The widows of the seven Bario helicopter crash victims want assistance from the government when they need it as they come to term with realities and move on into a new chapter in their lives.

This is the gist of the letter personally handed to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Kuching on Wednesday by Eileen Yen Ee Lee, widow of the late Kelabit contractor Marcus Raja, on behalf of the victims' families.

Without going into details , Eileen, a former Unimas lecturer and now chief executive officer of Sarawak Biodiversity Council, told malaysiakini that "it contains our requests and the prime minister has agreed to come back with his reply in a week."

She said she had met the prime minister before in a different capacity at biodiversity conferences.

Those who perished in the state-owned Hornbill Skyways' chopper crash at the foot of Mt Murud on July 12 were state Assistant Minister Dr Judson Tagal, three Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco) senior management staff Roger Wong, Jason Eng and Ling Kian Ho, a private consultant Lawrence Th'ng, Marcus Raja and the pilot Captain Samsuddin Hashim.

Must move on

The letter for assistance was handed over to Pak Lah when he met family members of the victims at a special gathering in Kuching.

Eileen said they had now to think of their present and legal situations, of basic needs, and of their children's education as they all realised they must move on in life without their spouses.

Asked whether the management of Hornbill Skyways had proposed any compensation payment to the victims' families, she said she was not aware of any.

Instead, she asked this reporter whether he had heard of any compensation being made to anyone and was told there had been some talk that there was some offer in monetary terms but this had not been confirmed.

It is learnt that the state airline company had sent somebody to see the families with an offer. The top management of the company was not immediately available for comment.

No rich widow

Eileen said she and the other widows and their family members were appreciative of what the government had done.

"Everything humanly possible had been done (in the search and rescue operations," she said.

"Our husbands are gone. We cannot bring them back. We have come to term with realities. We have to enter a new phase in our lives. We must move on."

Eileen said her husband didn't actually leave a very rich widow behind. But she added that after the difficult years, Marcus was doing well in recent times but "little is known about him outside his spheres and those who do know him say he was a kind and generous man."

"In his younger days, he had to live on a pack of rice each day, so he understood in later years the hardships of life," Eileen said. "He was like a hunter who brought a wild boar home and was ready to share it with everybody in the village."

The widow recalled that when Marcus made a few hundred thousand ringgits from business, he gave some of it away, for good causes like the time when he joined the newly-formed Sarawak Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and some Orang Ulu villages needed to raise money for the community and the church.

Special fund

A special fund is being set up to assist the Sesco employees who died in the crash. The family of the late Dr Judson is expected to receive compensation from the government as cabinet members are covered by insurance and other government schemes. The pilot is understood to be fully covered by insurance too.

Th'ng who had just been appointed Padawan Municipal Council chairperson was on travelling duty as a consultant out looking into a proposed mini hydro-dam project for the Bario Highlands.

Marcus was looking at business opportunities. Eileen said her husband had one on-going project in a school building project with several in the pipe-line. A letter of intent had been issued to him by the Ministry of Finance for the new RM140million customs-immigration-quarantine project in Sungai Tujoh at Kuala Baram near the border with Brunei.

"Our eldest child who is doing part-time civil engineering course has been assisting the father in running the business," Eileen said. "She is a director of the company."

For herself, Eileen said she loves her job which she took on three years ago as CEO of the Biodiversity Council.

"But when I come to the cross-road, I may have to move to another job," she added.

TONY THIEN is malaysiakini's Sarawak-based stringer.