After 50 years, Sarawak is still beggar state

Sadly, Sarawak remains a beggar state, even after half a century of independence and after over 25 years under control of the Taib Mahmud dynasty. So much timber and other natural resources have been extracted from the land for as long as Taib has been in power. Yet, Sarawak is in the same financial state as African countries depending on handouts from other governments.

How many indigenious Sarawak companies export Made-in-Sarawak technologies and high value services? What is the contribution of the value of export of indigenious technologies and services to the State's GDP (excluding natural resources and related products)? For how long can we let Taib Mahmud plunder the land? When can we start focusing on developing indigenious high value-added products and services, and stop plundering the land to conserve for future generation?

Rush the Removal of Taib

Now Taib Mahmud has to insult the intelligence of Sarawakians. How dare he say Sarawakians can only accept and understand change slowly?

The one mother of all changes that Sarawaks want to rush is the removal of Taib Mahmud, Alfred Jabu and George Chan.

So why is Taib calling for slow tempo? To give him and his cronies more time to amass wealth and plunder the land?

William Mawan Still Asleep

The Minister has been drinking and now he is sleeping. How simple issues become complicated problems where in the hands of dumb minister.

Source: The Star Online 21-Oct-2008

Taskforce to look into ICs, birth certs of Sarawak rural folk
By SHARON LING

KUCHING: The state government is setting up a taskforce to look into the problem of rural folk who still do not have identity cards or birth certificates.

Social Development and Urbanisation Minister Datuk William Mawan said his ministry will be the secretariat of the taskforce, which will also comprise other relevant authorities including the National Registration Department (NRD), the Education Department and police.

“There are people who have applied for their identity cards or birth certificates but due to some technical reasons -- in that they could not fully satisfy the requirements of the NRD -- their applications have been delayed.

Thus they are not in possession of legal documents to say that they are Sarawakians.

“The problem here is, if the parents don’t have documents, their children won’t have documents and neither will their grandchildren. It’s a vicious circle,” he told reporters after attending a briefing with NRD officers at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here on Tuesday.

Mawan said there were 3,887 reported cases of people who had not registered for personal documents yet, 4,800 school students without documents and 1,274 cases of documents which could not be delivered to applicants.

“These are the immediate areas that we want to address,” he said.

He added that a collaborative approach involving the NRD, other departments, district officers, elected representatives and village headmen was needed to tackle the matter effectively.

“As such, the taskforce will coordinate efforts to solve this problem,” he said.

More Destruction into Native Land

If you want to feel sick, take a trip to logging areas in interior Sarawak. You thought you would enjoy pristine rainforest country and cool dips in clear rivers. Instead, the sights are sickening.

Now, the beautiful Bario, so remote and undisturbed, is now victim to greedy timber companies feeding the coffers of Taib Mahmud.

Indiscriminate Extraction of Sarawak's Natural Resources

Source: The Star Online 22-Oct-2008

More timber concessions to again rape the land and enrich the Taib Mahmud dynasty and his cronies.

Borneo's Longest Insect

Source: MSNBC

Nearly the length of a human arm, a recently identified stick bug from the island of Borneo is the world's longest insect, British scientists said Thursday.

The specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honor.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the animal's discovery said there was no doubt it was the longest extant insect ever found.

Looking more like a solid shoot of bamboo than its smaller, frailer cousins, the dull-green insect measures about 22 inches (56.7 centimeters), if its delicate, twig-like legs are counted. There are 14 inches (35.7 centimeters) from the tip of its head to the bottom of its abdomen, beating the previous record body length, held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about an inch (2.9 centimeters).

Stick bugs, also known as phasmids, have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage. Although some phasmids use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter their predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

"Their main defense is basically hanging around, looking like a twig," Brock said. "It will even sway in the wind."

For Bragg, who works as a schoolteacher and catalogues stick bugs as a hobby, the discovery showed the urgency of conservation work.

"There aren't enough specialists around to work on all the insects in the world," he said. "There's going to be stuff that's extinct before anyone gets around to describing it."

The Phobaeticus chani is now a part of the Natural History Museum's "Creepy Crawlies" gallery. It went on display Thursday.

Who Cares About The Penans?

As reported in The Star Online.

KUALA LUMPUR: Thirty-five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Bar Council want Bukit Aman instead of the Sarawak police to investigate the alleged sexual abuse of Penan women and girls by loggers.

They cited non-action over the alleged rape of a 12-year-old Penan girl back in 1994 and other abuses.

The NGOs said in a statement the affected communities had “expressed a serious lack of confidence in the Sarawak police due to their long-standing dealings with them” and the perpetuation of abuse with impugnity.

