Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds
Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds
Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds
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Sarawak - Malaysia<br />
Taib Mahmud –<br />
Chief Minister without power<br />
bm – In 1987, 4700 natives of Sarawak brought 1600<br />
loggers with 210 bulldozers to a standstill for months<br />
with peaceful roadblocks in order to preserve their<br />
virgin forests with all their vitally essential resources<br />
from the wilderness. The Chief Minister Taib Mahmud<br />
replied with a hunting ban for non-residents and declared<br />
areas as biosphere reserves for the Penan. But<br />
not a soul ever took notice of Taib’s decision: up to the<br />
present day employees of the logging companies can<br />
plunder wildlife stocks unhindered using rifles and fish<br />
the indigenous peoples’ rivers empty using illegal<br />
methods, even in designated protected areas.<br />
Poachers, water pollution and violence: Lakei Suti<br />
(“the short man”), a Penan nomad from the Magoh<br />
river reports: they secretly carry out electrical fishing in<br />
our area. At the fork to the Patah river we met them<br />
with two cars loaded full of fish which they wanted to<br />
sell downriver in Limbang. At the Meli-it we saw many<br />
dead fish floating down the river one day. They had<br />
fished with poison but only took the largest, not even<br />
collecting fish as thick as a lower arm, so many were<br />
killed! When we wanted to prevent a logger from fishing<br />
in our river with a casting net, he unlocked his rifle and<br />
pointed it at close range right at my chest. We could<br />
only deflect the shot upwards into the trees through a<br />
blow on the barrel! Employees of the Ravenscourt<br />
Company (Samling Group) set many snares; many<br />
mouse deer, porcupines and argus pheasants died<br />
in them as well as one of our dogs. They shoot deer<br />
and wild boar and when the wounded animal stumbles<br />
down onto steep ground they just climb back into<br />
their car and drive off. If this continues we will soon<br />
not have any animals left! And the poison with which<br />
they spray their stored timber, their machine oil which<br />
they just pour into the ground – doesn’t the rain wash<br />
all this into the riverwater with which we make our sago<br />
and which we drink! The Raut Company had promised<br />
not to fell any wood in the protected area on the Magoh<br />
Borneo Post, July 15th, 1987<br />
river designated by the government as ours. When they<br />
nevertheless crossed the watershed with their bulldozers<br />
at the Batu Iran we took the foreman to task.<br />
He then called the manager Ling who came out of his<br />
car with a crate of Coca-Cola. He placed the crate in<br />
front of us and invited us to drink. Enraged, we threw<br />
the Coke cans down the slope one after the other. He<br />
then called for help from the forestry commissioner<br />
Kusui who came and said he was from the government.<br />
He fired a salvo of shots right over our heads<br />
from close range so that the smoke got in our noses<br />
and our ears hurt. And then Taib Mahmud and his government<br />
says we Penan have it easy! Why does he not<br />
teach his people good manners!<br />
Mobile Dental clinic: appeal to Taib<br />
“We ask our Chief Minister Taib Mahmud to accept<br />
<strong>Bruno</strong> <strong>Manser</strong>’s offer of a mobile dental clinic for us<br />
in the headwater regions so that our teeth can be<br />
mended soon,” said T.K. Kayan Etek, governmentappointed<br />
chief and Penan from the Ulu Limbang.<br />
3<br />
Ikan Cemáh