Tong Tana December 1999 - Bruno Manser Fonds

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