Referring to the reports of rape, sexual abuse and exploitation of Penan girls and women in The Star on Oct 6, they said that despite the serious nature of the allegations, Sarawak police had been dismissive, insisting a report be lodged before an investigation commences.

They questioned police commitment since the Marudu police had stated yesterday that they had found no evidence of abuse but “temporary” marriages between Penan women and loggers.

On Tuesday, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen announced the setting up of a task force to look into the plight of Penan women and girls. The Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and Women’s Centre for Change, Penang, will be members of the task force.

At a press conference at the council, its chairman Datuk Ambiga said Malaysia was a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

“One of the strengths of good governance is not how well the Government looks after the majority but its minority and vulnerable groups,” she said.

WAO executive director Ivy Josiah, who said the task force had yet to meet, said WAO would like indigenous women to be represented. in the task force.

“WAO would like the task force to not just devise programmes but go on a fact-finding mission to see for ourselves the situation.”

Centre for Orang Asli Concerns coordinator Colin Nicholas called for investigations to “be conducted by Bukit Aman because the Sarawak police has shown itself by its inquiries in 1994 to be either biased or incompetent.”

Baram MP Datuk Jacob Dungau Sagan said he is “shocked” by the claims that Penan schoolgirls and young women had been raped and sexually abused by timber workers in his constituency.

Sagan, who said he had not been informed by anyone of these alleged crimes, said: “This is a serious matter and I support the call by Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam for the truth to be exposed.”

Against Their Will for Politics of Development

As reported in The Star Online

ON a sunny Sunday morning last year, 16-year-old Cynthia (not her real name) boarded a four-wheel drive dispatched by logging company Samling to ferry students to SMK Long Lama from her longhouse in Long Kawi, middle Baram, Sarawak.

However, the driver did not send the passengers ( two boys and three girls ) to the school directly. He dropped by a logging camp and told the students that they had to spend the night there.

“It was around 4pm. Although the school is not far from the camp, the driver didn’t want to continue the journey. The boys and girls were separated into two rooms. I was with my younger sister and another girl. When night fell, the men in the camp were drinking. In the middle of the night, several men came into our room. One of them dragged me from the room and took me to the bushes behind the camp,” Cynthia recalls her ordeal. The other two girls were not harmed.

A life ruined:
Mindy, 21, is saddled with two children after being coerced into having sex by a timber company worker.

The Form 3 student became pregnant and delivered a baby girl a few months ago. Cynthia, who harbours hopes of being a nurse, is now unsure of her future as she has been absent from school due to her pregnancy.

The fair-skinned, soft-spoken girl had previously been harassed by workers from a Samling camp but managed to elude them.

Samling, when contacted, says the camp implicated in the incident may not have belonged to the company and urged those making the allegations to contact the police and provide accurate information to enable criminal investigations.

Samling’s head of corporate communications Cheryl Yong says: “We are very concerned over the latest allegations even though we do not operate in the Temela Camp (where the alleged sexual assault took place). We do not condone any criminal acts within our premises or by employees.”

Yong explains that Samling has a zero-tolerance policy towards alcohol consumption during work hours. Furthermore, alcohol sale is unavailable on its premises and anyone found consuming alcohol while working will be dismissed.

At Long Belok, Rina (not her real name) who was raped in her house and delivered a baby girl in May 2005, is fearful of timber camp workers. “If I see them in the village, I will run and hide in the forest.”

She is glad that she did not have to marry the man who raped her despite persuasion from her parents and neighbours’ unkind remarks.

The youngest in a family of two boys and two girls, Rina, 20, says life is difficult with an extra mouth to feed. At times, she confesses that she feels like running away.

Mindy (not her real name) of Long Item, recounts the intimidation, deceit and harassment of a 40-something man who works for Interhill.

“We know him as Ah Heng. My parents and I got a ride in his vehicle from Ba Abang sometime in 2005. Shortly after that, he came looking for me in the village. He offered to take care of me but I declined. He then said I should give in or he would hurt me and my family,” says the 21-year-old woman who eventually acceded to his demands and has since borne him two girls, one in 2006 and another in February.
Ah Heng now rarely visits nor provides maintenance for the family after his wife found out about his activities and accused Mindy of seducing her husband.

“I don’t want him to come here anymore; I will raise the kids myself. I don’t even love him,” says Mindy.

The Penans Are of No Importance to S'wak Gov't

Source: The Star Online

Monday October 6, 2008
A neglected people

THE Penan’s protracted resistance to deforestation and the international attention the tribe continues to receive must have irked the Sarawak government.

The state government continues to dismiss their concerns over the loss of forest resources brought on by industrial logging that degrades the forest and pollutes the rivers.

