Human rights groups today condemned the attempt to expel indigenous peoples from the proposed Baram dam site.

 

In a joint statement issued today, Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (Joas), Suaram and International Rivers, said the violation of the indigenous peoples’ rights had led to an urgent appeal to be submitted yesterday to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.

 

‘The appeal calls on her to raise concerns with the Malaysian government about the actions taken to forcefully dismantle the barricade,” read the statement.

 

About 50 police and 10 Forestry Department personnel accompanied by logging company representatives, had dismantled the blockade against the Baram dam construction to allow the loggers in.

 

Indigenous Kenyah, Kayan and Penan people are blocking the main entry points to bar loggers and dam developer - state owned Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) - from accessing the construction area.

 

The dam, if completed, would inundate 26 villages, flooding 400 square kilometres of land and displacing between 6000 to 20,000 people, claimed the human rights groups.

 

Suaram’s Serene Lim said the villagers in Baram were merely defending their customary property rights as they have not granted free, prior and informed consent for their land to be taken by the government or any private firm.

 

“That is why the people of Long Kesseh continue to affirm their rights to the area, and why they decided to rebuild the barricade.”  

 

Joas president Thomas Jalong said SEB needed access to the area currently being defended by the villagers if they were to proceed with the proposed Baram dam.

 

“The personnel involved have failed to intimidate the villagers into surrendering their land so that it could first be stripped of timber and then subsumed by a dam,” he said.

 

Tanya Lee of International Rivers called on M.M. Golden, SEB and the Sarawak government to respect the native customary rights land designation.

 

“Government authorities, companies and financiers must accept the fact that the Kayan, Kenyah and Penan people of Baram have expressed their widespread opposition to the Baram dam and to further logging on their land.,” she said.