to gazette the catchment area and the need to amend the law to ensure greater transparency, the large amounts of public funds that have been invested in the Bakun HEP are at risk.
About RM9 billion will be spent on the dam when completed, if there are no major cost overruns. Possibly another RM9 billion will be invested to lay 700km of submarine cables – making it the world’s longest undersea electricity transmission link – and 900 km of overland cables to carry the electricity generated from Sarawak to the peninsula.
By allowing these plantations to be established and by not controlling or stopping the on-going logging in the catchment, the Sarawak government is placing the interests of private companies over the interests of the public, in whose name these massive amounts of money have and will be expended.
Moreover, the employment to be created as a result of plantation development will cater largely for foreign rather than Sarawakian natives, who have avoided employment in the plantations due to the poor working conditions and the very low wages of around RM8-12 a day. As it is, there are already parts of Sarawak with significant plantation development where foreign workers make up 20 per cent or more of the population.
Ironically, these foreign plantation workers will now reside within a catchment which was cleared of its original bumiputera inhabitants to make way for the Bakun Dam on the grounds that their activities might impact negatively on the catchment and the dam. Nothing that the original bumiputera inhabitants habitually do would have had anything near the negative impact of these plantation developments and the on-going logging.
The degradation of the catchment also raises questions about the dam’s actual power=generating capacity and its maintenance costs.
Under such circumstances, peninsula-based industries and consumers hoping to rely on cheap electric power transmitted from Bakun should think again. Aside from security and environmental concerns, the Federal Government will need to seriously re-assess the decision to invest in the submarine cables and its belief that there is all this hydro-power capacity in Sarawak: the state of the Bakun catchment is not peculiar to Bakun, but is similar to the state of the catchment of proposed hydro-electric dams in the Balleh, the Murum and so on.
Failure to do so may commit the peninsula to higher costs of electricity. For instance, judging by the prices being cited some years back, should the generating capacity of Bakun drop by, say, 20 per cent, then it is probable the consumer price of power from Bakun will rise above the current domestic rates of 21 sen per kWh enjoyed by consumers in the peninsula.
In view of these threats to the sustainability and economics of the dam and keeping in mind the huge investment of public funds involved, the Sarawak government must be accountable and transparent about the status of the Bakun Dam and its catchment area. How much of the catchment area has been licensed for conversion to plantation use? How much of the catchment area has been licensed for re-entry logging which will only further degrade the remaining forest? What assessments, if any, have been made as to what such conversion and re-entry logging will do to the hydrological regime and to the rate of siltation? What happened to promises of gazetting the catchment area? And not least, why continue to deny the people the right to scrutinise and provide feedback on the EIA reports?
Finally, as Suhakam has conducted a study of the plight of the natives in the Bakun area, we call upon the Commissioners to make public the results of their investigation and to assume a more pro-active role.
NEP = No Equity for Penan?
The EIA for the Shin Yang Forest Plantation is fatally flawed. It states that there are no native communities within the proposed plantation, hence there is no need to make any provisions for them.
This is just plain false.
Not only are there native communities within the proposed – or rather, existing – plantation, but they have been there for at least hundreds of years. All these native communities are Penan. The company should have known the EIA claim to be false since one of the Penan communities lives beyond a gate set up by the company and another of the communities had its longhouse constructed by a subsidiary of the company, also a timber operator in the area, around 1992.
Despite this falsehood, the EIA was approved without conditions.
The net result is that the Penan who, as recently as 20 years ago – in some cases, as recently as a dozen years ago — were living unmolested in largely primary forest now find themselves marooned in a sterile laterite landscape, without forest, without land, with all their rights dismissed, and being told to depend upon the largesse of the company.
Indeed, these Penan, amongst the most marginalised groups in the country, have been denied repeated attempts to obtain identity cards. Thus, some 90 per cent of the Penan in this area are without ICs. Thus, even if they could survive on employment in the plantation, they cannot get legal employment.
In view of what is stated in the Ninth Malaysian Plan, it is long overdue for the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department to come down hard on the Sarawak state government for their contempt of the rights of the Penan.
At the very least, given that the forest has been cleared, the Penan in the area should be given their 30 per cent equity in the plantation.
Failure to do so would constitute ample proof of the suspicion that the NEP – despite its initial honourable objectives — has become the Never Ending Plunder for the rich and politically well connected, and No Equity for Penan and all those bumiputera who are poor and powerless.
called on the government to revoke provisional leases to plantation firms at the Murum Dam catchment area.
Ramlie Bujang, the Pemupa spokesperson, is seated fourth from left - Photo credit: Pemupa
The Peleiran-Murum Penan Affairs Committee has called on the government to revoke provisional leases to plantation firms at the Murum Dam catchment area.