At the height of the international anti-tropical timber campaign in the late 1980s, the state set up a Penan Affairs Committee to help the nomadic tribe to lead a settled life with promises of socio-economic development. The state announced allocations worth millions of ringgit.

Two decades later, the benefits remain elusive for many Penans. The rapid expansion of acacia and oil palm plantations eats into their ancestral land. To top it off, the natives are becoming illegals with many not having official documents.

The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) has raised the issue of poor MyKad registration which complicates the issuance of birth certificates.

Suhakam has thus far failed in persuading the state government to resolve the land rights issue inflicting every native group in Sarawak.
In recent years, the Penans are turning to the court of law to stop further encroachment.

But the nomadic Penans face a tough battle in claiming native customary rights (NCR) as the Sarawak Land Code 1958 states that one cannot stake a claim for NCR if one had not cultivated that piece of land before Jan 1, 1958.

In May 2007, further restrictions were imposed when the clause “any other lawful method of establishing land claim” in Section 5(2) was dropped. Lawyers had previously used that provision to argue for a broader interpretation of land use.
“When environmental groups suggest setting aside forests for wildlife, the state will agree but when we demand for our forests to be protected, we are ignored. It seems that the wildlife living in the forests are more valued than us humans,” notes a young Penan.

Although disillusioned, the Penans remain hopeful.

As Balan Jon of Long Item puts it: “It’s not only our livelihood but our culture and survi val as a tribe has been affected for so long. We’ll die if we continue to be neglected.”

Ongoing Harassment and Abuse of Sarawak Natives

This is how the Politics of Development championed by Taib Mahmud and Sarawak Barisan Nasional Government works.

As reported in The Star Online:

Friday October 3, 2008
Eviction of 10,000 residents ‘put on hold’

MIRI: The 10,000 residents who have been evicted from their centruty-old villages in northern Sarawak have been given a reprieve for Hari Raya.

The Sept 29 deadline for the residents of the 13 Kedayan-Malay villages in Bekenu district came but there were no bulldozers in sight to demolish their homes.

They had been asked to move out of the land that had been leased out to a Miri property developer for an oil-palm plantation and had sought the help of Sibuti MP Ahmad Lai Bujang.

Ahmad told The Star yesterday that the villagers had been living on the edge, worrying when their homes would be bulldozed.

“Luckily, the Hari Raya proved to be a reprieve. I did not see any Land and Survey Department enforcement teams or workers from the private company attempting to demolish any houses.

“The eviction has been put on hold, it seems. However, I worry what will happen after the Hari Raya.

“The issue has generated a lot of publicity. The dispute is over a big area.

“The villagers have been living there for many generations and yet the company has staked a claim as the rightful owner.

“This is turning into a big dilemma because the developer’s lawyer has issued a letter saying that the villagers are illegal squatters,” he said.

The villages are located some 40km south of here, along the Sarawak Second Coastal Highway near the Miri-Bintulu divisional boundary.

On Sept 27, the desperate villagers staged a public demonstration along the highway to garner attention to their plight.

Asked whether the villagers would get an injunction against the eviction order, Ahmad said they were looking at all avenues.

“They are appealing to the Government first before resorting to any court action,” he said.

Ahmad said that the villagers have a strong claim to the land, as they had been living there continously since 1910 and have native land rights by virtue of their ancestral background.

The Kedayan-Malays are direct descendents of the Brunei Malay and migrated to Sarawak during the British colonial era.

Authorized Abuse of Sarawak Natives

Yet another abuse. This is how Taib Mahmud's Politics of Development works.

As reported in The Star Online:

Friday October 3, 2008
Ministry to probe sex abuse claims by Penans

PETALING JAYA: The Women, Family and Community Develop­ment Ministry will investigate claims of timber workers sexually abusing Penan women and girls.

Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen said she had instructed the womens affairs director-general to meet Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu and obtain more information after the Hari Raya holidays.

“We are very concerned about the matter,” she said.

“I have also talked to the Health Ministry to do something as we want to ensure the health of the Penans has not been compromised.”

Alfred, who is also the chairman of the steering committee on the Penans, had dismissed the sexual abuse claims, saying he had not heard about such complaints from the tribe’s community leaders.

Dr Ng was responding to Suhakam commissioner for Sarawak, Dr Mohd Hirman Ritom, who said on Tuesday it would investigate the sexual abuse claims.

Suhakam commissioner Datuk Dr De­­nison Jayasooria had urged the ministry and federal police to look into the matter since the Sarawak police said that they could not investigate as there was no official report.

The claims of abuse first surfaced on the Bruno Manser Fund website.