Miri: Jawatankuasa Hal Ehwal Penan Peleiran-Murum (the Peleiran-Murum Penan Affairs Committee or Pemupa) calls on the Sarawak state government to revoke all the provisional leases for plantations within the catchment area of the Murum hydropower dam project as a condition for the alienation of land prior to their relocation to the proposed resettlement areas of the Penan villages in Murum area.
Pemupa is shocked to learn that land leases for huge plantation projects granted to Shin Yang Forestry Sdn Bhd, which are largely located within the Murum catchment, have been approved by the Sarawak state government. Further, it is much disturbing to learn
that those areas that we proposed as resettlement area have been parceled out for oil palm plantations. We have found out that Shin Yang Company has started clearing and felling the forest for oil palm plantation in the Metalon River area without our consent.
The clearing of forests by the Shin Yang within the proposed Metalon resettlement area will adversely affect our livelihood in the near future.
Recently, Land Development Minister James Masing revealed that the government would alienate some 24,000 hectares of land in the upper Murum for us Penans. We are still unclear where this land is and how the government has came to a decision on the size of the area without consulting us.
Without first revoking the provisional leases for plantation projects in the Murum Dam catchment area and those leases affecting our proposed resettlement areas, this revelation would be just more lip service from the Minister.
Pemupa strongly urges the government to alienate land for the Penans even before the Murum Dam is completed. We have seen the failure and unfulfilled promises of the government to the people at the Bakun Asap-Koyan Resettlement Scheme: no land at all has been alienated to them.
With anxiety and grave concern among our community about the ongoing Murum Dam construction, we have made our stand very clear to the government from the very beginning that this is not the kind of development that we want. However, our voices have only fallen on deaf ears.
We have on many occasions rejected the government’s Resettlement Scheme plans and packages with plantation projects that displace us from our customary land. Hence, the government has entrusted us to decide our own resettlement area within our respective customary land territories. Accordingly, we have proposed and informed the governments about the locality of our proposed resettlement areas, which have large tracts of natural forests as below:
1. Metalon River area in upper Peleiran, proposed by four villages: Long Singu, Long Luar, Long Tangau and Long Pelutan (Menapa);
2. Upper Tegulang River area – as proposed by Long Wat village;
3. Upper Malim-Danum area – as proposed by two villages, Long Malim and Long Umba.
The respective Penan villages have proposed these areas as their resettlement area because it is still rich with forest resources that we need for our daily livelihood. We want our forest in these areas to be preserved and free from any kinds of human development activities such as logging and large-scale plantations.
Once again, we call on the government and relevant authorities to revoke the provisional leases for plantations in the upper Murum area and immediately stop any plantation companies from continuing their plantation activities that further exploit forest in the area.
Ramlie Bujang is the spokesperson of Pemupa. Pemupa represents more than a thousand residents from six Penan villages – Long Singu, Long Luar, Long Tangau, Long Pelutan (Menapa), Long Malim and Long Wat – as well as the Kenyah-Badeng of Long Umba who are directly affected by the Murum Dam project.
27 October 2010
First published on the Aliran website on 16 November 2010
SARAWAK UNDER BARISAN NASIONAL'S TAIB MAHMUD IS TERRIBLE....OPRESSING HUMAN RIGHTS
Sarawak ban on Bersih’s Ambiga a mockery of democracy
By admin, on 15 April 2011
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Aliran condemns the latest unjustified and unwarranted ban on Bersih 2.0 Chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan by the Sarawak authorities on the eve of polling.
The high-handed entry ban is the fourth in the run-up to the Sarawak state election that is hotly contested by parties from both sides of the political divide. This un-called for ridiculous decision is politically motivated to deny the people a free and fair election, which is the corner-stone of democracy.
This undemocratic act of the authorities patently criminalises the right of a Malaysian citizen to conduct legitimate political activities in the country. It frowns upon any citizenry’s attempt to ensure a playing field that is as level as it should be. It demeans the democratic process and vilifies people of good character who mean well for the country.
It also suggests to what extent a desperate regime under threat would go to in order to protect its narrow vested interests even if it means having to violate the basic democratic and constitutional rights of the citizenry.
Such an obvious and blatant disregard for a free and fair election and the free movement of the citizenry should not miss the attention of the Election Commission – and we await with abated breath for the august body to do the needful. But we must also be prepared to accept the fact that nothing may come out of this as the Election Commission, unbelievably, has not seen any corrupt practice so far in Sarawak!
Considering the fact that the EC is not capable of bringing to book all those indulging in corrupt practices and thereby corrupting the electoral process, it is all the more imperative for Bersih 2.0, the election watch-dog, to be around in Sarawak to monitor the election. It is an honest and fair task that Bersih 2.0 will be undertaking. Why does the state authority fear a body that keeps track of the ugly side of the Sarawak politics?
The Sarawak authorities must revoke the entry ban immediately in the name of justice and democracy even if they, unlike other Malaysians, don’t fully understand these vital concepts.
Aliran Executive Committee
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